Religious responses
Sue Garner
Well two things: killing is wrong; it's not our war, there must be a better way to deal with this; and against conscription. So against our personal rights. So as Christians, we used to believe then, that God had the plan for our lives. I don't believe that anymore. But I believed it strongly then. So therefore, how dare the government interrupt the plan that God had for our lives?
Alexandra
One of the reasons for protesting given by a few of the women I’ve talked to was their religious conviction. I’ve been surprised that it wasn’t more of them who said this, actually. I wonder whether there’s some fact in the idea that youths were becoming less religious in the 1960s, and it would have been middle aged and older women who had more of a religious sentiment. Anyway, that’s just a guess, and sadly for me, most of those older women have already passed away. In this episode I’ll present some of the religious arguments against the Vietnam War and conscription. Let me say here that almost everything I’ve found in terms of religion is from a Christian perspective. I did find a document that sets out organisations that a young man could contact concerning “anti-war activity, information, or advice” that listed the “Jewish Progressive Centre” in Elwood as an option (https://www.reasoninrevolt.net.au/objects/pdf/d0717.pdf), but I haven’t been able to find any further information about this place. The Australian Jewish News did note in May 1970 that a lot of Jewish people attended the moratorium that month, but with no specifics about who or in what numbers. The number of Jewish people in Australia in 1961 seems to have been around 0.58% of the population, mostly split between Melbourne and Sydney, while the proportion of Muslims in Australia didn’t even get to that size until 1980, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Australia). Other religions were also tiny: the 1961 census has about 1 or 2 % of the population being “other religion”, the same for “no religion”, and ‘not stated’ as about 10%. Varieties of Christian make up the other 86 or so % (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Australia#/media/File:AustralianReligiousAffiliation_2.svg). By 1971, the ‘no religion’ camp had increased enormously, to about 8%. Anyway - that’s why this episode seems unbalanced: because Australia was unbalanced at this stage.
In this episode, you’ll hear from Sue, Faye, Melita and Helen. They were born between 1945 and 1953, so they were in their teens and early 20s throughout the Vietnam War period.
Alexandra
What led you then to be opposed to Australia being in Vietnam?
Faye Findlay
Well, I was brought up as a Christian, you know, I was baptised. And, you know, in my early teens, I was, I chose to be confirmed. So, my values were, you don't hurt people. Or you try not to hurt people? Yes. So that's probably how it initiated.
Alexandra
Yeah. Would you have said you were opposed to all war? Or was there something specific about the Vietnam War?
Faye Findlay
No, I think I'd be a pacifist anyway. Though of course, when, when I was at age that if I had been a boy, I could have gone into the ballot. You know, I was conscious of the fact that you know, I'd have to - well, you know, I mean I know I wasn't a boy, but steel myself choose to, to say that I was a pacifist that, you know, no, I don't want to be subscripted [sic]. You know, and I would be prepared to go to jail if that was the consequence type of thing.
The May 1970 moratorium was the only public demonstration Faye Findlay attended about the Vietnam War, but her attitude was clearly influenced by her religious values. So too was Melita Alford, who was a student at Melbourne University:
Melita Alford
Within the Christian Union, there was all the discussion about just war and the philosophy of - Christian philosophy of war, and it was pretty clear that this was not a just war. So it came more from a theoretical point of view of looking at, well, we're in the middle of this war in our lifetime. And should we be?
Alexandra
You get to university in 1970 - what university were you at?
Sue Garner
I was at Melbourne University. And so I was quite young, and decided to join the Christian Union, which was the EU in those days, Evangelical Union, only because my sister Jenny, two years older than me, was part of it. And she had a terrific group of friends who used to come to our home all the time. So - I wasn't going to - interesting, I'd made a pact with God that I would leave him alone for a few years. But you know... I joined it just because she had fabulous friends and whatever. And it was the EU that decided to march in the 1970 moratorium.
Alexandra
Do you remember what the thinking in the EU was around why marching was appropriate?
Sue Garner
Well, a lot of the guys were up for conscription. So it was towards the end of conscription. And two of my friends and my brother-in-law were conscripted. So we were right in the middle of what that felt like, and what that felt like for their careers. So they're - they're three interesting stories in their own rights. So we would talk about it as being probably more selfish, more like, "How dare you interrupt" - you know, I want to be a teacher, I want to be a whatever I want to be a doctor, I want to be a - "How dare the government send us over to a war that we've already lost?" That was the feeling, so - because by then, what are we doing in Vietnam? It's America's war. So what are we doing there.
