Five

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Guardians of Peace

“Women have been the guardians of life—not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war.”¹—Starhawk

“Hasn’t this war gone on long enough?”²—Senator Padmé Amidala

Organized in November 2002, Code Pink called for a four month vigil outside the White House as a statement against the Bush administration’s prolonged build up toward war in Iraq. Months before television viewers experienced the shock and awe tactics of a U.S. bombing campaign, Code Pink protesters—the name parodies the Department of Homeland Security’s terrorist alert system: red, orange, yellow, blue, and green—called on the U.S. government to explore nonviolent alternatives. In an October 21, 2002, essay titled “Code Pink: Women’s Pre-Emptive Strike for Peace Call to Action,” Starhawk—a Code Pink founding member—urged all women to take a principled stand against the looming Iraq invasion. She wrote, “Women have been the guardians of life—not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war.”³ As noted in a March 9, 2003, New York Times article titled “With Passion and a Dash of Pink, Women Gather to Protest War,” the fledgling organization’s culminating action, planned to coincide with International Women’s Day, brought thousands of protesters to the streets of the U.S. capitol and into the national consciousness. While the protests did not halt the Bush administration’s march toward war, Code Pink’s antiwar rallying cry called U.S. Americans to at least consider the idea that warmaking is ill suited to solving international conflict, thus entrenching the group within the American peace movement tradition. More specifically, Code Pink’s obvious nod to the gendered politics intertwined with war situates the antiwar group within the history of feminist protest.

Women’s antiwar protest has a long and storied tradition in the United States. From the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, to the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, to Women Strike for Peace, to Code Pink the presence of the feminist antiwar movement provided a counterpoint to aggressive foreign policy. No matter the era, several commonalities connect the various organizations associated with the feminist peace movement. First and foremost, participants in the feminist antiwar movement find themselves united in their denunciation of violence against women. As Harriet Alonso Hyman observes, “Women’s rights peace activists have protested not only the physical abuse of women, but also their psychological, economic, and political oppression.”⁴ A second thematic revolves around motherhood. In her exploration of maternal thinking, Sara Ruddick speculates that maternal thinking provides unique opportunities related to peacemaking. She rejects the essentializing characterization of men as inherently violent and women as inherently peaceful; the tendency to equate masculinity with militaristic action and femininity with nonviolent action, she suggests, stems from long entrenched cultural scripts. A warrior or peacemaker “is not born, but rather becomes.”⁵ The mythic idealization of mother, with its culturally bound discourses concerning creation, protection, and responsibility to the other, offers values toward which peacemakers, both women and men, can strive. Finally, feminist peace activists champion the notion of women as dedicated political actors attempting to ensure U.S. American egalitarianism. Whether the individuals involved consider themselves abolitionists, suffragettes, prohibitionists, civil rights activists, or antiwar protestors, the various incarnations of the women’s rights movement displays a commitment to a more just and ethical political state.

One of the women frequently associated with the twentieth-century feminist peace movement is two-time congressional representative and unrepentant pacifist, Jeannette Rankin. As the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives (1917–1919), Rankin rose to national notoriety when she cast a “no” vote against entry into World War I; nearly a quarter century later, during her second term as a representative for Montana (1941–1943), she cast the sole congressional vote against World War II. Remembered historically as the only congressional voice to make a consistent call for peace, Rankin devoted her entire life to fighting for women’s rights and opposing violent conflict. A “suffrage campaigner, progressive politician, and national peace lobbyist,” Rankin worked tirelessly to promote the anti-war movement’s principles.⁶ Like the founders of Code Pink, Rankin considered women well-suited to speak out against the nation’s militaristic foreign policy and robust support for an expansive military-industrial complex. She maintained, throughout her lengthy career as activist, “peace is woman’s job.”⁷

With Rankin’s peace activism in mind, I contend The Clone Wars also articulates a gendered call for peace. Despite the reference to armed conflict in the title of the franchise, George Lucas identifies the criticism of violence as a central theme of Star Wars. When discussing the meaning of his megatext with Charlie Rose, Lucas states succinctly, “Basically, don’t kill people. And be compassionate and love people. And so that’s basically all Star Wars is.”⁸ Luke Skywalker’s spiritual journey in the original Star Wars trilogy, asserts John C. McDowell, lends credence to Lucas’ claim. Throughout the first two films, Luke turns to violence as his primary means of striking back against the galactic Empire: he mounts an armed rescue mission, joins a starfighter assault on the Death Star, and rushes headlong into a trap laid by Darth Vader. When Yoda and a ghostly Obi-Wan advise against a potential confrontation with Darth Vader (The Empire Strikes Back), Luke rejects their collective counsel with nearly disastrous results. He fails to save his friend, Han Solo, and suffers horrific physical and psychological injury during his failed rescue attempt. In Return of the Jedi, a wiser, more contemplative Luke Skywalker displays a deeper understanding of Yoda’s exhortation that “wars not make one great” as he once again faces his father, Darth Vader. Although Emperor Palpatine initially goads Luke into a lightsaber duel with Vader, Luke eventually embraces the path of nonviolence, throws down his weapon, and refuses to fight. As Roy M. Anker observes, the refusal to execute Vader and complete a rage induced journey to the dark side marks a moment of triumph for Skywalker; rather than making himself powerful through hate, anger and aggression, he makes a “gesture of faith, love, and sacrifice.”⁹ Luke turns to peaceful resistance, treats his fallen father with compassion, and rejects the Emperor’s seductive dark side ministrations. The fact Emperor Palpatine stands ready to execute the young Jedi makes Luke’s sacrifice even more meaningful. Luke’s choice to reject the dark side, even in the face of death, has profound consequences as Darth Vader, inspired by his son’s actions, turns back to the light side of the Force, rebels against his master, and liberates the galaxy from tyrannical rule. In a broader context, Luke’s awakening to the futility of pitting violence against violence symbolizes the potentiality of nonviolent action as a viable path toward lasting peace.

Luke’s actions in Return of the Jedi do, indeed, offer a powerful message regarding nonviolent resistance. As I suggested in the previous chapter, Yoda also comes to the conclusion that winning a war is impossible, that the only way to win a war is to never fight the war at all. The epiphanies of Luke and Yoda aside, a broader look at the entire Star Wars franchise suggests Jeannette Rankin’s observations regarding peace hold true: peace, particularly in The Clone Wars, is primarily a woman’s job. In stark contrast to their characterization as peaceful guardians, typically in word but not deed, Jedi Knights resolve almost every conflict with violence. The only regularly occurring characters consistently portrayed as valuing peace not only through talk but action are Senator Padmé Amidala and Duchess Satine Kryze. Padmé Amidala is the only Clone Wars character depicted as a true diplomat, moving both within the legislative avenues of the Republic Senate and through back channel, covert diplomatic missions intended to negotiate an end to the war. While Amidala follows a pragmatic path, preferring a negotiated settlement rather than armed conflict, she also utilizes armed conflict when all other options fail. At the other end of the nonviolence spectrum is Duchess Satine Kryze, the principled pacifist committed to leading her historically violent people into an era of peace. For Duchess Satine, nonviolence is both an ends and a means.

In the rest of this chapter, I turn my attention to how The Clone Wars evinces many of the values associated with the women’s antiwar movement and contributes to ongoing cultural dialogues regarding peace and nonviolence. First, I begin with a discussion of the relationship between the women’s antiwar movement and representations of war and peace in popular culture. In what ways do the arguments and positions of the feminist antiwar movement manifest in popular culture? How do various popular culture texts, particularly science fiction and fantasy texts, advocate for both pragmatic and principled approaches to peace? Next, I illustrate how Jeannette Rankin emerged as one of the preeminent women associated with the women’s antiwar peace movement in the twentieth century. Her gendered understanding of peace, particularly in respect to women taking the lead in antiwar advocacy, continues to hold contemporary resonance. Specifically, I situate Padmé Amidala and Satine Kryze—two important characters within The Clone Wars storyline—as contemporary voices in the feminist antiwar tradition. Finally, I bring the dialogic intersections of Rankin, Amidala, and Kryze into sharp relief and situate all three individuals as an important counterbalance to continued calls for war.

