Commemorative Lecture in honor of Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914). Thursday, June 16th, 2016 Great Hall of Justice, Peace Palace, The Hague.
By Elizabeth Naumczyk.
On the evening of Thursday, June 16th, 2015 the Peace Palace Library organised a Commemorative Lecture for the public titled Beyond Die Waffen Nieder! Bertha von Suttner as a philosopher, futurist and friend of humanity in honour of Bertha von Suttner. This occurred at the end of the third annual Bertha von Suttner Master Class summer school held at the Peace Palace on the 14-15th June, 2016. The lecture was held in the Great Hall of Justice of the International Court of Justice.
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Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914) was an Austrian author and peace activist and one of the most prominent members of the international peace movement in the 19th century. In 1905, she became the first female recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and also played an important role in the coming into existence of the Peace Palace. As part of its 2013 centenary, the Dutch Carnegie Foundation, the owner of the Peace Palace, acknowledged her contribution by granting her two busts. She became the first woman in history to be honoured with a bust inside the Peace Palace.
The program was introduced by Candice Alihusain LL.M, Coordinator of the Reading Room of the Peace Palace Library. Since 2014 the Peace Palace Library, the Bertha von Suttner Project and Central Michigan University (USA) organize an annual Master Class and Commemoration Lecture to draw attention to the contributions of women to international law.
The Bertha von Suttner Project was co-founded with Dr Hope Elizabeth May, an attorney and Professor of Philosophy, Central Michigan University (USA) with Candice Alihusian of the Peace Palace Library. May, has also created a website to promote the publications of Bertha von Suttner and English translations. http://www.berthavonsuttner.com/index.html
The Commemorative Lecture continues the theme of this year’s Master Class focussing on the first every English translation of Bertha von Suttner’s 1912 essay, ‘Die Barbarisierung Der Luft’ (‘The Barbarization of the Sky’). The English translation led by Hope Elizabeth May, will be released in the summer of 2016 and will be available at the Peace Palace Library.
“This publication marks the 20th anniversary of the International Court of Justice’s historic 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. In 2016, the Court will build on this jurisprudence [in the Marshall Island vs. UK case] as it considers whether the failure of the nuclear weapon states to enter into multilateral negotiations aimed at nuclear disarmament violates the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT obliges signatories to enter into multilateral negotiations aimed at nuclear disarmament.” https://www.vredespaleis.nl/masterclass-14-15-juni/?lang=en
Professor May then spoke to her topic Awakening the will to thoughtfulness: Bertha von Suttner’s ‘Barbarization of the Sky’. She emphasised the word “thoughtfulness” which in her view involved thinking and intelligent doing or action referring to Prudentia, one of the four virtues. “Prudence is the ability to implement this ‘World Force’, Higher Insight, Truth (Veritas) into action. We may also call it the Will to Thoughtfulness.” Bertha von Suttner also believed that “Humanity develops upward”, and “we are called to hasten the development of a higher and more fortunate type of human being”.
May explained the four multi-coloured stained-glass windows in the Great Hall of Justice titled The Evolution of the Peace Ideal, by Scottish artist Douglas Strachan, the official gift of the British Commonwealth to the Peace Palace in The Hague. This theme is portrayed in four phases: the Primitive age, the Age of Conquest, the Modern Age and the Fulfilment of the Peace Ideal which represent an evolution of hearts and minds. That in 1913 was awakening a will to thoughtfulness.
She spoke about The Peace Flag, the motto, Pro Concordia Labor, “I work for peace”, which was designed in 1897 by Countess Cora di Brazzà. The colours of yellow, purple and white were chosen so that it would not be confused with any other national flags. Di Brazzà also created the Universal Peace Badge and developed the Seven Rules of Harmony.
May made reference to the 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons and the current state of international law which involves principles of proportionality and necessity. If the harm is necessary, it is legal, so long as the harm is balanced in accordance with a good enough objective. “Nuclear weapons are not inherently disproportionate’ according to the Statement of the United States, filed in this Advisory Opinion.
Her view is that humankind will evolve and the importance we place on honour and sovereignty will change. She ended by quoting Suttner on the ‘Change in the ‘Calculus of Benefits’, due to Change in the Baseline Metric’ from Das Maschinenzeitalter (1889) ‘Hatred and enmity were replaced with the steadily spreading of a softer morality…’. She ended saying we all have a duty to do something and we all know what to do in our sphere, that is “thoughtfulness”.
The second speaker was Dr Laurie Cohen, Professor of History, Universiy of Innsbruck, Austria who spoke on ‘Demanding peace versus humanizing war: a Bertha von Suttner – Henri Dunant debate in the age of nuclear security?” She examined the question: is the absolute pacifism of Bertha von Suttner and the humanitarian work of Dunant reconcilable “pacifist” philosophies?
Henry Dunant founded the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), after witnessing the aftermath of the bloody Battle of Solferino in 1859. Dunant’s emphasis was on making armed struggles as humane as possible, through international agreements that offered principles for the national branches of the Red Cross, which in turn provided actual relief to the wounded.