Alexandra
Was there any sort of Christian reason at the EU for objecting?
Sue Garner
Yes. And this was, and I've seen a video on telly, I've seen a documentary on telly, and it had, it had the sign "Christians for peace". And I was behind that flag. I marched with the EU.
Alexandra
And so it was some of that sort of, you know, killing is wrong attitude?
Sue Garner
Yeah. Well two things: killing is wrong; it's not our war, there must be a better way to deal with this; and against conscription. So against our personal rights. So as Christians, we used to believe then, that God had the plan for our lives. I don't believe that anymore. But I believed it strongly then. So therefore, how dare the government interrupt the plan that God had for our lives?
Helen Hill was at Monash and involved with the Labor Club there, which you can learn about in the two episodes about Monash University. She was also involved with SCM, the Student Christian Movement.
Alexandra
I was wanting to ask whether you were influenced by theology in terms of why you were against war or whether it was a more political reason for being against the war. Do you remember kind of how it started?
Helen Hill
Yes, look, I - a combination of both really. And I do remember at my first SCM conference, being very surprised that there were people there who were members of the Labor Party because I'd grown up in such a conservative circles that you know, it was assumed that Christians wouldn't vote for the Labor Party. No, that was even a bit of a surprise and and also because of some the people in the SCM who were quite inspiring, and the history of pacifism and peace activities of which quite a few members were, you know, complete pacifists. And of course, I had to struggle with the issue of whether to be a complete pacifist when it came to the aid to the NLF campaign. And, and, and we had some good, big discussions at, in SCM about this actually, because I had realised that it was really I guess, the South, the South Africa example, that you can, that you can't, in a sense, achieve total liberation sometimes if you don't pick up a weapon and use it in a, you know, appropriate way. And war - but that, that, you know, the sort of war the Vietnam War was, wasn't the sort of just war - that’s right, just war theory was talked about by the Catholics.
I actually spoke to Helen twice, because she currently lives in Dili and we had some serious trouble with our internet connections. So I asked her the same question another time, with a slightly different focus.
Alexandra
But with the discussions at SCM around conscientious objectors or draft resisters, and so on, were people bringing like, a theological perspective to that? Or was it more kind of personal ethics?
Helen Hill
It was very much, it was very much based on on a theological perspective, because it was to do with the sort of structural - the aspect of how you bring about social change, that if you're just going to be a conscientious objector, you may avoid your own, you know, committing your own sin of being involved in an unjust war. But you're not going to change the system. But it was using the arguments from the Bible, you know, from the traditional Christian pacifist arguments. And - but it's true that not everybody believed you had to be a pacifist, in the case of the Vietnam War, not all Christians believed - well, certainly not all Christians believed in Christian pacifism, because a lot were behind the wall, you know, and you had chaplains and you had people who were fully believing that the war, but the Vietnam War, I think the Vietnam War, unlike any other political events, certainly in my lifetime, did change people's view on - you know, made pacifism a more acceptable mainstream position to hold, which, you know, particularly in the church, particularly among Christians, because, you know, whereas previously people thought, you know, well, I couldn't be against conscription. And And originally, you know, the Methodists, this was particularly at a Methodist church, they were against conscription because of the ballot - because it was by chance that you were picked, it's related to their opposition to gambling. You know, and there was some discussion about this, and others who were not against the method of selection, but against the concept of requiring people to go to the army. You know, that's the - because there had been a referendum against conscription in the past, you know, in the in Australia's history, they voted against conscription. So - but you still - there were not so many that fully believed in pacifism - but you see, the other interesting thing about SCM is SCM has quite a body of Quakers in it and Quakers have have all examined this issue closely - examined, you know, pacifism. Quakers do believe in pacifism as a personal belief as well as a policy. And a lot of Presbyterians and Methodists hadn't really thought about this. But we had some significant members of SCM that were actual Quakers, you know, had been - came from Quaker families, so - who'd been Quakers.
