Activism

In Charing Cross Road in London in the 1950s, there used to be an elderly woman selling Peace News who stood on the pavement saying: [uses frail voice] “Pacifist paper. Pacifist paper.” And it put me off! Although I was interested in the peace movement and remember going to a big anti-bomb meeting in Hornsey town hall addressed by Alex Comfort among others, before CND was formed, to buy the paper seemed uncool, although I wouldn’t have used the term then. Of course I regret it now!
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Anti-war campaigner Brian Haw has lost his last appeal to keep his peace camp on the grass in Parliament Square, after the mayor of London was granted a possession order by the high court on 17 March.

The central green is controlled by the greater london authority (GLA), while the pavement surrounding the grass belongs to Westminster city council (WCC). Separate eviction proceedings brought by the WCC in relation to the pavement are due to come to trial before 9 May.

The 62-…

We have the EDL [right-wing English Defence League] coming to a nearby town this weekend and I’m really torn about going to the counter-demonstration because we came very unstuck campaigning against the BNP in the elections. My young son and I managed to “intimidate” the BNP candidate into not attending the hustings at the local town hall, which was great, and very thrilling. Then we went home to our little council house on our own, and they got their own back. Stuff thrown at the door,…

This topic of having to define yourself is something that’s not just worth exploring but something necessary for us to explore. In a way the census is a blessing because it forces us to have conversations that otherwise get pushed to the back of the cupboard.
Conversations around: “What is this thing called identity?” Personally, this is something I’ve found extremely debilitating, the fact that you have to choose between identities. It’s debilitating in activist movements, even in…

I’m currently in training for the London Marathon (more details here), a slightly mad endeavour which means putting myself through increasing long runs in and around Oxford. I tend to find I do a lot of musing as I run, and it crossed my mind the other week that my experience actually might be be of use in the event of getting caught in a kettle. Since there’s a rather big protest coming up this weekend with kettling…

Strongest experience of women’s solidarity? God, I probably think of doing stuff in Ireland. I was involved in Women in Ireland for a really long time. It wouldn’t have been about women’s issues, women’s rights. It was to do with the British occupation of Ireland, British soldiers on the streets.
We would go and stay in people’s houses in a very working- class area of West Belfast and then we’d all go on the International Women’s Day marches outside the prisons where there were women…

PN has permission to quote long-term anarchist organiser Ian Bone, a key figure in Class War in the 1980s: “I’ve never knowingly met a police spy, but we had loads of journalists trying to infiltrate Class War. They stood out a mile. The journalist would always be the first to buy a round.”

A letter appeared in the Guardian in January from a Philip Foxe: “The late Tony Cliff, leading light of the SWP, had a clear position on undercover police infiltration. He used to say: ‘It’s…

As it is the season of New Year Resolutions, we asked some people around the movements about their experiences of trying to change themselves, live more in accord with their values, or become better activists.

Wow. I’m just trying to think. Lately I’ve been developing…. I’m a complete newcomer, I’m more of a spectator at things, rather than taking an active role in things. I kind of see things in a critical eye. I don’t feel I have a place yet in society, well I do, but I’m trying to…

I don’t like the term unemployment because it is negative and stigmatising. Deliberately choosing not to be in conventional employment is a liberating choice, but there is not really a term for it.
The difficulty about not having a conventional job has been about having self-discipline with regards to paid work. Choosing to be in a state of low employment is about valuing time. I wouldn’t have been able to do Climate Camp or Bicycology if I hadn’t withdrawn from conventional employment…

I’ve never been to a festival. I don’t like big crowds.
Woman activist, Oxford

I used to go to Glastonbury, it looked like the Third World War at the end, all the mud, and it was a bit dispiriting. I prefer the smaller festivals like the Big Green Gathering. Some of them are really good meeting grounds for networking. Glastonbury already has facilities for campaigning so you can add your bit.

And some peace groups have jobs at festivals, like doing the lock-up at…

Sometimes I’ve been working with people, friends, who have very different ideas. For example, people who might say, sort of jokingly, but maybe they’re serious, that it would be fine if all people who worked in corporations disappeared. Angry anarchists; people who identify themselves as anarchists, I mean.

For me it’s not about the people, it’s about the systemic influences on people.

When I was abroad last, I worked together with people and we could agree on what had to be…

“This era saw PN publishing an anti-election manifesto in September 1974. ‘Don’t vote, it only encourages them,’ was the paper’s advice at the time of the earlier, February, election that year. PN’s disenchantment with electoral politics wasn’t new however.

“Back in the 1970 General Election, for instance, PNer Roger Moody has stood against Labour Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart in Fulham, as a protest against the government’s support for the Federal Nigerian government’s genocide…

We had a reunion recently after 20 years.

What was interesting was on two levels: people reflecting on what brought them into the action, into activism, the spark that brought us together; and then, 20 years later, seeing the different arcs those sparks drew in different directions and dimensions.

We were all drawn together for a moment from different paths and we all worked together, were active together, and then people went off in very different directions.

There were…

I don’t think I would label any of the emotions I have in relation to activism as “hatred”. But there are things that come close.

When I think of Tony Blair, it makes my blood boil, and I feel sick, but is “hate’ the right word? Maybe “hate” is too bland a word to capture my emotions towards people like that! Ah. There are people I really, really hate!

Bono. And Bob Geldof.

I don’t feel disgust towards them, like I do towards Blair, I actually hate them! Because of their…

I did meet my partner while we were organising a demonstration and we became close during that process. That was very important because we identified something that was very important to know about your partner: that we shared a vision of right and wrong and a willingness to do something about it – though probably more in his case.
They’re both similar things, activism and romance: they excite passion and commitment and you have to keep going at it even when you don’t feel like it!…