Allan Hanson’s experience of Sept. 11 wasn’t so different from anybody else’s in Lawrence.

“Like everybody, I know exactly where I was,” he said. “I was shaving and listening to NPR when the report came in that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I turned on the television, and my wife and I watched it for the next several hours.”

Don Phipps of Lawrence is among 300 anti-war protesters marching from Buford Watson Jr. Park to South Park. The marchers demonstrated Saturday against President Bush's efforts to topple by force Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

What Hanson saw filled him with “horror, disbelief.”

But while many Americans immediately began to call for war against the terrorists, Hanson coordinator of the Lawrence Coalition for Peace and Justice did something different. He helped organize a peace march. The theme: “Respond with justice, not war.”

More than 150 people joined him.

“We were very worried that people, that the nation, would have a knee-jerk military response that would result in the death of a lot of innocent civilians somewhere,” Hanson said. “We wanted it to be recognized as a crime a hideous, huge, monstrous crime where the perpetrators would be brought to justice.”

Challenging belief

The past year, filled with war and rumors of war, has been tough for Lawrence’s pacifists.

“This is the first time since World War II, or perhaps the Korean War, that people holding the pacifist viewpoint have really been challenged,” said Philip Schrodt, a Quaker and Kansas University political science professor.

In wars since then, he suggested, nonviolence was not so widely rejected by the public.

This time around, though, the proximity of the attacks caused many pacifists to question their beliefs.

“It’s one thing to be a pacifist when other people are being killed,” said Thomas Heilke, a KU associate professor of political science. “It’s another thing when it’s you or your friends and neighbors.”

Some, like Hanson, have taken a remarkably nuanced view of the U.S. war.

“It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been,” he said. “The United States seemed to wait a considerable amount of time, to assure ourselves it was al-Qaida. Bush was saying to the Taliban, ‘Turn over Bin Laden.’ When they didn’t do it, then we did what we did.”

Others, though, are frustrated with how their views have been marginalized.

“The past year has been very disturbing,” said Elizabeth Schultz, a retired KU English professor. “It has been also terrifying. I believe that peace is patriotic. And I find myself living in a nation where it seems peace has become a forgotten alternative.”

Religious basis

For some, the justification for that alternative lies in their religious beliefs. The past year has prompted some Mennonites, Quakers, Brethren and members of other so-called “peace churches” to re-examine their theology.

“Pacifism isn’t being passive in a conflictual situation,” said Vicki Penner, pastor of Peace Mennonite Church in Lawrence. “Rather, it’s entering a conflictual situation grounded in knowing God’s love for everyone and using creativity to find solutions.”

Others use less religious terminology to explain.

“I’m a pacifist because I believe there are always alternative ways, creative ways, for negotiating with our fellow human beings,” Schultz said.

“I think that words can always serve us better than stones or guns or bombs even angry, vicious words can be taken back,” she said. “Once life is destroyed, it’s much harder to take things back.”

Many Americans, pacifists concede, find nonviolence impractical in the face of the Sept. 11 horror.

“I think it’s equally naive to think an escalation of violence will solve problems,” Penner said.

What they can do

It hasn’t been easy for pacifists to make their mark in the past year. Some, like Penner and other Mennonites, have gathered blankets and other aid for Afghan refugees.

Others have made financial contributions to peace organizations, written to Congress, joined in vigils and marched.

Some fear, though, that the war on terrorism may have only exacerbated Middle East tensions that led to the first attacks. Only time will tell.

“Nobody’s flown any more planes into buildings, and let us hope they don’t,” Schrodt said. “But is the threat any less than it was? Maybe, and maybe not.”.