Leading Canadian peace activists were pioneers

Two of Canada’s leading peace activists and pioneering figures in the field of peace research passed away recently.

Prof. Anatol Rapoport taught for many years at the University of Toronto and was recognized around the world particularly for his work in the area of game theory. Fellow peace researcher Dr. Hanna Newcombe, recalls “He was brilliant. And his game theory applications to contemporary conflict almost invariably resolved in favour of cooperative approaches.”

Dr. Norman Alcock, who with his wife Pat co-founded the Canadian Peace Research Institute in 1961, was also national president of the World Federalists of Canada from 1981 to 1983. He is closely associated with the idea of a “Peacemakers Association of Nations.”

Below are excerpts from tributes to these two men. Peter Langille, Associate Professor at University of Western Ontario and a member of WFMC Council recalls the life of Anatol Rapoport. Ernie Regehr, recipient of the 2006 WFMC World Peace Award, paid tribute to Norman Alcock at a memorial event March 31 in Port Sydney, Ont.

Anatol Rapoport

Anatol’s pioneering work was and remains of profound importance to past, present and future generations of those within peace and conflict studies, even more for those within the strategic studies community. His far-more-forgiving and cooperatively inclined model of ‘tit for tat’ revealed both the intellectual and practical weaknesses (including the real dangers) of the more punitive and confrontational strategies underpinning Cold War policies and practices. Notably, there followed gradually, a substantive shift in attitudes and priorities in many institutions and governments.

Anatol had the capacity to begin thinking where most concluded, to analyze complexity and convey his insight simply.…  In hindsight, it is apparent that this person was at the forefront in creating the intellectual and political space both for understanding our deep interdependence in the nuclear era, as well as in the need for a new approach premised upon common security.

He never considered himself a political scientist. He was  determined to help establish peace research in North America, despite the costs and consequen-ces of a commitment to a far more challenging endeavour, one which was seldom respected or supported in academe, and society at large.

In a quick scan of a small bookcase, four seminal contributions stand out: Peace, The Origins of Violence, Conflict in a Man-Made Environment and Game Theory as a Theory of Conflict Resolution.

For those who cared to learn, Anatol Rapoport was a great educator, a brilliant researcher, a committed activist, a global citizen ahead of his time, and an inspiring champion of the issues that mattered most. Our sincere appreciation goes to one who left us, our children and a strange world far better off. Regrettably, Anatol's legacy remains as relevant today as ever. Many, many thanks!  – P.L.

Norman Alcock

I have had occasion to speak to many people in the peace community who knew Norman, and many who knew of Norman, all of whom, in the context of the sadness of his declining health and now his passing, were nevertheless buoyed – in a very real sense, uplifted – to recall him and to remember that gentle but unfailing curiosity and searching. In fact, those conversations remind me that Norman wasn’t really anything so mundane as an analyst or even a peace researcher – he was really a peace searcher.

…I could go on at some length listing Norman’s many avenues of service, but I’ll confine it to just one more example. The establishment of the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security in 1983 was in many ways a legacy or product of the vision that Norman, again with Pat and Hanna and Allan Newcombe, had when they pioneered their peace research efforts years earlier. Norman, of course, served on the founding board of that new publicly endowed peace institute.

The 1980s government-sponsored and government-funded peace research centre not only followed Norman’s trail blazing model, but Norman’s efforts and long-time influence were also felt by a similarly cerebral academic of the day, the academic-turned-politician, Pierre Trudeau. Norman’s spirit and influence were certainly present when Prime Minister Trudeau launched his well-documented peace initiative at the close of his political career (one day, perhaps we’ll be favoured by politicians who launch peace initiatives at the start of their careers).

And Pat, I’m sure you’ve permitted yourself, or at least I hope you have, the odd rueful speculation about how things might have been if in the early 1960s there had been the political leadership to support publicly funded peace research – the kind of war prevention explorations that you folks were doing and that would complement the Canadian peacekeeping innovations of just a few years earlier.

In the midst of his searching, Norman was no slave to real politic but he always took care to be politically relevant and was frequently politically astute. He advocated, for example, for a “peacemakers association of nations” whereby middle powers, free of the calculations and preoccupations of major powers, would chart alternative courses in international relations and behaviour. And I’m sure Norman was aware when, in recent years, a group of states calling itself the New Agenda Coalition adopted a model very much like the “peacemakers association of nations” idea to give leadership in advancing the nuclear disarmament agenda in the face of the indifference and obstruction of the major powers.

I loved the conversations with Norman but I confess I frequently couldn’t keep up. He wasn’t so focused on the mechanics or politics of militarism; he wanted to know the essence of the thing.

As a church-going Mennonite, I confess I always envied Norman his confident sense of the spiritual. It led him to explorations of human nature – of our foundational characteristics that sometimes are reflected in extraordinary depravity but, at other times, in exhilarating expressions of love and generosity that carry us forward in the kind of hope and expectation that so many people saw in Norman….   – E.R.