Popular Culture and the Paths to Peace

In “Feminism and Peace: Seeing Connections,” Karen J. Warren and Duane L. Cady ask a question that is particularly relevant for my current project: “Where do women fit in to concerns for peace?”¹⁰ Gendered discourse has long been part of the U.S. American conversation concerning international relations, suggests Cohn, particular those conversations pertaining to matters of war and peace. Her reading of national security conversations makes it clear that while she does not equate tendencies toward war and peace as inherently masculine or feminine, she does note that emotions traditionally labeled masculine–“aggression, competition, macho pride, and swagger”–are celebrated while those traditionally associated with femininity—compassion, empathy, collaboration—are denounced.¹¹ This pattern of acclamation and censure in relation to gendered discourses limits the ways national security advisors and intellectuals discuss present and future policies : “It sets fixed boundaries, and in so doing, it skews what is discussed and how it is thought about.”¹² Arguments regarding war and peace take place within these constrained discursive formations.

One tradition within feminism, a tradition of which Jeanette Rankin is part, articulates strong opposition to war as conflict resolution strategy. Describing themselves as antiwar feminists, Carol Cohn and Sara Ruddick write:

We have an abiding suspicion of the use of violence, even in the best of causes. The ability of violence to achieve its stated aims is routinely overestimated, while the complexity of its costs is overlooked. Our opposition also stems from the perception that the practice of war entails far more than the killing and destroying of armed combat itself. It requires the creation of a ‘war system,’ which entails arming, training, and organizing for possible wars, allocating the resources these preparations require, creating a culture in which wars are seen as morally legitimate, even alluring; and shaping and fostering the masculinities and femininities that undergird men’s and women’s acquiescence to war.¹³

While many feminists adopt a principled commitment to nonviolence in all situations, Cohn and Ruddick acknowledge some antiwar feminists do support the use of violence as last recourse. Such an acknowledgment, however, does not legitimate the inevitability of war as much as it accepts the premise “that war may be morally justified in certain circumstances.”¹⁴ In their article addressing nonviolence and post–Cold War peacebuilding, Rebecca Spence and Jason McLeod describe both approaches, principled nonviolence and pragmatic nonviolence, as important means of enacting radical or incremental change in everything from social institutions to political policy.¹⁵ Important to note here is that both positions—principled nonviolence as an ethical imperative and pragmatic nonviolence as a strategic means to an end—oppose war as a method of conflict resolution.

With an understanding of the feminist peace movement in hand, I now turn my attention to representations of war and peace in popular culture. Popular culture depictions of war are an important voice in ongoing cultural discourses regarding foreign policy and international relations, providing an opportunity to probe the dialogic interactions at the heart of responsive understanding and cultural meaning-making . Mediated texts, suggests Thomas A. Horne, present one avenue for wrestling with ideas of peace and war. As he observes in his critique of the 2007 remake of 3:10 to Yuma, films “carry the meaning of our national destiny “ and provide “a model for national action.”¹⁶ Unlike traditional Westerns, films frequently reinforcing the U.S. American cultural-political myth of redemptive violence, the 3:10 to Yuma remake judges the cost of violent retribution—a path Horne argues mirrors the U.S. American mission in Iraq—as untenable. Horne’s critique does not suggest war should be avoided at all costs. Rather, he bases his argument in pragmatic nonviolence, calling for critical public reflection before engaging in violent international conflict and urging a move toward a more peaceful and diplomatic foreign policy. Like Horne, Mark J. Lacy’s discussion of Apocalypse Now, Black Hawk Down, and Three Kings as recent representations of contemporary geopolitics explores the way war cinema often works to distance viewers from historical events, thereby mediating moral anxieties associated with wartime actions and ramifications (e.g., civilian casualties, the psychological damage done to soldiers). While Black Hawk Down works as a “political technology” supportive of violent U.S. American security measures, thus reassuring viewers of the necessity of U.S. military efforts to bring peace and security at the end of a weapon, Apocalypse Now and Three Kings offer moral challenges to the cinematic normalization of military violence.¹⁷ Rather than functioning as a curative to wartime moral anxieties, the latter two films induce moral anxieties and encourage national critical reflection.

The speculative nature of science fiction seems particularly well suited for the interrogation of historically situated discourses concerning international relations and the resulting cultural anxieties. Science fiction media frequently offers an allegorical critique of a contemporary state of affairs and follows that critique with a forward looking vision of the way things ought to be. Through the tension between the here and now, the there and then, “science fiction films can be seen to some extent as measures of the hopes and fears of the cultures in which the films are produced and consumed.”¹⁸ This is particularly true of the Cold War science fiction of the 1950s. As M. Keith Booker contends, many books and films produced during the 1950s offer subtle criticism of governmental practices, cultural anxieties, and individual jitters. These authors and film makers, recognizing the “Aesopian potential in setting their political commentary in other times or other galaxies,” offer critical appraisals of the xenophobia arising from anticommunist hysteria and raise questions about nuclear proliferation, warning that scientists, military personnel and political leaders do not always understand the forces with which they play.¹⁹ Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), for example, belittled governmental communist witch hunts as well as neighborhood paranoia over Soviet sleeper cells. In a similar vein, the mutated ants running amok in Them (1954) call on audiences to consider the potential consequences of continued nuclear testing. Although the Cold War had cooled significantly by the 1970s, film makers turned their attention to concerns raised by the burgeoning environmental movement and posed significant questions regarding green policy, or the lack thereof, through such mediated vehicles as Silent Running (1972), Soylent Green (1973), and Logan’s Run (1976).

Criticism of communist xenophobia and environmental policy are only two of the international relations concerns engaged by science fiction media. Particularly relevant for this chapter are those texts contributing to public dialogues addressing war and peace. The 1951 science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood, is an example of “science fiction with a message” that interrogates “contemporary political issues in a mature and courageous way.”²⁰ Lauding the film for its “advocacy of peace and international cooperation,” the film takes a bold stand against the widely accepted militaristic ideologies of the 1950s.²¹ Discussing the significance of The Day the Earth Stood Still for contemporary audiences, Joshua Pardon claims many of the arguments presented during the 1951 film are still relevant today. The film’s critical depiction of anti-communist paranoia, for example, calls viewers to reflect on contemporary post–9/11 Islamophobia. Additionally, an anti-militarist thematic questions the U.S. American tendency to rely on physical force rather than diplomacy in times of international (or in this case, intergalactic) crisis. When Klaatu lands his spacecraft in Washington, D.C., and attempts to speak to the leaders of the world, the military misinterprets a peace offering as a hostile act and opens fire. He survives this initial encounter but finds himself on the run from all levels of law enforcement throughout the rest of the film. A second shooting, a shooting Klaatu does not survive, reinforces the critical assessment of the military’s tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. As Pardon observes, “the portrayals of a preemptive … brand of militarism are certainly relevant in a global political climate concerned with determining the appropriate response to terrorism and atomic proliferation.”²² At the same time, a temporarily resurrected Klaatu gives Earth governments an ultimatum: use atomic energy responsibly or be eliminated. Examined from a contemporary perspective, Klaatu’s threat to destroy the Earth if global governments continue to pursue weapons of mass destruction is eerily similar to statements the Bush administration directed toward Iraq.

