Cost $20 or $15 for Members (incl. gst)
Single session
Session time 1 hr, 30 min
Venue SPLC Room 2
17 places remaining
In recent years, there has been an upsurge of fervour surrounding the sacrifice of young men who have laid down their lives for their country in the overseas wars in which Australia has been involved for over a century. As we commemorated the centenary of World War I and governments spent large sums on new war memorials, another story has been largely forgotten the story of those young men whose conscience dictated that they could not take up arms and kill their fellow human beings. In this talk, Associate Professor Bobbie Oliver will outline the history of conscientious objectors and war resisters in three wars, World Wars I and II and the Vietnam war, and discuss how the profile of objectors and their reasons for not enlisting changed over the years. While their principled stand did not cost them their lives, they endured charges of cowardice, loss of jobs and friends, police brutality and sometimes long periods in prison for their beliefs.
Associate Professor Bobbie Oliver is an Honorary Researcher in the History Department at The University of Western Australia. Prior to her retirement this year, she taught History at Curtin University for 21 years. Bobbie has published several works on conscientious objectors to military service, including Peacemongers (Fremantle Press, 1997), and chapters in Lest we Forget, co-edited with Sue Summers (Black Swan Press, 2014) and Fighting Against War, ed. Philip Deery and Julie Kimber (Left Bank Press, 2015).
Enrol Now
-share-
