"Beating swords into ploughshares" (or plowshares) is the conversion of military weapons or technologies for peaceful civilian applications. The phrase originates from Isaiah 2:4:
The ploughshare ( âÂÂêṯ, also translated coulter) is often used to symbolize creative tools that benefit humankind, as opposed to destructive tools of war, symbolized by the sword ( ḥereá¸Â), a similar sharp metal tool with an arguably opposite use. The rest of the passage similarly equates spears with pruning hooks.
In addition to the original Biblical Messianic intent, the expression "beat swords into ploughshares" has been used by various pacifist movements.
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
Beyond the above usage in the Book of Isaiah, this analogy is used twice more in the Old Testament/Tanakh, in both directions. In Micah, it is recited word for word:
In Joel, the opposite is said:
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
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:
Practical applications
- After World War II, military surplus AFVs were sometimes converted into bulldozers, agricultural, and logging tractors, as seen in the American television series Ax Men. Two are currently preserved at the Swords and Ploughshares Museum in Canada. 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. 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.
- 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. In the present day the Escopetarra, a guitar converted from the AK-47, is the signature instrument of César López, Souriya Sunshine, and Sami Lopakka of the Finnish death metal band Sentenced.
- Nitrogen mustard, developed from the chemical weapon mustard gas developed in World War I, became the basis for the world's first chemotherapy drug, mustine, developed through the 1940s.
- 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.
- 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.
In political and popular culture
- The name of a card in ', a popular trading card game.
- A poem by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai:
- Guns into Plowshares, a 1997 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.
- A "Swords into Ploughshares" badge was worn by Christian peace groups in East Germany. Wearers of the badge who refused to take it off were barred from educational and work opportunities by the state.
See also
References