One of the most well-known antiwar science fiction texts is the constellation of television episodes, films, books, and comic books comprising the Star Trek franchise. The franchise, often hailed for its hopeful portrayal of a future where many of the twentieth and twenty-first century’s sociopolitical challenges have been overcome, depicts humanity as a united race focused on exploring scientific exploration and maintaining interstellar détente. In his work addressing the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine television series, Michael Pounds describes the franchise as a progressive text willing to evoke provocative cultural tensions and dialogues through narratives involving complex social, political, and philosophical concerns: “race, species, religion, politics, physicality/non-corporeality, gender, space-time, and war and peace.”²³ It is the last of these, war and peace, on which I wish to focus. From its inception during the tumultuous era of 1960s Vietnam War era, Star Trek has been lauded for its pro-peace and anti-war message. Premiering in an era of prolonged war (World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War), civil rights protest, and social change (the emerging women’s rights movement), the original Star Trek series sets a “generally peaceful” tone that plays throughout subsequent incarnations.²⁴ In his work titled “The Troubled Pacifism of Star Trek,” Gary Westfahl makes a similar observation about Starfleet’s portrayal as a military organization committed to violence as a last resort. Star Trek’s pacifistic idealism, he suggests, often gets overshadowed by the naval style starship battles, phaser firefights, and close quarters fisticuffs that make for compelling, ratings-garnering science fiction television and film. Although violent exchanges do not occur every episode, and the characters typically exhaust all options or find themselves in a situation where they have no other choice than to resort to violence, they occur frequently enough that a tension emerges between pacifism and militarism. This tension, suggests Westfahl, is best described as “a covert celebration of violence overlaid with an overt message of pacifism.”²⁵

Common to each of the previous examples is a dialogue centered around the military and the potential for peace. This tension between military action and non-violent resistance, argues Neta Crawford, is a hallmark of feminist science fiction and fantasy.²⁶ Referencing such well known feminist authors as Sally Miller Gearhart, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, she enumerates how feminist science fiction and fantasy uncovers discourses that “constrain and dispose political actors” and “illustrates how other elements of culture and belief, especially ethno-centrism, militarism, and pacifism, constrain and dispose societies toward war or peace.”²⁷ Feminist themes, she argues, are not limited to feminist writers and thread throughout speculative fiction. Ender’s Game and its sequels, for example, unpack the horrors of ethnocentrism and genocide as Ender Wiggins matures from deceived military leader to interspecies peacemaker. Although not mentioned by Crawford, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy also grapples with matters of war and peace. Isolated from the tumultuous racial politics of Middle-earth, the elves of Rivendell and Lothlórien display an idealistic commitment to peace and nonviolent conflict resolution. Turning away from the ways of war, Elrond, Galadriel, and the elven nations represent the cultural potential possible when a people direct their collective attention to knowledge and healing.²⁸ Tolkien’s epic fantasy provides another example of peace in practice with the hobbits of The Shire. Hobbits, explain Abigail E. Ruane and Patrick James, “live in a world of peaceful cooperation” and show no tendencies for warlike behavior at all.²⁹ The television series Xena: Warrior Princess also espouses a call for pragmatic peace. The central narrative arc features Xena, a former warlord responsible for tens of thousands of deaths, as she travels a path toward redemption. Although never able to fully turn away from violence as her primary means of resolving disputes she, not unlike the characters of Star Trek and Lord of the Rings, finds herself in the regrettable position of utilizing violent action to pursue the “values of peace and justice.”³⁰

While the vast majority of science fiction texts focus on pragmatic peace, there are those articulating a more principled approach to nonviolent resistance. The Mobile Suit Gundam 00 series, for example, puts the tensions between armed conflict, pragmatic peace, and principled peace at the center of a multiple season storyline. The anime series’ central plot revolves around the attempts of a secret, non state affiliated paramilitary organization to “end war and terrorism by deploying its four Gundam combat machines … against any bloc, nation, or group that attempts aggression.”³¹ While the paramilitary organization, Celestial Being, fails to bring peace through force, one of the Gundam jocks encounters a character committed to principled peace founded on dialogically enacted understanding. The Gundam pilot, Setsuna, finds himself transformed by his engagement with Princess Marina’s position and embraces the “logic of peace through understanding.”³² Reading close parallels between the series and the global events of the early twenty-first century (e.g., terrorism, invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan), William Ashbaugh and Mizushima Shintarou interpret Mobile Suit Gundam 00 as a scathing critique of aggressive U.S. American foreign policy. By series end, Setsuna’s newfound commitment to principled peace brings a cessation to hostilities, an ending that calls viewers to consider peace through dialogue as a viable alternative to war.

Another text exploring the tension between military conflict and peaceful resistant is Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. Given her participation in Code Pink’s early antiwar actions, Starhawk’s 1993 near future science fiction novel offers a speculative glimpse into how an established community might resist armed invasion and occupation. The story depicts an egalitarian community organized around communal respect and responsibility for the four sacred things: earth, air, fire, and water. A society centered on the four sacred things liberates human spirit, the fifth sacred thing, and invites inhabitants to embrace an ethic of care: care for the Earth, care for the environment, care for others, and care for the self. An important dimension of this care is a principled approach to nonviolence. When an invading army descends on the utopian community and murders several inhabitants, community members struggle to resist the urge to counter violence with more violence. After a passionate debate the community resists the temptation to answer in kind, haunts the soldiers with stories of those killed, and even extends the hand of hospitality to soldiers who will lay down their arms and embrace the path of nonviolence. Starhawks portrayal of non-violence emphasizes that pacifism should not be confused with inaction. A turn to nonviolent resistance, her novel suggests, is not a concession, an indication of weakness, or an expression of apathy. Nonviolent resistance is a calculated action designed to confront and disrupt traditional power structures, structures all too familiar with violent resistance. When one encounters an alternative consciousness and experiences “the power of shifting perspective rather than getting trapped in habitual descriptions and positions,” a potential transformation arises.³³ As Joan Haran suggests, the attempt to foster peace, justice, and social transformation by way of nonviolent resistance requires constant self-reflection, critical discernment, public dialogue, and principled action.³⁴

The rest of this chapter examines how the writings of Jeannette Rankin, as well as the popular culture portrayals of Padmé Amidala and Satine Kryze, encourage personal self-reflection and issue a call for public deliberation over questions of war and peace. As all three individuals make either pragmatic or principled calls for peace, several questions come to mind. How is peace, as Rankin suggests, a woman’s job? In what ways do their respective calls for peace encourage audiences to evaluate and assess historical and contemporary war efforts? How is war situated as a social and geopolitical problematic? How is peace offered as a solution? How is peace situated as a women’s job? What is the telos of peace? How does each articulate her call for peace? Who is responsible for giving voice to new ways of conceptualizing peace? In the next section of this chapter, I turn my attention to those characters—both historical and science fictional—who offer the possibility for transformational thinking.

“Peace is woman’s job”

On April 6, 1917, Jeanette Rankin joined 49 colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives and cast a “no” vote on the question of U.S. American entry into World War I; 24 years later, after a long absence from Congress, Rankin cast the sole “No” on the question of war with Japan. Given the historical framing of both World War I and World War II, one might deem Rankin’s votes the work of an out-of-touch contrarian, a radical, or even a traitor. She was, of course, denounced as all of these by her many detractors over the years. The arc of her life work, however, suggests she could not have voted otherwise. Reflecting on her first “no” vote she said, “I wanted to stand by my country, but I could note vote for war. I look back with satisfaction on that momentous occasion.”³⁵ Grounded by the Montana ranch land where she was born and raised, fired by the political activism of the suffrage movement, and infused with the engaged pacifism of the peace movement, Rankin displayed the pioneering work ethic, stubborn ideological commitment, and penchant for public service necessary for congressional campaigns and social advocacy. As Joan Hoff Wilson documents, Rankin became enamored with women’s suffrage in her early thirties and campaigned for the right to vote in both Washington state and her home state of Montana. Six years later, she channeled her political energy into her 1916 congressional campaign, a campaign which she won. Although she left the House of Representatives after a single term (1917–1919)–Rankin asserts her “no” vote made it impossible to run for an immediate second term—she returned to the nation’s capital after a successful election in 1940 (1940–1942).³⁶ The interim twenty years provided Rankin ample opportunity to hone her pacifist arguments as a member of several peace organizations: “the National Committee on the Cause and Cure of War, the Women’s Peace Union, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), and finally the National Council for the Prevention of War (NCPW).”³⁷ James J. Lopach and Jean A. Luckowski suggest Rankin’s intense involvement in various peace organizations cemented her position as “an absolute pacifist” whose second congressional campaign “would be seen as a vote on war.”³⁸ Reflecting on her opposition to U.S. involvement in World War II, Rankin described the inevitability of her vote:

This time I stood alone. It was a good deal more difficult than it had been the time before. Yet I think the men in Congress all sensed that I would vote “No” again. If I had done otherwise, I do not think I could have faced the remaining days in Congress. Even the men who were most convinced that we had to get into the war would have lost respect for me if I had betrayed my convictions.³⁹

Her second high profile antiwar vote cast, Rankin established her credentials as one of the United States’ most committed peace activists, credentials she continued to display after she left office.

