Converting weapons to peaceful civilian applications
This article is about converting military technology. For the American veterans' NPO, see
Swords to Plowshares
. For the Bible verse where the term originates, see
Isaiah 2
.
Swords to ploughshares
(or
plowshares
) is a concept in which military
weapons
or technologies are converted for peaceful civilian applications.
The phrase originates from the
Book of Isaiah
chapter 2
:
Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the
L
ORD
, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ?
The
ploughshare
(
Hebrew
:
???
’e?
, also translated
coulter
) is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit humankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the
sword
(
Hebrew
:
?????
?ere?
), a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use.
In addition to the original Biblical Messianic intent, the expression "beat swords into ploughshares" has been used by disparate social and political groups.
A past example from the period 1993 continuing to 2013 is the dismantling of
nuclear weapons
and the use of their contents as fuel in civilian electric
power stations
, the
Megatons to Megawatts Program
.
Nuclear fission
development, originally accelerated for
World War II
weapons needs, has been applied to many civilian purposes since its use at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including electricity and
radiopharmaceutical
production.
Biblical references
[
edit
]
Beyond the above usage in the Book of Isaiah, this
analogy
is used twice more in the
Old Testament
/
Tanakh
, in both directions:
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weakling say, “I am a warrior.”
This is the opposite of what Micah says in Micah 4:3 (see below).
He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
An expression of this concept can be seen in a
bronze
statue in the
United Nations
garden called
Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares
, a gift from the
Soviet Union
sculpted by
Evgeniy Vuchetich
, representing the figure of a man hammering a sword into the shape of a plowshare.
Confucianism
[
edit
]
James Legge
's translation of
Analects of Confucius
includes a story of
Confucius
asking his disciples to list their aims, resulting in praise for the virtue of
Yan Hui
:
[1]
At last came Yen Yuan, who said "I should like to find an intelligent king and sage ruler whom I might assist. I would diffuse among the people instructions on the five great points, and lead them on by the rules of propriety and music, so that they should not care to fortify their cities by walls and moats, but would fuse their swords and spears into implements of agriculture.
?
"Chapter V, Section III: His Immediate Disciples",
Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean
(1892)
Practical applications
[
edit
]
- After World War II,
military surplus
AFVs
were sometimes converted into
bulldozers
, agricultural, and logging tractors, as seen in the American television series
Axe Men
.
[2]
Two are currently preserved at the
Swords and Ploughshares Museum
in Canada.
[3]
[4]
French farmers sometimes used modified versions of the obsolete
FT-17 tank
, and similar vehicles, based on the
T-34 tank
, remain in widespread use in the former USSR.
[5]
A British agricultural engineer and collector of classic tractors, owns a
Sherman tank
that was adapted to plow Lincolnshire's fields in response to the shortage of
crawler tractors
.
[3]
- From the 1970s onward, several
anti-war
musicians have played guitars made from
military surplus
weapons. Jamaican
reggae
star
Peter Tosh
famously owned a
Fender Stratocaster
built around an
M-16 rifle
.
[6]
In the present day the
Escopetarra
, a guitar converted from the
AK-47
, is the signature instrument of
Cesar Lopez
,
Souriya Sunshine
, and
Sami Lopakka
of the Finnish
death metal
band
Sentenced
.
[7]
- Nitrogen mustard
, developed from the chemical weapon mustard gas developed in World War I,
[8]
became the basis for the world's first
chemotherapy
drug,
mustine
, developed through the 1940s.
[9]
- Peaceful nuclear explosions
, the application of nuclear detonations to civilian applications such as excavation and mining, explored by the USA (
Project Plowshare
) and USSR (
Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy
). However, the
nuclear fallout
and other contamination produced quickly rendered such programs impractical.
- Swedish aid organization IM Swedish Development Partner launched
Humanium Metal
, using metal from illegal handguns to create everyday objects. The first product announced was headphones by Yevo.
[10]
- The
Global Positioning System
was originally developed to enable more accurate strikes with long-range weapons by the United States, but its purpose was later expanded to include civilian applications such as
personal navigation assistants
.
- The
Plowshares movement
(British, Christian, founded by
Daniel Berrigan
),
Trident Ploughshares
(British) and
Pitstop Ploughshares
(US, Christian) are peace movements, inspired by the book of Isaiah, in which participants attempt to damage or destroy modern weapons, such as nuclear missiles.
- The
Megatons to Megawatts Program
, agreed to in 1993 by the
United States
and
Russia
, successfully converted 500 metric tonnes of fuel from Soviet-era nuclear warheads into fuel for
nuclear power plants
over a period of 20 years.
