Bart de Ligt | |
|---|---|
 De Ligt in 1938 | |
| Born | Bartholomeus de Ligt (1883-07-17)17 July 1883 |
| Died | 3 September 1938(1938-09-03) (aged 55) Nantes,Pays de la Loire, France |
| Education | Utrecht University |
Bartholomeus de Ligt (17 July 1883 – 3 September 1938) was a Dutchanarcho-pacifist[1] andantimilitarist. He is chiefly known for his support ofconscientious objectors.
Born on 17 July 1883 inSchalkwijk, Utrecht, his father was a Calvinist pastor. Following his father's footsteps, he became a theology student at theUniversity of Utrecht. While there, he was exposed to liberal thinking andHegelian philosophy for the first time. In 1909, became a member of theLeague of Christian Socialists. In 1910, he was appointed pastor of theReformed Church atNuenen, nearEindhoven inBrabant whereVan Gogh's father had been pastor 25 years before.[citation needed]
In 1914, de Ligt joined fellow pastors A. R. de Jong and Truus Kruyt to write "The Guilt of the Churches", charging that the Christian establishment had been complicit in the events that produced World War I. Afterward, his writings became forbidden literature for the Dutch armed forces. His impassioned sermons supporting conscientious objection resulted in his being banned from those parts of the Netherlands considered to be in the war zone.[citation needed]
In 1918, he resigned as pastor declaring that, because of his increasingly universalist approach to religion, he no longer considered himself to be specifically a Christian.[2]
In 1918, De Ligt married the Swiss activist Catherina Lydia van Rossem, with whom he had a son.[a] He was imprisoned in 1921 for organizing ageneral strike to gain the release ofHerman Groenendaal [nl], a jailed conscientious objector who had gone on ahunger strike. Later that year, he founded the IAMB (International Anti-Militarism Bureau). As he was becoming more involved with the work of theLeague of Nations, in 1925 he moved to Geneva, where he remained for the rest of his life. However, De Ligt became sceptical about the League's efforts, viewing it as how the colonial powers maintained an unjust world order. De Ligt instead regarded the BrusselsCongress Against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism, held in 1927, as more representative of the world's population.[3] At a meeting of theWar Resisters International in 1934, he presented his now-famous "Plan of a Campaign Against All Wars and Preparation for War". (The full text of which may be found inThe Conquest of Violence.) De Ligt also took a firm stand againstfascism andNazism in the 1930s.[2] During the 1930s, De Ligt also promoted the ideas ofSimone Weil.[4]
De Ligt's ideas were especially influential in Britain; they strongly influenced the BritishNo More War Movement.[5] Writing in the pacifist magazinePeace News, playwright R. H. Ward praised De Ligt as "the Gandhi of the West".[5]
De Ligt's last work was a biography ofDesiderius Erasmus, whom Van Den Dungen argues De Ligt strongly identified with: "He recognized in Erasmus a kindred spirit who.. had fought,..not only against war and violence, but also for the idea of free thought and for the liberation of humanity".[3]
In 1938, after a brief illness, he collapsed from exhaustion and died at the railway station in Nantes.[citation needed]
The Conquest of Violence: An Essay on War and Revolution is a book written by De Ligt which deals withnon-violent resistance in part inspired by the ideas ofGandhi,[6] and details his rejection ofantisemitism,militarism,imperialism,capitalism,fascism andBolshevism.[7]The Conquest of Violence drew on British philosopherGerald Heard's idea that human aggression had become "a useless evil" with the advent of industrialized warfare.[8] Anarchist historianGeorge Woodcock reports thatThe Conquest of Violence "was read widely by British and American pacifists during the 1930s and led many of them to adopt ananarchistic point of view".[9]
Gandhi's ideas were popularised in the West in books such as Richard Gregg's The Power of Nonviolence (1935), (34) and Bart de Ligt's The Conquest of Violence (1937).