Rankin retired from politics in 1942–she felt her war vote once again ended any chance of reelection—but continued to work for “the permanent abolition of war.”⁴⁰ She remained uncharacteristically quiet during the Korean conflict, observes Joan Hoff Wilson, but she never lost faith in the cause of peace.⁴¹ She attended conferences, traveled to India several times to study passive resistance as articulated by Gandhi, argued for election reform (e.g., direct presidential elections rather than the electoral college), emerged as a public opponent of the Vietnam war during the late 60s and early 70s, and continued to champion the antiwar cause until her death on May 18, 1973. In the four decades since her death, Rankin’s voice continues to reverberate through the feminist antiwar movement as evidenced by a 2001 A. J. Muste Institute publication collecting key manuscripts from the arc of her activist career.

The essays collected in the Muste Institute pamphlet capture Rankin’s lifelong rhetorical efforts to denounce war and promote peace. Throughout her rhetoric, Rankin was unequivocal and unwavering in her criticism: war is a “stupid and futile” practice supported by “dull and unimaginative” individuals incapable of grasping the threat systematic violence poses to civilization.⁴² Many individuals, particularly those in Washington, D.C., failed to grasp the “stupidity, waste, and futility of war.” Rankin rejected the inevitability of war and positioned armed struggle as only one of several conflict resolution techniques available to the global community. Describing war as “a method, a method of attempting to settle disputes,” is important to her advocacy for peace as it suggested all people and nations might choose other methods to solve problems.⁴³ She made it clear that warfare is a flawed method, one that should be rejected outright rather than embraced unconditionally. She wrote, “the use of violence and force is an abnormal method which must be abolished from human affairs.”⁴⁴ Her description of war as “abnormal” deserves extended attention. The term “abnormal” situates armed struggle as atypical or irregular, a practice outside the norm. While her rhetoric acknowledged that warfare has long been considered a viable means of mediating international conflict—she made numerous references to such historical conflicts as the American Revolution, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam—she also denounced war as an unnatural human state. In other words, despite humanity’s history of armed conflict, war is neither inevitable or unavoidable. War is the aberration rather than the norm. Rankin avoided grandiose claims about a utopian existence free of conflict, differences of opinion, or even international disputes. She, like Bakhtin, considered conflict a normal part of human social life. While conflict is normal, war is not.

If war is a destructive deviation from the human norm, why is war accepted as a common practice in international relations? Turning to history for an explanation, Rankin referred to the contemporary propensity for armed conflict as a war habit, an involuntary, conditioned response occurring with little or no conscious thought. In one essay she compared the U.S. American war habit to driving a car: just as an accomplished driver gives little thought to the complicated responses required at the moment of an emergency—letting up on the accelerator, depressing the brake, steering around an obstacle—political leaders utilize the weapons of war without thinking. And while such habits might benefit one on the road, a reflexive response to an international crisis might lead to significant consequences. She attributed the habitual nature of war to both past and current influences when she wrote:

The war habit comes to us through long traditions and history and teaching. We are unconscious of how many war habits we have and our method of perpetuating them. All our history and our music and our art and literature and family traditions and loyalties are tied up in war.⁴⁵

Immersed in a culture valorizing armed conflict, she characterized her colleagues in the House of Representatives who voted for war as embracing tradition in a time of international anxiety. Unfortunately, Rankin argued, these uncritical reactions only reinforced the misguided choice to utilize violence in an effort to stem violence. She pointed out the historical ineffectiveness of war when she described violence as “disappointing for those who follow the will-o-wisp of using war for idealistic purposes. The last ‘war to end war’ should have taught us that we can’t end war that way. Wars pave the way for more war.”⁴⁶ The compounding nature of war, she suggested, contributes to a pervasive U.S. American war system.

The systemic nature of war extends beyond actual battlefields; the economic, social, and political consequences wend and wind throughout culture influencing communities, family, and national identity. From “laudatory monuments” to “compulsory military training” to “appropriations of the people’s money to pay for these activities that make for war,” every member of the electorate finds himself or herself ensnared within the insidious war system.⁴⁷ Rankin raised concerns about the extensive military industrial complex, “scattered all over the United States,” springing forth as a result of preparing for, and waging, two world wars.⁴⁸ She called attention to widespread congressional arguments regarding the need for military bases, munitions factories, and the ideological desire to make the world safe for democracy. She criticized “peacetime expenditures for war” as an obvious precursor to war itself and chastised “war profiteers” for pushing the country toward armed conflict.⁴⁹ Her argument here is clear: a person with a weapon will eventually use it.

Another point Rankin made abundantly clear was that war and the war system were not just a habit but a masculine habit. In other words, Rankin held men responsible for warfare and the related war system. Her election to the House of Representatives marked the first time a woman’s voice joined the formal conversation regarding a declaration of war. Her presence in Congress, she asserted, offered women the opportunity to counterbalance the war habit so intertwined with the masculine propensity for violence. She argued men “have a deeply rooted belief that ultimately the only way to get something is to take it away from somebody else. They are temperamentally competitive.”⁵⁰ Reflecting on her vote against entry into World War I, Rankin tied the aforementioned war habit to masculine enculturation. When it came time to vote, many men in Congress fell back on their culturally and historically reinforced predispositions toward competitiveness, aggression, and violence. Rankin brought the distinction between the masculine and feminine approaches to conflict resolution into sharp contrast when she attributed her own vote against war to the peace habits she cultivated during her involvement with the suffrage movement. She wrote, “Those Congressman who voted for war in 1917 were reacting to their war habits. I, on the other hand, through my previous experiences and study had never formed the war habit and had developed peace habits…”⁵¹

Thus, Rankin draws a clear distinction between the habits of men and women in relation to peace. Men, she argued, display a tendency toward war; women, on the other hand, display a proclivity for peace. The difference between the predilection of men and women toward war and peace surfaces in a story she admitted to sharing frequently with Montanan high school students. Rankin recounted the supposedly true story of one of her school classmates who, as an infant, traveled to Montana “in a covered wagon across territory in which hostile Indians still roamed.”⁵² When the wagon train encountered a group of Native Americans, “The white men in the caravan ran for their guns.”⁵³ While the men armed themselves and prepared for a violent conflict, the mother of Rankin’s classmate took the infant boy out to meet the approaching group. According the Rankin, the Native Americans took this encounter with the infant boy and his mother as a “sign of trust and friendship” and “went on their way.”⁵⁴ Whether the story relates an actual event or not, the important element is the way Rankin portrays the reactions of the men as opposed to the women. The men, sensing a potential dispute or conflict, embraced their war habit and prepared for armed conflict. The mother, protected from the ways of war as was socially typical for women in the late nineteenth century, mediated the encounter with the peaceful skills at her disposal. Rankin reinforced this claim about the gendered habits of contemporary men and women when she asserted that “Half the human race does not fight, and has never fought.”⁵⁵ Her observations about women and war, however, should not be construed as support for immutable gendered behavior. Her rhetoric suggested an understanding of gendered norms that acknowledged the flexibility and fluidity of human behavior. Referencing historically celebrated women warriors like the Amazons and Joan of Arc, Rankin argued war is a learned behavior; women have proven they can embrace war culture as readily as men. As an advocate for peace, why would Rankin point out women’s capability to embrace violence? That a woman might learn the ways of war, means the opposite must also be true: “If women could take on so thoroughly the behavior of the fighting male, why should not men learn something in their turn from the non-fighting female?”⁵⁶ Indeed, she credited 49 of her colleagues in the House of Representatives—all men—for displaying the ability to resist the war habit and vote against entry into World War I.

