Privilege of the Sword Denied (WisCon 31 panel)
126 The Privilege of the Sword, Denied: Pacification in History)
Politics, Race, Class, and Religion•Conference Room 5• Saturday, 10:30-11:45 p.m.
Throughout history, the use of weapons has, indeed, been a privilege, whether one of class, one of gender, or one of religion. This panel will explore what it has meant historically to be pacified, the strategies of resistance to pacification (polearms, capoeira, judo, etc.), and explore their relevance in both the modern and fictional worlds.
M: Steven E. Schwartz, Richard Bowes, Paula L. Fleming
Transcript
Rough unedited transcript by Laura Quilter
- SS Steven E. Schwartz (late)
- RB Richard Bowes
- PF Paula L. Fleming
introductions
discussion of who will moderate in absence of SS; RB demurs; PF moderates
RB - I write mainly fantasy. ... My ... novel was on the Nebula list this year.
PF - I write fantasy SF, erotica, nonfiction. I currently make my living working at home as a freelance copy-editor. The reason I was interested in this panel -- one of my master's degrees is in european history & there were european history - of course that was especially in medieval early modern & going into modern era there was an evolution in warfare. and often the people with armaments had quite a bit more power than other people. ... also interested in psychological forms of defense that people can adopt, on a personal/domestic level and also on a social level when a group feels oppressed.
PF turns to rick.
RB in this case i had an interest in several things - but in the history of north america in the 18th century at a time when in europe the lower classes except under very careful supervision in very tidghtly organized armies were not allowed the use of firearms and were certainly not allowed to take them back into civilian life - in north america what would have been considered the yeomanry, the ordinary farmers, the french & indian war / 7 years war - were allowed to form militias, trained. it was in part this army that permitted a group of farmers outside of concord & lexington in 1775 to defeat the elite troops of the boston garrison & send them in route back to the city of boston at what we call the battle of concord & lexington. this was the spark of the american revolution. it took other forms. ... we are a nation founded of revolution. we have interpreted this in several ways. one way ... a worship of firearms. ... it has effects on us to this day.
PF: you have significant numbers of americans who absolutely believe having an armed citizenry is the last bulwark against tyranny of govt
RB: ... manpower was stretched thin and arming ... proved to be their undoing. ... and in addition american revolution did spark, did inspire, the french revolution, which took a much different form. so this lapse was a mistake from the point of view of crowned monarchies.
PF: very helpful for americans who didn't want to be subject to the crown.
RB: didn't want to pay taxes & were willing to kill to avoid them
PF: ... into the 19th century many colonies ... any errors elsewhere?
....
PF: emperor terrified by death of throwing star
RB: because anyone could learn it but you had to train for a lifetime to be a warrior ... the rise of the soldier is about the end of the warrior. ... book about Custer. Indians respect custer b/c he's a warrior but soldiers are not. there is a difference.
PF: one difference has to do with individualism. if you're a craftsperson, if you've studied - if you're an IT person there's a limited amount of authority you accept from people. but if you're a soldier they take the initiative out of you.
aud (cmt from audience): when you were talking about someone taking someone down with a low-tech weapon i thought about mesopotamia - they took down chariots by throwing sticks at the wheels.
RB: one of the things that happened in new york during labor riots - they tossed out ball bearings. horse won't step with unstable feet. few horses fell but they wouldn't go forward.
aud: seems like the difference b/w improvisation and planning ... weapons.
PF: ... wanted to get into concept of asymmetric warfare. an angry mob with stones can be very scary even to a group of soldiers with guns if they're angry enough & there are enough of them. not to say they will necessarily win.
RB: irish rebellion basically won independence with a campaign of assassination. people walking up to people in the street and shooting them in the chest. ... this was the one in 1920-21 that actually accomplished something. ... they went on to IRA. ... especially in wake of world war I british public was tired of war and british public was willing to give ireland a fair shake. majority of people in england did support giving ireland a certain amount of freedom.
PF: in a way you can say the american revolution - our armies were nowhere near the size of their armies.
aud (LQ): examples of internally pacified assimilated populations gaining access to weapons and how that changed things? subpopulations like women, ethnic minorities, etc.?
