The "Great War" of 1914-1918 was a total war that engaged all the energies of citizens in the fighting nations. In the view of United States leaders, it was a holy war. President Woodrow Wilson said America was "an instrument in the hand of God to see that liberty is made secure for mankind." Mennonites in 1917 were on the fringes of American society. But they were drawn into a close encounter with the nation’s great democratic crusade. The encounter defined Mennonite identity for the coming century and beyond. Issues of war and peace would be central in determining who Mennonites were and what they must do. Perhaps because the war was a time of confusion and embarrassment, Mennonite stories from the 1917-1918 war period remained long hidden. My personal experience is perhaps typical. I was born (in 1938) and reared in the Mennonite heartland of south-central Kansas. Although my family and community were committed to their religious heritage, and although I taught history in a Mennonite college, I did not learn until much later, in the 1970s, that my own great uncle, Otto Juhnke, in 1918 had been visited on his farm in McPherson County by an angry patriotic mob. Uncle Otto died before I had a chance to interview him about the event. It took many decades for Mennonite denominational historians to gather the stories and to craft a coherent narrative of their World War I experience and place it into a broader social and historical context. Melanie Mock’s Writing Peace continues the quest to recover and interpret the meaning of Mennonite stories from World War I. She focuses on the diaries of four men who were drafted into military camps. Remarkably, three of these men grew up in three different Mennonite congregations within ten miles of my uncle Otto’s farm—all near the small town of Inman. Some readers may wish to turn immediately to the diaries themselves to get an immediate sense of the primary sources. Other readers, especially those who are not familiar with main outlines of national policies for conscientious objectors and of the response of Mennonites generally to the war crisis, will want to begin with chapter one. A special feature of this volume is its treatment of the diary as literature. Why did these writers choose this particular form to record their experiences? How did the form determine the content? How did distinctive Mennonite cultural traits, such as habits of humility and self-effacement, influence the diarists’ choices? How can these diaries be compared and contrasted with the more sophisticated published writing of British authors from the war, such as Wilfred Owen and Vera Brittain? The war to make the world safe for
democracy, contrary to its progressive goals, created the
conditions for more war. Tragically, the
"profiling" of German-speaking pacifists in
World War I may now be compared with what is happening to
Arabic-speaking Muslims in America, even as the nation
may also again be giving heightened emphasis to a view of
itself as "an instrument in the hand of God." Writing
Peace represents a relevant resource for
understanding the experience of outsiders in wartime in
the twenty-first century. Writing Peace orders:
|
|||||||
| Click here to explore joining InnerCircle readers club and receiving occasional updates and special discounts. | |||||||