While Rankin lauded her like-minded compatriots for resisting the drumbeat of war in 1917, she also maintained the culturally ingrained war habit would be difficult to overcome without the assistance of women. For Rankin, one of the largest hurdles to overcome in the move toward to widespread peace and nonviolence was the historical masculine bias toward armed conflict. She recognized the wholesale adoption of peace as a tremendous transformation in U.S. American foreign policy, one requiring an unprecedented political paradigm shift in the way the nation approached global disputes. Despite the weight of history, she asserted humans display a remarkable ability to adapt behaviors and adjust prevailing social contracts toward more just ways of governing and living. She wrote,

The idea that a world at peace has never yet existed need not deter us. Every day the world sees something come into existence which it never saw before. Correspondingly, our barbarous customs (and we must admit that we still have many surviving) are one by one outgrown and relegated to ancient days. There was a time when infanticide and parricide were not even against the law. This should hold encouragement for those who believe that war can likewise be overgrown.⁵⁷

Rankin’s mention of “barbarous customs” reveals a rhetor who understands war as an outdated practice inflicting significant physical harms on families and undermines the moral fabric of civil society. The national debate over war and peace, she argued, entailed more than a clash of differing philosophies, that the debate centered on the “welfare of my country.”⁵⁸ With “the highly coordinated and intricately adjusted affair known as civilization” at stake, peace “is not merely a theory, a hope, a pious wish. It is a stern and bitter necessity.”⁵⁹ The necessity for peace, and the obvious inability of male leaders to enact lasting peace, obligates women to take up the cause publicly. As Rankin asserted throughout a lifetime of advocacy, “Peace is woman’s job.”⁶⁰

By virtue of their cultural position as creators and protectors of life, women possess the necessary temperament and experience to function as a consistent voice for peace and the betterment of society. Tasked with the “lifework of producing human beings,” women exhibit a desire to nurture, educate, and protect the children they carry to term and mother throughout a lifetime. Her basic premise regarding the gendered expectations of women was clear: any to attempt to “deny life” is antithetical to those “who give life …”⁶¹ Rankin observed, however, that this maternal behavior and thinking extends beyond a woman’s own offspring and carries over into a care for the whole of society. She referenced the suffrage and temperance movements, movements populated largely by women and oriented toward addressing perceived social injustices and public health issues, as evidence for the culturally scripted maternal tendency to protect others. She made an explicit comparison between the dangers of consuming alcohol and the threat of war when she wrote:

What shall we say then of the nation which intoxicates itself with war (for war is largely intoxication) and allows the children of the nation to go underfed and undereducated? No doubt the poor “drunk” thinks that his course of conduct is inevitable, as the great nation is convinced that war is the only way even though it be a crime against childhood. The question is, how do women feel about it? Do they also feel that, with all apologies to suffering humanity, war is something that must still go on? Just as soon as they understand that war is something which belongs in the same class as a destroyer, they will find a way to make war less popular, to outlaw it, and eventually end it. As the strength of parental feeling grows in men, not merely as individuals but as citizens, they too will see the possibilities of a world without war.⁶²

At the heart of the drunk on war metaphor is the possibility of healing and rehabilitation. Rankin’s comparison between the impaired thinking of a drunkard and the impaired thinking of those who champion war rejected the perceived inescapability of each. Just as the overindulgent drinker might overcome his compulsion and find sobriety, the war hawk might overcome his addiction to violence and find lasting peace. In either case, women stand at the forefront of the cultural dialogue. If men are to rediscover their responsibility as active caretakers for both their families and the nation, women must show them the way.

As Rankin’s rhetoric made clear, the responsibility for articulating a consistent message regarding the possibility of peace—the intentional cultivation of a peace habit—rested almost solely with women. She asserted women must be “willing to work for peace in the same spirit in which they have worked for a democratic franchise.”⁶³ She questioned whether political leaders—a president, representative, or senator—possessed sufficient wisdom to make decisions in the best interest of ‘the people.” Recounting a high school speaking tour in 1939, a period during which she laid the groundwork for her second congressional campaign for the House of Representatives, Rankin spoke with students and pointed out the “futility of the war method as a means of settling disputes between nations.”⁶⁴ She encouraged these students to talk with their parents, to discuss her ideas about war, and write President Roosevelt directly. Rankin called students to embrace their civic identity as active members of a deliberating public and resist the temptation to allow a national leader the sole voice in embracing peace or leading a nation to war. Indeed, Rankin’s rhetoric suggests the leaders of her era were so enamored with armed conflict that they could not see another way forward.

As such, she called women to share their experience, to educate others about the ways of peace, and start the long and difficult process of peaceful transformation. In a piece titled “Peace Through Political Action,” she encouraged readers to keep working toward the inevitable adoption of peace: “We must never forget peace is coming—not through political leaders, but through the voter. The great value of political action lies in its power to educate the masses.”⁶⁵ This brief passage captures the prophetic spirit infused into Rankin’s rhetoric. Rankin’s prognostic writings predict change will come to pass provided the people to whom she’s speaking—mainly women—make the choice to stand against the cultural tendency toward war and proselytize for peace. If the cultural war system continues as status quo, the nation’s survival is at risk. A surety resonated through her words when she predicted peace would come to those willing to work tirelessly for that end. Predicated on the audiences’ willingness to take up the cause, just as they had when fighting for the vote, Rankin called all women to educate the voting public, to reach out to children, to other women, and to men, to do everything in their political power “to get to the people, the grass roots as the saying goes.”⁶⁶ The cultivation of a peace habit is “not made by voting on election day, but by continuous action three hundred and sixty-five days in the year.”⁶⁷ Put simply, Rankin urged women to educate others about the possibilities for peace. If national leaders and legislators lacked the political will and the practical wherewithal to break the war habit and embrace new ways of thinking and acting about international conflict, women must educate the general public and “encourage a spiritual awakening that will make it possible to see another way out.”⁶⁸

Thus, while Rankin called women to take the lead in agitating for peace, a convincing peace movement must arise from the will of the general electorate and manifest as pervasive public opinion. Women cannot be the only voice speaking against war: “Peace must come as expressed desire in the hearts and minds of the masses of the people everywhere.”⁶⁹ Engrossed by the war habit, the people of the United States must be taught (1) the peace habit and (2) the ways to articulate that peace habit to public leaders. When the electorate gives voice to “enlightened public opinion,” displays “devotion to the true ideals of democracy,” and participates in the crucial political task of self-governance, peace will become a viable alternative to war.⁷⁰ And if “governments derive their just power from the consent of the people,” leaders must listen to the cohesive voice of the people.⁷¹ In this spirit, Rankin instructed constituents to write their respective Representatives and Senators and engage him or her in an active conversation about matters of war and peace. She also stressed the importance of articulating public opinion through the ballot box. To make the voices of peace heard, citizens must vote as if “every vote cast is a vote for or against peace …”⁷² If the people speak persuasively, leaders must listen.

