Dutch peace activist Mient Jan Faber died on 15 May. Combining strong Calvinist morality with reasoned analysis and an intuitive and empathetic understanding of people and their social and political contexts, he inspired a generation of peace and human rights activists across Europe.
I was active in European Nuclear Disarmament (END) and we worked closely together first in the peace movement during the 1980s and later in the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA) during the 1990s.
Many of us in the 1980s peace movement had grown up hearing stories of the Second World War, and especially the role of wartime resistance movements. Mient Jan’s father and uncle were both in the Dutch resistance, and one of his earliest memories was of his mother refusing an order from a German soldier to take down a picture of the Dutch queen from her wall. He was three years old and remembers standing by his mother in righteous indignation. The soldiers abandoned the order, leaving Mient Jan with a life-long faith in the power of appealing to conscience.