PF: moral authority - ... nonviolence & peaceful resistance has brought about issues
aud: black soldiers coming home from ww2 saying we are changing our tactics to a more visible & assertive stance - via the military training, feeling they had come from a space of having put out their lives for this country. ... vision of violence - but a great deal of assertiveness that went forward - and also physical resistance
PF: one of the things that precipitated children beating by police was more resistance.
RB: army was integrated before general society in US
women warriors disucssion
aud: raises question of women warriors - opportunities
aud: woman talking about woman warriors -
PF: civil war, women fighting in US civil war
SS shows up late; apologizes; defers to PF's moderation
aud: i was going to reference civil war soldiers - women who dressed and enlisted as men. wondering if there was any research - part of reason known is because of popularity of journals at the time, letters, photographs.
RB: first of the literate armies but i would assume this had always happened.
PF: i believe their motivations had to have been universal - i want to get away from home, earn good pay ...
RB: or inspired by the fight.
SS: not to mention if it were the first time there would have been a bigger deal about it.
LQ: review of doctor journals - doctors saying "yep found another one today"
(laughter)
aud (Donna Lichaw) - Rosie the Riveter / ... snipers of soviet army, platoon or unit of women.
RB: russian front where things were truly desperate women and everybody fought.
aud: this occurred to me and i feel it's almost too obvious a point - i've been reading the extraordinary amount of crap that female soldiers in the current war go through. apparently it's pretty bad - a lot of harassment, rape, putting them in their place. it occurs to me this might be a reaction.
SS: after franco-prussian war - jews first allowed/mandated to serve in army. ... led to jewish immigration to the US.
aud (LQ) - study about keeping women in their place; that sexual harassment occurs when women step out of their place and act like men, or assume male privilege.
aud (woman) - i'm a gulf war veteran - that's been going on a long time. foreign soldiers thought we were whores. i can't imagine where they got that idea.
SS - because of rumors about israeli women after ww2
aud (gulf war vet contd) - for years i slept in armor with a dagger. if you're not a pacifist when you go in, try this.
aud (man) - women used to lob grenades in vietnam. second example israeli army.
aud question about women in combat
aud (gulf war vet) responds: ... combat / arms - specifies a class of job description; it has nothing to do with whether you're being shot at. (elaborates--if you're driving an ambulance or supplies you're being shot at, but you have less access to weapons yourself.) ... men in military have great resentment toward women, until one saves their life.
aud (who brought up black men in ww2) - spanish civil war - very different dynamic. ... (disagreement from panel; she tries to elaborate very politely) -- my understanding is that it was a situation of equals, women fighting alonside men.
PF: when napoleon was invading spain, i believe a lot of women fought in the guerrilla movement. ...
SS: warsaw ghetto, frontier aleur in 1870 had a female contingent. you only dared to let your peasants pick up weapons when things were desperate.
? base - this group of people get weapons, this group of people doesn't. we're all about to lose, suddenly everybody gets weapons.
aud - the south didn't start handing weapons to slaves when they thought the north was coming.
arming others
aud - so what about more modern examples where a different nation arms the rebels - been done a lot when a govt comes in and gives weapons and says here go make trouble.
SS: i was about to say burghers of flanders please rise up and cause trouble for your french overlords ... the battle of 500 spurs. where a burgher army defeated the french nobility and piled the spurs up afterwards, because they did not take prisoners for ransom. ... the people who broke those rules were the burghers ...
aud - recommending book, The Western Way of War, about how we inherited from greeks. everything is this frontal clash designed around - like rocky movies. people who were being invaded & taken over by the greeks - are going like there's 30 of us, we're going to get wiped. ... a large part of western war is degrading asymmetric warfare b/c it allows anybody to play on the battlefield.
RB ... we learn of the conquests of states but not of their failures. like the places beyond the rhine where they were defeated. mostly we don't learn about this.
aud - we learned because of a great wall in the middle of england.