Calls for Peace in the Middle of The Clone Wars

As a character, Padmé Amidala has received a fair amount of scrutiny. According to Jeanne Cavelos, the prequel trilogy offers an inconsistent portrayal of character who is simultaneously “action hero and passive victim.”⁷³ Starting out as the action oriented Queen Amidala who readily adopts the role of freedom fighter to liberate her homeworld, she slowly transforms over the course of the prequel trilogy. The woman who once ruled a planet as Queen, fought alongside Jedi Knights in the gladiatorial arena of Geonosis, and debated galactic policy as a respected Senator, concludes her theatrical story arc as an acquiescent, ineffectual character who “loses her voice, her self, and her life.”⁷⁴ Despite Padmé’s shortcomings, Ray Merlock and Kathy Merlock Jackson point out it wasn’t all that long ago when finding a woman with any agency whatsoever was a rarity on the large screen. Despite her flaws, as well as the flaws of her on screen daughter Princess Leia Organa, Padmé helps make the Star Wars franchise a “better, safer, and a more tolerant, aware, and focused place.”⁷⁵ In fact, McDowell posits Senator Amidala’s call for diplomacy and cautious approach to increased militarism may be the most important voice in the prequel trilogy. He writes, “Hers is the voice of reason, of diplomacy, and that voice which the revelations in ROTS eventually suggest is not only the most insightful into what is transpiring politically but also perhaps the wisest.”⁷⁶ Senator Amidala’s wisdom is on full display in The Clone Wars.

Like Representative Jeannette Rankin and her two votes against war, Senator Amidala remains firmly committed to the pursuit of peace and diplomacy throughout the entirety of The Clone Wars series. Indeed, of all the characters represented, Padmé Amidala’s is the one who consistently works toward a peaceful resolution to the galaxy spanning conflict by calling for substantive political deliberations, increased interplanetary statecraft, and meaningful peace talks. For example, during a conference addressing the growing refugee crises resulting from the war Senator Amidala calls on attendees to “open channels of diplomacy so that we can end this war.”⁷⁷ In another episode, “Water War,” Senator Amidala serves as a neutral political observer in a disagreement over a planetary transfer of leadership. When negotiations between the Mon Calamari and Quarren reach a point of impasse and threaten to plunge to the two peoples into a planetary civil war, Senator Amidala attempts to de-escalate the conflict: “Please, we’re here to find a compromise. What can the Republic do to help keep the peace?”⁷⁸ Senator Amidala is no less ardent in her calls for peace when debating within the legislative arena of the Republic Senate. Deliberating a massive defense appropriations bill, a bill written with the intention of expanding the scope of the war by procuring another five million clone troopers, she rebukes her fellow senators for succumbing to a galactic version of Jeannette Rankin’s “war habit” and reminds them diplomacy might offer another path to the war’s conclusion.

Padmé: Members of the Senate. Do you hear yourselves? More money. More clones. More war. Say nothing of fiscal responsibility, what about moral responsibility? Hasn’t this war gone on long enough?

Senator: Senator Amidala, are you suggesting we surrender to the Separatists?

Padmé: Of course not. But negotiation might be a better course of action.⁷⁹

Amidala’s exchange in the Senate is an excellent example of her philosophy toward peace, war, and diplomacy. She implores her fellow senators to take a moment of self-reflection, examine the monologic tone of a debate centered around the all too similar outcomes of limited war or expanded war, and consider the possibility that they are so blinded by war that they cannot see alternatives to violence (e.g., statecraft). Also implicated in her comment regarding “moral responsibility” and the length of the war is a denouncement of war itself. No matter how just or righteous a war might seem, the destructive nature of war demands a responsible government do everything in its power—including diplomacy—to bring the conflict to a swift close. Reading Amidala’s character as an advocate for pragmatic peace, as someone who abhors war but understands there may be historical moments when armed conflict cannot be avoided, she rejects an expanded conflict and questions whether continued military action alone will achieve the Republic’s reunification. Her admonishment of the Senate reminds the viewer that reasoned discourse, applied at the right time and in the right context, may prove more effective than trying to overwhelm the enemy with insurmountable numbers of clones or outmaneuver Separatist vulture droids with the latest starfighters. As a pragmatic peace activist who participated in the military liberation of her homeworld, fought in the Battle of Geonosis (the first battle of the Clone Wars), and married a Jedi general, Senator Amidala is no stranger to armed conflict. She wields a blaster as deftly as a pen. Her ability to hold her own in a firefight aside, she positions peace as something toward which one should strive and attempts to address the political and material consequences of the galactic civil war wherever and whenever she can. She may not be able to achieve long lasting intergalactic peace but she can bring relief to a starving child, provide a safe home for a displaced refugee, or speak as the voice of the loyal opposition in the Senate.

In this sense, Senator Amidala displays a maternal responsibility for the people of the Republic, the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the Outer Rim, and beyond. In numerous episodes exploring intergalactic politics, Senator Amidala works toward resolving some of the socio-political problems facing the war-torn galaxy. From refugee crises, to planetary food shortages, to black market corruption, Senator Amidala’s character sheds light on the war’s ever increasing public impact. For example, after a terrorist attack on the Republic’s capital fast tracks the aforementioned war expenditure bill, a bill Senator Amidala managed to postpone while peace talks got underway, she once again faces her colleagues and attempts to redirect the conversation toward the impact on the Republic’s citizens. She reminds the Republic Senate to keep their attention focused on the people they serve, many of whom are experiencing great hardships because of the war. To drive this point home she tells a brief story about Senatorial aid Teckla Minnau and her family, a family who, as a result of limited governmental resources, experiences regular disruptions to basic services like energy and water. The senator criticizes her fellow legislators for preparing to divert even more money to the war effort, and away from the people, when she remarks,

The Republic always funded these basic services but now there are those who would divert the money to the war with no thought for what the people need to survive. If not for people like Teckla and her children who are we fighting for? My people, your people, all of our people, this war is meant to save them from suffering, not increase it…. It is our duty, and our responsibility, to preserve the lives of those around us by defeating this bill.⁸⁰

A public servant defined by her ethic of care, the Senator brings the tangible suffering experienced by those on the periphery of war into sharp focus. She serves as a touchstone for the inescapable tragedy of war that lurks in the background of epic space battles and dazzling lightsaber duels. Unlike Representative Rankin, who argued for peace as both an end and a means to that end, The Clone Wars renders Amidala as someone who hopes for peace but fixes her attention on addressing immediate public concerns. She advocates for peace pragmatically; she entreats both sides of the conflict to search for a peaceful resolution but appears more concerned with alleviating the suffering of those caught in the political, economic, and military crossfire of a galaxy at war.

Senator Amidala is not the only character who adheres to Jeannette Rankin’s reminder that “peace is woman’s job.” While Senator Amidala represents a commitment to pragmatic peace, Duchess Satine Kryze represents a principled commitment to peace. Unlike Padmé Amidala, a character who has received her fair share of attention by media critics and Star Wars scholars alike, Duchess Satine’s character remains largely unexplored. Duchess Satine Kryze, a pacifist head-of-state who aspires to lead her people, the Mandalorians, away from their warmongering past and toward a peaceful future, works with her council of ministers to rule the Mandalorian system democratically and justly. Declaring war “intolerable” and “an affront to life itself,” she refuses to participate in the Clone Wars, withholds support for either the Republic or the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and organizes and leads the Council of Neutral States, a loose conglomeration of nonpartisan systems.⁸¹ Her principled commitment to nonviolence, a position that manifested after her people suffered devastating casualties during a Mandalorian civil war, informs nearly every one of her appearances. Accused of idealism when she reasserts Mandalore’s neutrality before the Galactic Senate, the Duchess characterizes herself as “a pacifist” and the Mandalorians as “a people who have chosen nonviolent action.”⁸² When Duchess Satine Kryze makes an entrance, a debate regarding the morality of peace and war is soon to follow. Her support for nonviolence is inflexible and unquestionable; peace is always the way forward. Diverging from Senator Amidala, a character who espouses pragmatic peace, Satine advances peace as both a means and an end. In Satine’s first appearance on The Clone Wars, Mandalorian Prime Minister Almec describes the Duchess as a leader who “values peace more than her own life.”⁸³ And, in fact, she lives up to Almec’s assertion when she is kidnaped by a turncoat senator who threatens to blow up a starliner should anyone interfere with the abduction. Fearing a rescue attempt might pressure her kidnapper into detonating the bomb, thereby injuring or killing everyone on the starship, Satine tells her would be saviors to let the kidnapper’s plan unfold without interference. Although the attempted kidnaping ultimately fails, Satine’s willingness to sacrifice herself for the sake of others illustrates her commitment to maximizing the possibility of a peaceful resolution through peaceful resistance.