This idea evolved from the first meeting in August 1864 and known as the First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field to the now famous Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their 1977 Protocols, which together constitute a significant portion of international humanitarian law and the modern law of armed conflict.
Bertha von Suttner thought humanitarian aid arguably helped to validate war by softening its horrors. In a collection of essays written in 1908 and entitled “Stimmen und Gestalten” (Voices and Forms) , she suggests that “the Red Cross serves institutionally as a slowly moving intermediary stage or temporary phenomenon (Übergangserscheinung) between war and peace”. Despite this, she considered Dunant a friend a pacifist for his outreach to influential people in society in the cause of peace.
Suttner’s “Barbarization of the sky” warned how modern weaponry, such as airplanes, would increase horrifically the numbers of dead and wounded. The leap to nuclear warfare was provided by H.G. Wells with his science fiction novels The War in the Air (1908) and The World Set Free (1914) in which he anticipated and named the atomic bomb and how humans facilitated its use in extermination. Cohen then went onto to tie the activism of Bertha von Sutter motivated by moral outrage, with that of the activism of the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, established in 1981 in Berkshire, England who were motivated by fear, both legitimate incentives for getting active.
The continued protests and dialogue with the US Air Force against the placement of nuclear weapons in their backyards led to their removal a decade later. “In 1987 a US-Soviet Treaty was signed, allowing for the removal of the Pershing II and SS-20 missiles from Europe (done in 1991) and the USAF left Greenham in 1992.” She concluded her lecture by referring to the third middle ground approach of deterrence held by Alfred Nobel “And yet, there are still those who think deterrence is the path to peace. One of those is Alfred Nobel, who reportedly sketched out a rocket.”
The final speaker was Dr Regina Braker, Professor of German, University of Eastern Oregon, USA ‘Bertha von Suttner’s Feminist Pacifist Conviction amidst Militarist Skepticism: the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize’. In the 1870s Bertha von Suttner became a close friend of Alfred Nobel, and they corresponded for years on the subject of peace until his death in 1896. It is believed that she was a major influence in his decision to include peace as a prize among those prizes provided in his will. Braker outlined in detail Bertha von Suttner’s peace movement activity and the support she received from many people who argued she deserved the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize on merit for her qualifications, engagement and publications and not because of her influence on Alfred Nobel and that he would have wanted her to receive the peace prize.
She was nominated for this prize since 1901. In 1901 Baron Clemens von Pirquet wanted the Norwegian Nobel Committee to bestow an honorary peace award on Czar Nikolai II of Russia for his initiative that resulted in the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. He also wanted the divide the prize money between several worthy peace workers, including von Suttner. The 1901 Peace Prize was awarded to Jean Henry Dunant and Frédéric Passy. In the Official Website of the Nobel Prize it says “Suttner was the author of the novel “Die Waffen nieder” (Lay Down Your Arms), the most important anti-war novel of the period. She was the founder and president of the Austrian Peace Society (1891), and she contributed to the foundation of the Permanent International Peace Bureau (1891). Suttner was nominated for her contribution to the international peace movement.” http://www.nobelprize.org At the 1899 Hague Peace Conference she summarized the core ideas of the peace movement and in 1904 went on a United States tour attending a universal peace congress in Boston and meeting President Theordore Roosevelt.
People who supported her were themselves recipients of the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832-1910), recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1903, was a Member of the Nobel Committee when he introduced her to receive her laureate on April 18, 1906. Frédéric Passy (1822-1912), co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1901. So too, Alfred Hermann Fried (1864-1921) who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Tobias Asser in 1911. He was an Austrian Jewish pacifist and co-founder of the German peace movement. In 1892 he and von Suttner published an international peace magazine after the title of her book Die Waffen nieder which was succeeded by Die Friedenswarte (The Peace Watch) still being published today. Paul-Henri-Benjamin Balluet d’Estournelles, Baron de Constant de Rebecque (1852-1924), was a French diplomat and politician, advocate of international arbitration and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize for Peace. Henri La Fontaine (1854-1943), a Belgian socialist, international lawyer and president of the International Peace Bureau received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1913.
She had the support of women like the English Quaker pacifist Ellen Robinson who argued for women laureates and the importance of their work despite the limitations placed on them by society, and a supportive letter from the Norwegian women, who, at that time, were not recognized as nominators. Despite her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 she was treated dismissively by the press who believed she obtained it because of her friendship with Nobel and her need of financial support.
The Netherlands also has The Wateler Peace Prize. Mr J.G.D. Wateler, a Dutch banker, died in 1927 and bequeathed his estate for this purpose to the Dutch Parliament who in turn left it to the Carnegie Foundation to choose the recipient. The prize is awarded alternatively to Dutch and non Dutch persons or organizations. The prize has been awarded annually since 1931 and from 2004 biennually.
The evening concluded with a reception in the splendid surroundings outside the Great Hall of Justice.