RB yes, the romans said, 'the picts are crazier than we are'
aud - recommends books:
- women warriors & history by david e. jones
- women fought combat missions in ww2 as fighter pilots
aud (kid who mentioned Boudica) - capoeira. power corrupts.
PF: power corrupts
aud: hasn't that happened in the IRA? gangsters more than freedom fighters over time?
RB: ... default of all movements (to become corrupt over time).
psychological defenses, onward
PF: one thing i found interesting about this topic - psychological defenses that we can put up. i was thinking first as we talked here about african-americans under slavery, then reconstruction and jim crow. you have in af-am literature it's well-documented that survival strategies consisted of being invisible, which i think servant classes have used throughout time ... in europe, high-falutin' folks could have any conversation in front of the servants because they're not really there. ... looking stupid. ... i find as a woman i can get a lot of help if i look really fluffy.
RB: yes that works for me.
PF: fluffy?
RB: yes, a little fluffy.
SS: the word may be disarming.
aud (woman): women in early 40s about how they became invisible when they turned 40 and they were these insane activist women. they said at first it sucked but then we realized we could use it. i'm kind of looking forward to that.
aud (woman) - we were talking about how you don't hand the weapons to people you deny priv of sword to even if you get really desperate. we were talking about how people did during ww2 - most US, russia, etc., did, but japan chose not to.
- some disagreement among panelists - they gave women bamboo sticks at the end.
aud - push of a button - it's all old white guys once again. controlling the weapons and the death. ... cold war - a new type of elitism, a scientific elitism in a way.
SS: to put things in perspective - the time when the jews were first pacified in europe under the HRE until the time when they were allowed to pick up guns again in many western countries was 400-500 years. ... militaries are stick-up-their-butts, it can take a while
aud (vet) - they are hidebound
SS: i would be pleased if we would achieve a state of gender integration in US by 2050.
aud - i got out of college & started working as software engineer ... in order to get a contract with govt you had to prove you had enough bodies to do the job. they were basically just filling slots and discovered that women could do the job. ... the point was, you saw a drastic turnaround in the whole discrimination thing b/c suddenly they realized there's money in this. then things evened out and we're being shafted again.
aud (woman in green tshirt) - just talking about asymmetrical warfare - quote from V for Vendetta: "We have guns & you have knives." "No, you have bullets and you'd better hope i'm dead before you have to reload."
aud (jeff s) - always comes down to upper class trying to control weapons when what matters is will to violence. battle of courtroyal again was that they had will to succeed and not to scatter.
SS: they were also using significantly better tactical model and that really helps a lot too.
aud (woman who discussed span civil war) - i wanted to bring up haiti. military clout of french when they helped haiti. they had more weapons and better-trained soldiers. what's amazing to me is guerilla resistance - all kinds of poisoning water etc. it was a fucked up level of violence in terms of what was done, but in saying we are going to beat the french, it was a small tiny nation of slaves that said we're going to beat the french. after the haitian revolution you have the elite, the ... e coleur, the light-colored french speaking people who take on the elite status who want to perpetuate the hierarchy because now they're on top. ... you can have a successful revolution but do we want to recreate the previously existing structures. we can integrate the military ad nauseum on many different levels. but the military creates a hierarchy of all kinds of things.
PF: what kind of model you're working from and what kind of model you're working toward. ... we do need to wrap up. ... i learned a huge amount in the last 75 minutes. this was so cool. as a writer it occurred to me ... how often in stories do we arm the empire with big spaceships and the rebels with little tiny junky spaceships. maybe we need to be thinking more of the laser rifle versus the shirikan. or the tank versus the improvised explosive device or the knights versus the pikes or the swords versus the martial artist.
RB: i found this fascinating. this seemed an interesting subject and by god it was.
SS: my apologies to all of you. hazard at being ADD at a convention - so many shiny things. thank you all for charging on ahead without me. the thing that i wanted to end with as a thought from listening to the people here is that so often people think about the use of force as a military thing to do and quite frankly there are a whole lot of uses of force that do not involve things like uniforms, soluting, and general dynamics. and these are things that we need to keep in mind when we pay attention to the news these days when we sit down to write our stories and think about our roles in the world.