Peace with Freedom

Maurice Tugwell Peace with Freedom Toronto: Key Porter 1988

By John Bacher (reviewer) | 1989-04-01 12:00:00

FORMER BRIGADIER GENERAL, now strategic analyst, Maurice Tugwell tars the Canadian peace movement with this book. He admits that some Canadian peace activists are not controlled by the Soviets, but he reduces them to a mere "handful of courageous peace activists."

While he labors with the zeal of an ambitious CSIS agent to demonstrate Communist domination of the Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA), he gives the Coalition Québécoise pour le désarmament et la paix only two sentences. He ignores its promotion of human rights and ecological sanity. in both blocs. Tugwell makes many accurate points and uncovers surprising embarassments to the peace movement, ranging from Tom Perry's speech to the founding CPA convention-which denied human rights abuses in the Soviet Union-to Bob Penner's comment in PEACE, that human rights is not a big concern of the Canadian peace movement.

Yet he also maligns such paragons of respectability as Stephen Lewis, Geoffrey Pearson and Douglas Roche, accusing them of being subject to Communist influence.

The mischievous construction of Peace with Freedom is especially apparent in its chapter on peace education. This will probably be a tool of every Cold Warrior trying to keep such programs out of public schools. Tugwell cleverly compares the less rigorous peace education programs of elementary and secondary schools to the War Studies Department of Kings College, England. He does not mention any peace study program offered by a Canadian university.

Tugwell acknowledges changes in the Soviet Union, but attributes them to a sophisticated application of totalitarian principles. Activists will at least enjoy noting how obsolete his book is becoming, as a result of just those changes.

Peace Magazine Apr-May 1989

Peace Magazine Apr-May 1989, page 23. Some rights reserved.

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