Vajrabandhu is a conscientious objector. An ordained member of the Western
Buddhist Order in Bethnal Green, East London, he was known before his
ordination as Darren Foster. He is a former Lance Corporal of the Royal Army
Medical Core from Gillingham, Kent. After seven years with the RAMC he bought
himself out of the Army, as he grew uneasy about the realities of
war:
"As a theatre technician I was dealing with the aftermath of Northern
Ireland. Then there was a massive explosion in a munitions store in Pakistan.
Some of the civilian casualties were treated in British military hospitals.
It was horrific and it sowed a seed of doubt about what the politicians were
doing."
Announcing that "There's no way I'm going to war", he was immediately
put
under military arrest.
In his appeal statement to the Advisory Committee on Conscientious Objectors,
he said: "I am beginning to be attracted to Buddhism as being the closest
expression of my own beliefs. Consequently I cannot accept the threat or use
of violent force as a tool in the furtherance of personal or
national objectives. I have no option therefore but to oppose the ethos of
force through the military community and would be unable to accept any substantive
or supportive role with it." Conscientious objection is as
old as religion. Its pacifist form in the Christian church takes biblical
precedent from the New Testament. In Matthew for example:
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do
good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you" (Matthew v, 44)
Modern conscientious objection emerged in response to the horrors of the
First World War.
Then, in the 1930s, as the threat of another war began to grow, there were
those who looked for alternatives to slugging it out.
Vulnerable to charges of cowardice and lack of patriotism, opposition to war
