http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7292252.stm
20 March 2008
By Kathryn Westcott
BBC News
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It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement
but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the
most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been
adapted, attacked and commercialised.
It had its first public outing 50 years ago on a chilly Good Friday
as thousands of British anti-nuclear campaigners set off from
London's Trafalgar Square on a 50-mile march to the weapons factory
at Aldermaston.
The demonstration had been organised by the Direct Action Committee
Against Nuclear War (DAC) and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND) joined in.
Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious
objector from West London, persuaded DAC that their aims would have
greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The "Ban the
Bomb" symbol was born.
He considered using a Christian cross motif but, instead, settled on
using letters from the semaphore - or flag-signalling - alphabet,
super-imposing N (uclear) on D (isarmament) and placing them within a
circle symbolising Earth.
The sign was quickly adopted by CND.
Holtom later explained that the design was "to mean a human being in
despair" with arms outstretched downwards.
US peace symbol
American pacifist Ken Kolsbun, who corresponded with Mr Holtom until
his death in 1985, says the designer came to regret the connotation
of despair and had wanted the sign inverted.
"He thought peace was something that should be celebrated," says Mr
Kolsbun, who has spent decades documenting the use of the sign. "In
fact, the semaphore sign for U in 'unilateral' depicts flags pointing
upwards. Mr Holtom was all for unilateral disarmament."
In a book to commemorate the symbol's 50th birthday, Mr Kolsbun
charts how it was transported across the Atlantic and took on
additional meanings for the Civil Rights movement, the
counter-culture of the 1960s and 70s including the anti-Vietnam
protests, and the environmental, women's and gay rights movements.
He also argues that groups opposed to those tendencies tried to use
the symbol against them by distorting its message.
How the sign migrated to the US is explained in various ways. Some
say it was brought back from the Aldermaston protest by civil rights
activist Bayard Rustin, a black pacifist who had studied Gandhi's
techniques of non-violence.
Vietnam
In Peace: The biography of a symbol, Mr Kolsbun describes how in just
over a decade, the sign had been carried by civil rights "freedom"
marchers, painted on psychedelic Volkswagens in San Francisco, and on
the helmets of US soldiers on the ground in Vietnam.
"The sign really got going over here during the 1960s and 70s, when
it became associated with anti-Vietnam protests," he told the BBC
News website.
As the combat escalated, he says, so did the anti-war protests and
the presence of the symbol.
"This, of course, led some people to condemn it as a communist sign,"
says Mr Kolsbun. "There has always been a lot of misconception and
disinformation about it."
As the sign became a badge of the burgeoning hippie movement of the
late 1960s, the hippies' critics scornfully compared it to a chicken
footprint, and drew parallels with the runic letter indicating death.
In 1970, the conservative John Birch Society published pamphlets
likening the sign to a Satanic symbol of an upside-down, "broken" cross.
While it remained a key symbol of the counter-culture movement
throughout the 1970s, it returned to its origins in the 1980s, when
it became the banner of the international grassroots anti-nuclear movement.
Power
The real power of the sign, its supporters say, is the reaction that
it provokes - both from fans and from detractors.
The South African government, for one, tried to ban its use by
opponents of apartheid in 1973.
And, in 2006, a couple in suburban Denver found themselves embroiled
in a dispute over their use of a giant peace sign as a Christmas
wreath. The homeowners' association threatened them with a daily fine
if they didn't remove it.
The association eventually backed down because of public pressure,
but a member told a local newspaper it was clearly an "anti-Christ
sign" with "a lot of negativity associated with it.".
Commercial
CND has never registered the sign as a trademark, arguing that "a
symbol of freedom, it is free for all". It has now appeared on
millions of mugs, T-shirts, rings and nose-studs. Bizarrely, it has
also made an appearance on packets of Lucky Strike cigarettes.
A decade ago, the sign was chosen during a public vote to appear on a
US commemorative postage stamp saluting the 1960s.
The symbol that helped define a generation of baby boomers may not be
as widely used today as in the past. It is in danger of becoming to
many people a retro fashion item, although the Iraq war has seen it
re-emerge with something like its original purpose.
"It is still the dominant peace sign," argues Lawrence Wittner, an
expert on peace movements at the University at Albany in New York.
"Part of that is down to its simplicity. It can be used as a
shorthand for many causes because it can be reproduced really quickly
- on walls on floors, which is important, in say, repressive societies."
And can its success be measured? Fifty years on, wars have continued
to be waged and the list of nuclear-armed states has steadily lengthened.
But the cup is half-full as well as half empty.
"There are many ways in which nuclear war has been prevented," says
Mr Wittner. "The hawks say that the reason nuclear weapons have not
been used is because of the deterrent. But I believe popular pressure
has restrained powers from using them and helped curbed the arms race.
And the symbol of and inspiration for that popular pressure, says Mr
Wittner, is Mr Holtom's graphic.
--
Peace: A biography of a symbol is published by National Geographic
Books in April.
.
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