Christians did get involved in airing their views in other ways, of course, and there were a couple of groups who got organised. The group Christians for Peace had been formed in 1971, and they were responsible for holding a church service outside of Fairlea Women’s Prison in April 1971, as part of a protest against the jailing of the so-called Fairlea Five for wilful trespass. You can hear more about that episode, and the Save Ours Sons group, in the episode dedicated to them. According to The Age on April 12, there were 400 people at this service, and “at the height of the service, demonstrators turned two loud amplifiers towards the prison so the inmates could hear”, which I’m sure was at least a diversion for the women in there. In looking through the archives, I found reference to a folk singing and afternoon tea organised by the Eastern Suburban Branch of Christians for Peace, at which Miss Vera Fowler, a Methodist solicitor, would speak about the National Service Act. It was held on 20 June 1971 (Pax box 1). In that same archive box I found a letter from this same branch of Christians for Peace, which notes the secretary as Mrs Shirley Carn of Nunawading, showing that women were involved in the organisational aspect of this group.
Another Christian group interested in peace was the Catholic organisation called Pax, which means Peace in Latin. It was started in late 1966 and continued until 1970. The constitution of Pax doesn’t explicitly mention the Vietnam War, but declares that its object is “the quest, through prayer, study, and action, for peace, with justice and freedom for the whole human family” - and it can’t be a coincidence that it was begun in Australia during our involvement with the Vietnam War. The constitution lists the means by which this might be achieved, and includes that Pax would add its voice and active support to those working for peace and understanding between people. In the Melbourne University archives I found a bunch of Pax membership forms: from 1967 and 1968 there were 96 in the box. 29 of them, by my count, name women as the people applying for membership. Now that’s of course not to say that they are the only women who were involved. I don’t know if all of the membership applications were kept, and no doubt some of them represented a couple or a household so with some or many of the forms with men’s names on them, there may be a wife there who was as committed as her husband. Nonetheless it still gives some sense of the fact that there definitely were women who, presumably, identified as Catholic and who were committed to the idea of peace. More specifically, the box also included correspondence from Mrs Moira Dynan, on behalf of herself and her husband, thanking Mr O’Connor for inviting them to participate in “Catholic Work for Peace” in November 1966. And Kathleen Forster, a Melbourne University Arts student, wrote to Mr O’Connor in October ’66 having read his letter in the newspaper The Advocate and been very impressed by his words, saying she has been very concerned by quote “the problem of peace and war in general, and especially at present” - again, clearly referring to the Vietnam War.
A lot of letter-writing to newspapers also went on from Christians. 19-year-old Ann Sherwin, of Malvern, had her letter to The Age published on 20 May 1968. In it, she declares herself “strongly anti-communist”, and says that she joined demonstrations because quote, “I feel very strongly that no human has the right, or should want to kill, or cause harm to another human. Under this philosophy, based by my Christian beliefs, I would refuse to register for national service were I a young man. I feel no Government has the right to force anyone to join the army - not even those who believe war is a plausible means of settling idealistic and national differences.” The Age published this letter under the heading “Candid view of girl student.”
Then there are the letters that were sent to denomination newspapers. I had the chance to visit the Uniting Church archives in Melbourne, where I looked through issues of Australian Presbyterian Life, and the Methodist Spectator. I didn’t look through the entire gamut of 1965 to 1972 for both, because time was limited, but I did come across a few letters from women that indicate that the Vietnam War and National Service were certainly on the minds of at least some readers. For example, in June 1968, Helen Simpson wrote to Presbyterian Life to say she supported Sydney draft resister Simon Townsend, and said “Christians will have to take more action on the Vietnam issue than giving to Austere, admirable though that may be.” In that same issue, Nell H Spencer wrote to advertise a petition to the Prime Minister, quote, “requesting that our Government strongly urges the USA to arrange a cease fire in Vietnam without delay” and she urges “all sincere Christian people in search of peace” to sign it. There’s a short article in April 1969 entitled “Just write to your member!” that discusses how Mrs Katie Wright followed the advice of a recent editorial and wrote a letter to the federal politicians representing her area, asking questions like “Did they think the Australian Council of Churches’ report on conscientious objection a reasonable one?” She actually went further than just writing and actually phoned the politicians who didn’t respond in writing, and even then one Liberal and one Labor person never got back to her. The end of the article has Mrs Wright encouraging others to likewise contact politicians. In September 1970, Mrs A de Ridder wrote a letter after hearing that the tonnage of bombs so far dropped on North Vietnam is twice that the number of bombs the Allies dropped on Japan in World War 2 asking “How can the Church be silent while we are letting people suffer hunger and agony?” when “even the worst” people are made in God’s image.
