Civilians in the line of fire
Thinking Allowed
BBC
4.4 • 997 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CIVILIANS IN THE LINE OF FIRE: Laurie Taylor talks to Nicola Perugini, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh, about the global history of human shields, from civil wars to Black Lives Matters. How have ordinary people come to be both voluntary and involuntary shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence? Also, war lawyers. Craig Jones, Lecturer in Political Geography at Newcastle University, discusses the way in which legal professionals have increasingly been invited to advise on military operations which were once the exclusive preserve of commanders. What implications has this had for the conduct of war, in general and the treatment of civilians, in particular? Why has it allowed for an extension, rather than a curtailment, of civilian deaths?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:30.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:36.0 | This is a Thinking Loud Podcasts from the BBC, and for more details and much, much more about |
| 0:42.2 | thinking aloud, go to our website at BBC.co. UK. UK. Aaron Copeland's fanfare for the common man. A piece of music that's been used sometimes |
| 1:08.2 | rather gratuitously to bolster any number of war films and television series, but was in fact quite specifically inspired |
| 1:16.0 | by a 1942 speech in which US Vice President Henry Wallace spoke of the urgent need for ordinary men and women to become heroes. |
| 1:26.0 | Well, it was an invocation that consciously or not has informed so many acts of civil disobedience. |
| 1:32.0 | Acts such as the 2016 protest at the Standing Rock Sioux |
| 1:36.1 | Reservation in the US in which several thousand veterans came together to protect |
| 1:40.9 | the Native American population from the development of an oil pipeline |
| 1:45.0 | that would risk contamination of their essential water reservoirs. They sing of tribal unity in a place that embodies the idea. More than 10,000 have come here from all over the world with this demand. |
| 2:07.0 | I want them to take every pipe out of the ground, repair the ground, put it back to the way it was, and stop this fossil fuel from |
| 2:17.4 | during destruction of our land and water. |
| 2:20.6 | Well that example of civil disobedience also provides a classic instance of human beings voluntarily |
| 2:27.8 | using their bodies as human shields. |
| 2:31.5 | And as I now know after reading a new book entitled Human Shields, A History of People in |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.