Module 5: Conscientious Objection and Draft Resistance

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this lesson you should be able to:

define conscientious objection to participation in war and identify the various group or individual motivations for choosing this stance;
differentiate religious versus secular positions and experiences;
compare historic and contemporary manifestations of this stance; and
reflect on what your own values/stance would be.

Stoesz, Conrad. "'This Thing Is in Our Blood for 400 Years': Conscientious Objection in the Canadian Historic Peace Churches During the Second World War." In Worth Fighting For: Canada’s Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror, edited by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney, pp. 93-105. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2015. (Course Reserves)
Stewart, Luke. "Rewriting History: Iraq War Resistors’ Struggle for Asylum in Canada and the Mythology of Vietnam." In Worth Fighting For: Canada’s Tradition of War Resistance from 1812 to the War on Terror, edited by Lara Campbell, Michael Dawson, and Catherine Gidney, pp. 215-27. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2015. (Course Reserves)