{"id":468,"date":"2023-02-23T23:03:25","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T23:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/ipra\/?p=468"},"modified":"2023-03-07T21:32:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-07T21:32:00","slug":"david-harris-and-the-politics-of-draft-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/ipra\/2023\/02\/david-harris-and-the-politics-of-draft-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"David Harris and the politics of draft resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Harris<\/a>, who died earlier this month at the age of 76, was a charismatic media figure and became a figurehead of draft resistance<\/a>. In that light, perhaps it is understandable that when he is spoken of today, even by people sympathetic to draft resistance, he is often used as a symbolic blank state onto which people project their own feelings about draft resistance \u2014 more than as a springboard for engaging with what he said. But that\u2019s unfortunate, given that he wrote so eloquently and prolifically about the ideas<\/em> underlying his draft resistance actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last three years, I\u2019ve been working on a review of the memoirs of draft resisters in the U.S. during the U.S. war in Vietnam. I\u2019ve tracked down published book length first-person narratives by more than 40 draft resisters from this cohort, including writings by David Harris<\/a> from the 1960s, \u201870s, \u201880s and \u201890s. Harris left one of the most extensive bodies of exposition and analysis of the motives, meaning and significance of draft resistance<\/a> of anyone to date in U.S. history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harris was an important influence on others who, like him, were subject to military conscription during the U.S. war in Vietnam. He was also a mentor to those of my own, younger, generation who were subject to draft registration when it resumed in the 1980s<\/a> \u2014 including those of us like myself, who were prosecuted and imprisoned<\/a> for resisting the draft, as Harris had been earlier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as I reflect on the lifeworks and words of this leading thinker and practitioner of resistance, I see several key lessons. In this article, I will focus on two of them: the importance of making our own history and draft resistance as anti-imperialist, anti-authoritarian and anti-ageist \u2014 not just anti-war. A third theme, resistance to the draft as resistance to a traditional concept of masculinity, has occasioned even greater controversy among activists over the years and warrants separate discussion in a follow-up article to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n