Wednesday 9th November: Having started what I describe as my first full-time “proper adult job” I become even more aware of the enormous and important job we “peace makers” have to do. I can fit in my peace-making activities around the hours of work which are school hours, and the children I help are primary age and mainly Muslim in my particular school so the Peace issue raises to an even higher profile (for me).
The teachers are very positive and in the main swinging to the left…
UK Feminsta was founded in 2010 and Fem11, the national conference held on 12 November at Friends House, London was a gathering of over 1000 feminists. Mostly women with a smattering of men, and for the most part, women who don’t appear to meet the stereotype which may be responsible for some, particularly younger women, to proclaim: “I’m not a feminist”.
The keynote speaker was a very popular Sandy Toksvig who bemoaned the lack of suitable role model in children’s literature – “If…
In 1986 the French photographer Didier Lefevre travelled to Afghanistan with Médecins sans Frontières to document their work there in the midst of the Soviet occupation. This stunning non-fiction blend of Didier's text and photos and cartoonist Emmanuel Guibert's Tintin-esque drawings tells the story of their arduous journey across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the doctors’ work treating the victims of the war, and Didier's near-fatal return journey, following a foolish decision on his…
Since 2 October, a group of around 30-40 people have made an Occupy camp in Manchester city centre which is still growing. Its conception started at the same time as the TUC march against the Tory conference (which was held in Manchester from 2-5 October).
The camp began by taking over Albert Square and a few days later, when a food festival came to the square, occupiers negotiated with authorities to peacefully maintain a presence in one corner of the square with a stall and a tent.…
A sign at the entrance to the Defense and Security Equipment International arms fair warns that visitors must wear business dress. The pinstriped suits, school ties and polished shoes shroud the event in sham respectability. However, the dress code does not extend to sales staff. Here, the main aim is to entice.
Women's clothing Guns and bumsAfter much dithering, we ended up driving North on Sunday night heading for Dale Farm, ducking under the Thames at Dartford, and emerging in Essex, new and alien ground for us. Breaking right towards Basildon and then onto back roads, we were anticipating blocked roads and searches, and parked discreetly some distance from the site. We needn’t have worried. Walking in, there was an extraordinary air of calm, with a few quiet words of welcome and thanks from Travellers as we walked in the…
This is the first of a series of drawings from DSEi 2011.
As the world’s largest arms fair, DSEi is part of a wider shift in the commercialisation of war. Although arms companies have always profited from conflict, military production was previously linked to the perceived needs of the state.
In the 1990s this changed. Arms companies responded to the reduction of military budgets at the end of the Cold War by expanding beyond state boundaries, merging into multinationals and…
It took over 100 days but in the end we did it. After passing through spectacul-ar landscapes from lush forest to barren desert, experiencing unbounded human warmth and pushing ourselves to our physical and mental limits while cycling 7,000km – we finally arrived in our destination: Palestine.
“PEDAL: 100 Days to Palestine” was conceived as a solidarity cycle ride based on the idea of linking people and groups struggling against different forms of oppression, with the goal of…
As I walked along the European bank of the Bosphorus, I stumbled upon a small group of fisherman who were coming to the end of their dinner. They called me over, offering me grapes and raki, and I explained in my smattering of Turkish what I was up to. “Londra, Istanbul,” slap legs, mime walking. “Sekiz ay” (“eight months”).
Throughout my whole journey I had been offered hospitality to an extent I could never have imagined before I left. I had been invited to sleep in peoples’ homes,…
In the month leading up to 6 June a major pre-occupation was preparation for International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, 15 May.
For the past ten years I have prepared a list of representative COs of as many countries as I can find a name for, to be read out at the annual COs’ ceremony in Tavistock Square, London, whilst white flowers each bearing the name of a CO are laid on the Commemorative Stone. Each year further research expands the list, and this time there were 75 names,…
It’s hard to imagine what it’s like at Faslane. If you think about a port, then images of dockland housing, pubs and assorted services spring to mind. But Faslane is an isolated port, with none of the usual hinterland, surrounded by an impenetrable perimeter fence. It sits in a fabulous loch-side setting with a jagged mountainous backdrop.
Military bases focus our minds on the reality of what state power is and what that power represents. Power created through the acquisition of…
May Day has been celebrated as International Workers’ Day since 1890 when it was instituted as a day of commemoration for the Haymarket Martyrs, anarchist labour organisers who were hanged amongst anti-radical hysteria in Chicago in 1888.
It is celebrated with varying levels of enthusiasm and popular involvement across the globe. In every town and city in Spain it remains a day when the libertarian labour movement holds marches, rallies and fiestas; in Moscow numerous reconstituted…
On 5 June 2011, the day after a Peace News 75th anniversary celebration was held nearby in North London, I attended a panel discussion at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. It was 90 minutes on “The Age of Dissent”, featuring Laurie Penny, Dan Hind and Dan Hancox. Despite the overarching title of the festival, the panel had practically no literary content (other than that the panel were writers and journalists), and only the most tenuous of connections to Stoke Newington.
In the…
Arrested for Attempted Street Theatre
It was 5.30 pm on the eve of the royal wedding. “The Government of the Dead” street theatre troupe had just built a 12-foot high guillotine, topped with the banner headline “Some Cuts Are Necessary”.
We’d added an effigy of Prince Andrew with a rather long neck – easier to chop through. We’d pinned on him the knight grand cross of the royal victorian order, the bauble his mum had given him four weeks earlier. And then there were Andrew’s…
On 5 June 2011, the day after a Peace News 75th anniversary celebration was held nearby in North London, I attended a panel discussion at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. It was 90 minutes on “The Age of Dissent”, featuring Laurie Penny, Dan Hind and Dan Hancox. Despite the overarching title of the festival, the panel had practically no literary content (other than that the panel were writers and journalists), and only the most tenuous of connections to Stoke Newington.
…
