AHA Members Can Vote on Historic Anti-War Resolution March 1-9, 2007

In early January, after the AHA Business Meeting voted overwhelmingly to pass the anti-war resolution spearheaded by HAW members, the Executive Council of the AHA decided to accept the resolution but to send it to the membership for ratification. 

The resolution (click here for full text) lists ways in which the Iraq War has violated the historical profession’s values of free speech and open inquiry, and calls on AHA members to “take a public stand as citizens on behalf of the values necessary to the practice of our profession,” and to work to “bring the Iraq was to a speedy conclusion.”

All AHA members in good standing as of Feb. 13 are eligible to vote.  They will receive electronic ballots March 1 and will be able to vote at any time up to midnight March 9.  (Click here for a statement by the AHA president and executive director explaining the procedure.)

Please Help Us Get Out the Vote

As evidenced by the list of supporters printed recently in the on-line version of Perspectives magazine, and fuller lists to appear shortly both in the New York Review of Books and HNN (links soon to come), the Resolution continues to gain an impressive array of support from a broad and representative group of historians. Most of us remain convinced that there is an intimate connection between the war in Iraq and the erosion of civil liberties at home, including attacks on scholarly travel and exchange, the teaching of Middle Eastern history, and access to materials essential to the pursuit of historical research. 

This is a very important and contentious vote as evidenced by the AHA blog.  A vocal opposition is determined to derail the Resolution, insisting that the AHA and history have little or nothing to do with politics. 

We need all HAW supporters to help ensure that they are unsuccessful.  Contact all your sympathetic anti-war friends, colleagues, former teachers and students and ask them to vote positively on March 1. Take responsibility for contacting AHA members in your school/institution.

Only AHA members can vote and will receive an electronic ballot.  However, non-AHA members can play an equally important role by getting in touch with sympathetic AHA members, asking them to vote and ensuring that they help get others to vote.  Thanks in advance for your help and support.