The most compelling aspect of the Duchess’s pacifism, however, is the unquestioning confidence she holds for the will of her people. Satine is portrayed as a leader who understands that her desire for peace, a desire springing from her commitment to the Mandalorian people, must be supported by public opinion. While she might be the figurehead for the Mandalorian peace movement, the real peace movement resides in the hearts and voices of the people. Mandalorian Deputy Minster Jerec says as much when he calls on his people to follow Satine’s lead and resist the temptation to invite the Jedi Knights to resolve an internal conflict: “We must have the temerity to stand strong in the name of peace…. We must listen to the Duchess Satine. If we do not, we will ultimately cause our defeat.”⁸⁴

The Duchess makes a similar argument when criticizing a Republic plan to intervene in Mandalorian politics despite protests against such action. Concerned that Republic intervention and occupation will make Mandalore a target for Separatist attack, thus dismissing the Mandalorian desire for neutrality, Satine castigates the Galactic Senate for circumventing her people’s “right to self-determination” and “attempting to force its will upon innocent people.”⁸⁵ In an argument with Obi-Wan Kenobi regarding the Republic’s propensity to involve itself wherever and whenever it pleases, Satine affirms the people’s right to self-determination, particularly in the face of military occupation, and wishes more citizens would “speak up when the Republic tramples on their rights.”⁸⁶ In other words, for principled peace to achieve its transformative potential, the people must internalize, articulate, and practice nonviolence in all facets of their lives. The people must not rely solely on their political leaders but must “speak up,” give voice to their political will, and participate in dialogues centered around matters of public consequence. A philosophical commitment to peace—the Mandalorian story arcs suggest the people of the system desire a change—requires the engaged political will of the entire polis. The people must not only heed the call of the government but must also check the government when it fails to stay true to guiding principles. For Mandalore to avoid a return to its violence past, the people must express a similar, principled commitment to peace. Duchess Satine’s character arc also points out the fragility of relying on the people to maintain a commitment to peace.

When the Mandalorian people find themselves besieged by the criminal Black Sun syndicate, Duchess Satine tries to rally her frightened people behind the banner of nonviolent resistance. She loses the will of the people when Pre Vizsla, a descendent of a prominent warrior clan from Mandalore’s violent past, appears on the scene and promises to eliminate the criminals by force. Pre Vizsla and his Death Watch troops eliminate the criminal threat, the people reject the pacifist teachings of the Duchess, and offer enthusiastic support for a return to Mandalore’s war system.⁸⁷ In spite of Pre Vizsla’s carefully orchestrated coup (the Black Sun attacks were part of Pre Vizsla’s plan), Duchess Satine continues to follow the path of nonviolence, acknowledges the will of her people, and steps down as Mandalore’s leader. Pre Vizsla’s rule is short lived, however, as he is deposed by yet another military coup and the Mandalorian people find themselves immersed in yet another violent civil war. The words of Deputy Minister Jerec true: the people’s inability to remain faithful to the cause of nonviolence brings a peaceful Mandalorian renaissance to a bloody end.

In his January 26, 2013, The Clone Wars season five, episode 15 (“Shades of Reason”) review, well known and respected TheForce.net new media journalist Eric Geller offers a scathing assessment of Duchess Satine’s pacifistic political philosophy and governmental rule. Critical of her government’s inability to respond to the threat posed by the Black Sun syndicate, as well as the political manipulations of Pre Vizsla and Death Watch, Geller asserts, “The irony of Satine’s situation could not have been lost on her: her pacifism had led to a weak police force and poorly-trained security guards.” He denounces her commitment to nonviolence as a “naive, impotent political philosophy” and accuses her of lacking the “courage to abandon her ideology when it really counted.” The blame for Mandalore’s fall rests almost entirely on the Duchess’s inability to respond militarily. While Geller’s literal interpretation is one way to understand Satine’s broader character act, I want to offer an alternative, allegorical reading. Given the continual emphasis on Satine’s respect for the will of the people, Mandalore’s return to violent militarism rests firmly on the shoulders of the people. Satine’s numerous depictions as the voice of the Mandalorian people makes this abundantly clear. Rather than a literal indictment of Duchess Satine and pacifism as a political philosophy, Mandalore’s descent into civil war is an allegorical commentary on the U.S. American public’s failure to maintain their composure and resolve when confronted with pain, hardship, and fear. It strikes me that a parallel exists between the animated narrative of the Mandalorian people and the real-life, post–9/11 U.S. American response. Horrified by attacks on the World Trade Center towers, as well as the Pentagon, an enraged U.S. American people went all in on President Bush’s plan to “hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.”⁸⁸ Few Americans protested as the Bush administration and a compliant Congress curtailed personal liberties through the Patriot Act, adopted a “with us or against us” approach to diplomacy, and opened up wars on two fronts. Experiencing anger and fear, U.S. Americans waived their flags as the government engaged in policies and actions many citizens eventually questioned. Righteous indignation fueled the desire for violent retribution and revenge, drowning out the more subtle and nuanced calls for a measured response grounded in diplomacy and even nonviolence. And while I would never assert that peace politics had any hope of gaining serious traction in the post–9/11 environment, I would suggest that the voice of peace as articulated by individuals like Representative Barbara Lee (CA)–the only person to vote against an authorization of force bill in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks—and groups like Code Pink, had they been taken more seriously in the broader dialogue, could have tempered the U.S. American military response.

Practitioners of Galactic Motherhood

On December 7, 2001, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a segment comparing the events of September 11, 2001, and December 7, 1941. While both days live in infamy in the U.S. American public imaginary, the segment turned away from the tragic attacks themselves and focused, instead, on the courageous votes of Jeannette Rankin and Barbara Lee. Jeannette Rankin, as I explained earlier, emerged as the sole voice against U.S involvement in World War II; Barbara Lee, situated by NPR as Rankin’s kindred spirit in the antiwar movement, voted against granting President George W. Bush nearly unlimited war making powers post–9/11. Although their acts remain separated by roughly sixty years, NPR brought the actions of these two women to the attention of the public square, thereby bringing their voices into dialogue with one another and also the public at large. Barbara Levy Simon, a professor of social work, made a similar association between the two women and their acts on the floor of Congress. She suggested both women,

had nourished themselves for years on a yeasty potion of feminist values, democratic fervor, and social work commitment. Although they were women of different generations and life circumstances, they nonetheless came to treasure and enact similarly the responsibilities of independent thought, vigorous debate, social reform, and spirited resistance to jingoism.⁸⁹

What I want to point out here is the way in which both NPR and Levy Simon bring a historical figure, and a contemporary political actor, into an active dialogue oriented toward the broader public square. In this same sense, the rhetorics of peace articulated by Jeannette Rankin and the characters of The Clone Wars, namely Senator Padmé Amidala and Duchess Satine Kryze, also intersect some sixty years later and invite audiences to contemplate peace, diplomacy, and contemporary U.S. foreign policy. My contention here is that when one encounters the Senator Amidala’s arguments for pragmatic peace, or Duchess Satine’s principled commitment to neutrality, one also enters a dialogue with Jeanette Rankin’s antiwar advocacy.

