A Comparison between the International Peace Movement of the 1980s and Millenarianism

Abstract

The scope of this essay is limited so as not to be engaged in the analysis of the international peace movement phenomenon from any social movement perspective. Rather the essay depicts an element of millenarianism in the international peace movement as some journalists have given to the seemingly facile characterization of the peace movement as a recurrence of the politico-cultural phenomenon of millenarianism. This paper will therefore seek to examine two basic questions. Were elements of the peace movement an example of the politico-cultural phenomenon of millenarianism as arose in earlier historical era? How do the transnational dimensions and consequences of the peace movement compare with those of millenarian movement? The transnational dimension of the peace movement as yet remained largely, in its mass manifestations, informal and spontaneous. Even so, it was an impressive example of a growing political interdependence in the globalized world. Already a transnationally organizing elite was developing to pursue the peace movement's program. While the grass-root peace movement may well “break the inherited mould” and become a “non-nationally defined resistance movement, globalist in potential, and fundamentally transnational in its structure,” this potential, it could be argued, may not be feasible with the political value system of the present world. The transformation in value system that would make a truly peaceful world possible must occur in the spiritual and moral realm where humans have so often before cast their aspirations in the millennialist mold. As we have seen, the millennialist mold entail an appeal to politically and socially marginal groups, an appeal to the terror of catastrophe, to an emotional fantasy of a utopian future. Millennialists have historically had to contend with political power - first the established church, then national governments.