Also in 1970 is another piece from Vera Fowler, this time in her role as Chairman on the Council of the Department of Christian Citizenship. She is reporting from the Methodist conference and explaining why they aren’t bothering to keep urging the government to deal appropriately with conscientious objectors. And it’s not because they no longer believe in COs, but rather, quote “in view of work already done, and the failure of the Government to heed our resolutions, nothing is to be gained” from making it conference policy. The rest of the article really condemns the government’s treatment of conscientious objectors and the indeed the whole process.
In May 1971 these two issues of war and conscription are brought together by Miss Isabel B Pinkerton, who powerfully argues that imprisoning boys who refuse to kill in the same jail as those who wilfully kill makes no sense, and that quote “There is a gulf between mouthing verbal prayers for peace and then resolutely condoning the Vietnam War and, in particular our involvement in it.” Over in the Methodist Spectator, there’s a letter from right back in September 1965 from Meryl Walsh, arguing that the lads who choose the conscientious objector route “have great courage”. In October 1966, Vera Fowler - presumably the same Vera Fowler mentioned earlier, who would go on to speak at a Christians for Peace event - expressed her gratitude to the police for seizing a pamphlet called “American Atrocities in Vietnam”. This pamphlet had been deemed obscene, but Fowler says that she read it precisely because of the political furore around it, and as a result is now so incensed that she concludes her letter with “During the last world war many of my contemporaries volunteered, and many died, that decency might prevail. After reading the Vietnam pamphlet I know that they died in vain.” In this role, I’ve also found a letter that Fowler wrote to some newspaper but I don’t know which one, because I just found the clipping in a box given to the Melbourne Uni archives by Ralph and Dorothy Gibson. It must be after 1971, because it mentions Christians for Peace, and that the aims of Christians for Peace are in line with the policy of the Methodist Church in Australasia. By 1967 the issue was getting enough attention that a meeting of the Methodist Women’s Federation was told about about the history of Vietnam and current events by a man who was vocal in his opposition to the war, namely Reverend Bruce Silverwood.
Finally, I want to mention Mrs Claire Graf. I can’t find very much information about her, sadly. An article in The Age, on 28 July 1970, entitled “Angry Scenes as SM rejects anti-NS charges” notes that Claire Graf, 50, of Cramer St Preston, is one of 22 people charged over disorder in Melb Magistrate’s Court: “a magistrate refused to convict them on a charge of inciting youths not to register for national service.” An earlier article, from the Herald in May 1968, names an 18 year old Peter John Graf of Crane St in Preston as being arrested in Canberra for obstructing traffic outside the Prime Minister’s Lodge, who was I assume Claire’s son - and it was clearly a family-wide position, because I also found a letter in the Australian Presbyterian Life paper from 1971 written by Reverend John Graf, also opposed to conscription. Most importantly, I can only assume that this is the same Claire Graf, who calls herself a “Member of the Presbyterian Church and a Presbyterian Minister’s wife”, who wrote a statement in August 1971 in which she says, among other things, “Christianity and conscription are incompatible” and that “conscription of any kind, and especially of conscription to kill, is in flagrant contradiction of Jesus Christ’s teaching and in fact the whole of Scripture.” She goes on to say that “Strictly speaking, the Christian has no choice but to disobey the National Service Act nor have I any other choice but to urge young men not to comply with it.” Now I actually don’t know why this statement was made, or who received it. The box I found it in had no context. I did also find reference to Claire and John Graf in a box of ephemera from the Congress for International Cooperation and Disarmament (Box 16, Melbourne Uni Archives), that they were present at a meeting in June 1974 - it’s unclear whether they were members of CICD before the Vietnam War or if that spurred them on to their peace-loving ways. And I also found a list of people you can contact about not registering or draft resistance, and John Graf is listed as the contact for North Melbourne (name of collection: Frazer, Margaret; Accession no: 93/158, University of Melbourne Archives).
But the last thing I want to leave you with, also from Claire Graf, is a letter she wrote to the federal Attorney General in May 1972. In it she explains that she will not be paying the fine of $20 that she has been given for handing out “Do not register” leaflets outside the Melbourne GPO in July 1971. Over two pages she lays out her reasoning for her actions, and she concludes with these words: “it is my sincere hope that I have made it clear to you that it is not a negative defiance of the law and authority which impels me not to pay the fine in question but a positive thinking and acting out of what ought to be the Christian’s attitude towards conscription, freedom to propagate one’s convictions and opposition to grave injustice.” I really wish I could have found the answer from the Attorney-General in that same box.