As illustrated throughout this chapter, Rankin’s powerful antiwar message—articulated in both deed and word—wends its way through the decades and finds itself rearticulated within the characters of Senator Amidala and Duchess Satine. For Jeannette Rankin, as for The Clone Wars, “peace is woman’s job.” All three women make clear their disdain for the widely accepted war system; war and the intertwined social, economic, and political institutions that normalize the practice are morally reprehensible, abnormal, and intolerable. Rankin and Satine complement one another particularly well with their principled approach to peace: peace is an ethical tenet, a means of accomplishing as well as that which must be accomplished. The two adopt an uncompromising position and make no allowance whatsoever for the prospect of a constructive war within a thriving, civilized polis. And while they invoke the war system they’re trying to overcome, their respective messages in the early to mid-twentieth century, as well as a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, foreclose the possibility of any choice other than peace. Their monologic claim—there is no allowance for differing opinions—insinuates that a rejection of peace dooms a civilization to failure. Rankin’s warning regarding the downfall of a civilization that does not adopt a full commitment to principled peace has yet to materialize. The storyline concerning Duchess Satine draws the opposite conclusion. Lacking the resolve to maintain a commitment to nonviolent resistance in times of crisis, the Mandalorian people turn away from peace and plunge themselves back into a familiar cycle of death and destruction. Similar to Rankin’s cautionary words throughout the twentieth century, The Clone Wars offers a clear indictment of the ease with which U.S. American lawmakers and citizens accept armed conflict as a reasonable tool in international relations.

The Clone Wars also offers another way of thinking about peace and diplomacy. Once again challenging the charge of black and white thinking and morality in the Star Wars galaxy, The Clone Wars’ Senator Padmé Amidala provides a pragmatic counterbalance to the historical and contemporary voices of principled peace. That is not to say the Senator rejects the notion of peace. On the contrary, she argues passionately for peaceful resolutions to various crises. Senator Amidala takes an approach to peace more in line with President Obama (see Chapter Four) than Representative Rankin when she acknowledges the Grand Army of the Republic is fighting for the good of the common citizen. She articulates her disdain for armed conflict and positions all war as morally problematic. At the same time, her rhetoric suggests there are times when war may be unavoidable, even necessary. In essence, Senator Amidala expresses more concern for the immediate welfare of those threatened by, or dramatically impacted, by war while Duchess Satine, who also expresses concern for her people, plays at a much longer game: the transformation of Mandalore’s war culture. The tension between Amidala’s pragmatic peace and Satine’s principled peace illustrates the dialogic complexity arising from The Clone Wars. Unlike Rankin’s rhetoric, which puts forth a contention grounded in absolute certainty, the narrative arcs of The Clone Wars offer contrasting positions grounded in multivocality. The dialogic intersection of the two characters and their related understandings of peace, asks audiences to consider the positions and come to their own conclusions. That is not to say, however, that all arguments regarding peace and war recognize the spirit of self-determination on the viewers’ part.

As part of a broader cultural dialogue, Rankin’s historical rhetoric and The Clone Wars contemporary discourse criticize the war system which pervades both real and fictional political landscapes. Whether its Rankin’s observation regarding the adulation of war and the sprawling U.S. American military industrial complex, or Amidala’s criticism of the Galactic Senate’s inability to consider negotiation as a reasonable course of action during a war appropriations debate, or Satine’s objection to the Senate’s rejection of Mandalorian neutrality—and thus the Mandalorian people’s right to enact a nonviolent solution to an internal problem—and the subsequent unilateral decision to invade and occupy the system, all three leaders reprimand their respective legislative bodies for engaging in a monologic debate. The one sidedness of each debate, a debate Amidala describes as revolving almost solely around “More money…. More war,” excludes a peaceful resolution before even considered. While Rankin’s arguments addressed the monologic deliberations around the conflicts of her historical era–World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War–Amidala and Satine offer allegorical critiques of contemporary U.S. American conflicts. In both historical and contemporary circumstances, antiwar rhetoric challenges the ease with which the nation’s resolve and resources are committed to war. When a nation’s people embrace a war habit, acquiesce to the monologic call to arms, and fail to engage in robust, multivocal debate, they give tacit consent to such potentially costly foreign policy decisions as invasion and occupation in the name of national security and nation building (e.g., Afghanistan and Iraq). Often overlooked in these limited debates–Rankin, Amidala, and Satine articulate a concerted message on this point—are the significant harms to those responsible for fighting the wars and those victimized by the wars. Soldiers die or suffer significant injury (as do their friends and families), drained economies result in fewer services for citizens, and people find their personal rights curtailed. Such injuries and inconveniences demand action from the people.

Given the monologic nature of the debates concerning war and peace, both Rankin and The Clone Wars turn away from the transformative potential of political leaders and legislators and argues any real shift in policy begins with the people. Particularly important for this chapter are the explicit and implicit arguments positioning women as potential peacemakers. Rankin’s message spells out the deliberative role for women directly. Unable to trust male leaders mired in a destructive war habit, Rankin appeals to women to take up their place as advocates for a national peace habit. Transforming national foreign policy from one grounded in violence to nonviolence requires women from all societal ranks to serve as educators. Rankin solicits all those with a vested interest in avoiding armed conflict—which would include everyone in civilized society—to raise their voices and (1) help the general population understand peace as a viable, and desirable, alternative to war and (2) teach the people how to share their will with political leaders. Only when public opinion reverberates with support for peace will leaders be moved to abandon their war habits.

While The Clone Wars does not differentiate between the war habit and peace habit of men and women as explicitly as Rankin, the representations of Senator Amidala and Duchess Satine as peacemakers do suggest a similar distinction. Senator Amidala and Duchess Satine receive significant attention in terms of the number of episodes in which they appear and the screen time within those episodes. Compared to the masculine characters with whom they interact—politicians and Jedi Knights who, for the most, are men—these two women spend a disproportionate amount of time advocating for a peaceful end to The Clone Wars. Though one takes a pragmatic approach and the other a principled approach, both Senator Amidala and Duchess Satine make repeated efforts to interject peaceful, diplomatic efforts into the public dialogue. No matter their approach, the two characters attempt to protect their people from the ravages of war. They insist on vigorous debate within the Galactic Senate, create alternative political organizations intended to promote peaceful dialogue and maintain neutrality, defend the rights and services of the people, and encourage the people to engage in similar practices.

The gendered nature of the positions articulated by Rankin and The Clone Wars calls to mind the principles associated with republican motherhood. Not to be confused with the conservative political ideology of the Republican party, the ideology of republic motherhood sprang forth from Enlightenment ideals concerning women and their evolving role in the political community. Never afforded the “possibility of political equality” in the contemporary sense, American women of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries inhabited an “important role as protectors of society’s morals and manners.”⁹⁰ The political landscape denied women the right to vote, a denial Jeannette Rankin worked furiously to change, but also expected women to act as moral conscience to their husbands and teacher of civic virtue to their children (particularly young men). Thus, while American women did not achieve the right to vote until August 18, 1920, American women presumably exerted considerable influence on political thought and action. In their examination of the rhetoric of American first ladies, Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Diane M. Blair observe vestiges of republican motherhood continue to resonate throughout the contemporary public square. As evidence the authors point to the political ideology on display as various first ladies “championed such commitments as volunteerism, moral citizenship, beautification, health, and education”⁹¹ Their rhetoric and representations infused with an ethic of care, I want to suggest the dialogic rhetoric between Rankin and The Clone Wars gives rise to a galactic motherhood. Harkening back to Ruddick’s maternal thinking as a potential path toward peace, Rankin, Amidala, and Satine participate in the rhetorical accomplishing of values fundamental to peacemaking. Despite the differing philosophical positions, as well as the rhetorical minutiae and historical distance separating the rhetors, Rankin and The Clone Wars interacting dialogically, calling viewers to consider the possibility of peace in times of war. In “fomenting suspicion of violence and inventing nonviolent action,” the two texts work independently and collaboratively and urge listeners to adopt their rightful role as political arbiters and agitators.⁹² The galactic mothers appeal to a sense of communal care and responsibility as they encourage the people to adopt a peace habit, challenge political leaders to temper the predisposition toward war with purposeful diplomatic pursuits, and actively defend the rights of themselves and others. Although the peaceful rhetoric of Rankin and The Clone Wars did not lead to the cessation of hostilities, and probably won’t anytime soon, the reminder that the war habit is not the only way of seeing and acting in the world points toward a hopeful horizon where humanity values creation rather than destruction, advancement rather than stagnation, and peace rather than war.