[11]
In political and popular culture
[
edit
]
- The
Starry Plough
, a flag associated with revolutionary
Irish republicanism
and socialism, features a sword as the plowshare.
- Twelve-term US Congressman and three-time presidential candidate
Ron Paul
wrote a book entitled
Swords into Plowshares: A Life in Wartime and a Future of Peace and Prosperity
, in which he discusses growing up during World War II and living his life through war after war.
[12]
- In his
farewell address
, U.S. President
Dwight Eisenhower
, when speaking about the
military?industrial complex
, stated:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences world-wide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien than war and the threat of war?
Melting down all metals, turning plows and shears to swords
Shun words of the Bible, we need implements of war
Chalklines and red puddles of those who have been slain
Destiny, that crooked schemer, says the dead shall rise again
And everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid,
Everyone neath their vine and fig tree
shall live in peace and unafraid.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
And into ploughshares beat their swords
Nations shall learn war no more.
O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Create a world with no fear
Together we'll cry happy tears
See the nations turn
Their swords into plowshares
They will live again in freedom
In the garden of the Lord.
They will walk behind the ploughshare,
They will put away the sword.
The chain will be broken
And all men will have their reward.
Don’t stop after beating the swords
into plowshares, don’t stop! Go on beating
and make musical instruments out of them.
Whoever wants to make war again
will have to turn them into plowshares first.
- Guns into Plowshares
, a sculpture by
Mennonite
artists Esther Augsburger and Michael Augsburger
- The marketing slogan used by the fictional
Globotech Industries
in
Small Soldiers
, serving as the introduction to the movie, and foreshadowing the central plot of smart ballistic missile guidance microprocessors being mistakenly used in children's toys.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Confucius (2012).
Confucian Analects, The Great Learning, and The Doctrine of the Mean
. Translated by Legge, James. ACLS Humanities E-Book.
hdl
:
2027/heb09336.0001.001
.
ISBN
978-0-486-12292-2
.
- ^
Templar, Simon (11 October 2015).
"Civilian Shermans: after the war ? they went to work..."
Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
a
b
Spoelstra, Hanno.
"Shermans into ploughshares"
.
web.inter.nl.net
. Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
"The Swords And Ploughshares Museum"
.
www.calnan.com
. Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
"BBC NEWS ? Monitoring ? Media reports ? Ukraine turns tank into tractor"
.
news.bbc.co.uk
. 19 October 2002
. Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
"More Than Music: Peter Tosh And His M16 Rifle Guitar"
. Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
UNODC.
"UNODC Perspectives No. 3 ? Escopetarra: Instrument of peace"
.
www.unodc.org
. Retrieved
11 June
2017
.
- ^
United States Department of State
,
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance
;
United States Department of Commerce
,
Bureau of Industry and Security
(May 2004).
"Introduction to Industry Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention"
(PDF)
. cwc.gov.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link
)
- ^
Gilman A (May 1963). "The initial clinical trial of nitrogen mustard".
Am. J. Surg
.
105
(5): 574?8.
doi
:
10.1016/0002-9610(63)90232-0
.
PMID
13947966
.
- ^
Kleinman, Zoe (2018).
"Illegal guns turned into headphones"
.
BBC News
. Retrieved
2018-01-15
.
- ^
"Megatons to Megawatts program will conclude at the end of 2013 ? Today in Energy ? U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)"
.
www.eia.gov
. Retrieved
2020-04-02
.
- ^
Paul, Ron (17 July 2015).
Swords into Plowshares
. Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
ISBN
978-0996426503
.
- ^
United Press International (UPI) (20 January 1973).
"Protestors' shouts mar inaugural ceremonies"
. Retrieved
18 October
2017
.
- ^
"These Are the Bible Verses Past Presidents Have Turned to on Inauguration Day"
.
Time
.
- ^
Ross, Scott (21 January 2013).
"Obama's Inaugural Bibles: Lincoln, MLK"
.
NBC 6 South Florida
. Retrieved
18 October
2017
.
- ^
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter
. Office of the Federal Register. 1979. pp. 518?520.
- ^
"Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Archives"
. UTexas.edu. 1987-09-21
. Retrieved
2013-01-01
.
- ^
Concepts, Lucid Design.
"Megadeth"
.
Megadeth
. Retrieved
2021-12-22
.
- ^
"Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp Songbook"
. Fredsakademiet.dk
. Retrieved
2013-01-01
.
- ^
"Swords to Plowshares"
.
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