"There is one criticism which cannot be leveled at interparliamentary conferences but which is applicable to a great extent to peace congresses: the meetings waste time"
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Bajer’s line lands like a polite dagger: it pretends to be a defense of interparliamentary conferences while quietly indicting an entire genre of “peace” gathering as performative drift. The first clause is pure strategic framing. By saying there is one criticism that cannot be leveled at interparliamentary conferences, he borrows the credibility of procedure, minutes, and mandates. Then he pivots, and the target snaps into focus: peace congresses, those grand, morally freighted assemblies where the rhetoric of harmony can substitute for the mechanics of agreement.
The intent is managerial, almost technocratic, but the subtext is moral. Bajer is not mocking peace as an aspiration; he’s warning that aspiration without institutional teeth becomes its own kind of indulgence. Interparliamentary conferences, by definition, tether talk to legislatures, budgets, and the stubborn continuity of statecraft. Peace congresses, especially in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe, often convened as spectacles of goodwill - heavy on ideals, light on enforceable commitments. “Waste time” is the bluntest possible verdict, and that bluntness is the point: it punctures the self-congratulation that can surround “peace” as a brand.
Context sharpens the edge. Bajer, a Danish peace advocate and Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient, operated in an era when arbitration movements and internationalist societies competed with accelerating militarization. His complaint reads less like cynicism than like urgency: if you’re serious about preventing war, you don’t just convene conscience; you build channels that can actually bind power.
The intent is managerial, almost technocratic, but the subtext is moral. Bajer is not mocking peace as an aspiration; he’s warning that aspiration without institutional teeth becomes its own kind of indulgence. Interparliamentary conferences, by definition, tether talk to legislatures, budgets, and the stubborn continuity of statecraft. Peace congresses, especially in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe, often convened as spectacles of goodwill - heavy on ideals, light on enforceable commitments. “Waste time” is the bluntest possible verdict, and that bluntness is the point: it punctures the self-congratulation that can surround “peace” as a brand.
Context sharpens the edge. Bajer, a Danish peace advocate and Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient, operated in an era when arbitration movements and internationalist societies competed with accelerating militarization. His complaint reads less like cynicism than like urgency: if you’re serious about preventing war, you don’t just convene conscience; you build channels that can actually bind power.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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