Inspired by Bertrand Russell’s Passion for Justice

Abstract

June 25, 2012 (9:21 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3201\russell 32,1 060 red.wpd 1 See my “Secondary Bibliography of the International War Crimes Tribunal: London, Stockholm and Roskilde”, Russell 31 (2011): 167–87. russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 32 (summer 2012): 87–93 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 eviews INSPIRED BY BERTRAND RUSSELL’S PASSION FOR JUSTICE Stefan Andersson stefankarlandersson@live.com Erik Eriksson. Jag såg kärleken och döden [I Saw Love and Death]. Falun, Sweden: Ordupplaget, 2008. Pp. 271 + 24 pp. of photos. With 30-min. dvd, “Vietnam 1972–73”. 163 kronor. isbn 978-91-85785-20-9. W zhen Bertrand Russell wrote the Prologuez—z“What I Have Lived For” (dated 25 July 1956)z—zto his planned Autobiography, he did not know that he had almost fourteen more years of hard work ahead of him, which I would maintain was governed by a fourth passionz that had inspired him from an early age: his passion for justice, which thrives on and summarizes the three he mentions: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suTering of mankind. Russell’s legacy rests on great accomplishments in at least four areas: logic and the foundations of mathematics, philosophy, literature,and political activismz—z particularly the last: his passionate eTorts to inform the world about what the United States was doing in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in general. The us had been involved in the region since President Truman decided that it was politically more important to give in to French claims on the governance of Vietnam than to defend the right of each nation to be governed by its own people. Russell wanted to give the victims of French and American imperialism a voice in order to “Prevent the Crime of Silencez”, which was the title of the book published by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in 1971 containing documentation from the International War Crimes Tribunal on American war crimes in Indochina. The tribunal had taken place in Stockholm and Roskilde four years earlier.1 “The Russell Tribunal”, or “the Russell–Sartre Tribunal” as the French preferred to call it, was from an international law perspective a unique event that fulWlled some of the intentions of the planned International Criminal Court, the realization of which was hampered by the burgeoning Cold War. In 1948 the un June 25, 2012 (9:21 pm) E:\CPBR\RUSSJOUR\TYPE3201\russell 32,1 060 red.wpd 88 Reviews 2 “Peace Group to Set Up Panels on Atrocity Charges”, New York Times, 30 Nov. 1969, p. 30. 3 See http://citizen-soldier.org/. (Visited 15 June 2012.) 4 Melvin Small, Antiwarriors: the Vietnam War and the Battle for America’s Hearts and Minds (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2002), Chap. 4. 5 “Recorded Message for Spring Mobilization”, large-print typescript for taperecording , ra2 220.148669. The complete text, which has several references to the upcoming Tribunal, is printed in this issue of Russell, pp. 80–2. had added “genocide” as a crime, but there was still no legal deWnition of “aggression ”, as is the case to this day. Regardless of its lack of formal power, the iwct’s important message was of a moral character. At the second session (20 Nov.–1 Dec. 1967) in Roskilde, half an hour south of the Danish capital, three former us gis testiWed for the Wrst time publicly about their own and other soldiers’ crimes. When the My Lai massacre was revealed in fall 1969, Russell’s former private secretary, Ralph Schoenman , was quoted in the New York Timesz2 as saying that the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation of America was creating a citizens’ commission of inquiry (the “cci”) into us war crimes in Indochina. Tod Ensign and Jeremy Rifkin read the notice and got involved in Wnding more veterans to testify at public hearings. Schoenman soon went on to other things while Ensign and Rifkin were joined by Vietnam War veteran Michael Uhl (who has written a book about it to be reviewed in a forthcoming issue of Russelly). The cci held its Wrst inquiry in...