The symbol
originally designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement is now widely
used.
A number
of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and
contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by
early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized
by Pablo Picasso after World War II. In the 1950s the "peace
sign", as it is known today, was designed as the logo for the
British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and adopted by anti-war
and counterculture activists in the United States and elsewhere. The
peace sign was first used in the United States.
The olive
branch
The use of
the olive branch as a symbol of peace in Western civilization dates at least to
the 5th century BC. The olive tree represented plenty, but the ancient Greeks
believed that it also drove away evil spirits. The olive branch was one of the
attributes of Eirene, goddess of peace.
The Romans
believed there was an intimate relationship between war and peace. Appian describes
the use of the olive-branch as a gesture of peace by the enemies.
The dove and
olive branch
The use of a
dove and olive branch as a symbol of peace originated with the early
Christians, who portrayed the act of baptism accompanied by a dove
holding an olive branch in its beak and also used the image on
their sepulchers. The dove appears in many funerary inscriptions in
the Roman catacombs sometimes accompanied by the words in pace.
Christians
derived the symbol
of the dove and olive branch from two sources: Greek thought, including its use
of the symbol of the olive branch and the story of Noah and the
Flood. The story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible ends with a passage describing a dove
bringing a freshly plucked olive leaf a sign of life after the Flood and of
God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land. Jews never used Noah's
dove and olive leaf as symbols of peace.
In the
earliest Christian art, the dove represented the peace of the soul rather than
civil peace.
The broken
rifle
The broken
rifle symbol is used by War Resistance International (WRI). In 1915 it appeared on the cover of a pamphlet, Under
the Broken Rifle. The (German) League for War Victims, founded in 1917, used
the broken rifle on a 1919 banner.
In 1921,
Belgian workers marching through La Louvrière on 16 October 1921, carried flags
showing a soldier breaking his rifle.