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!…
Other people go to Glastonbury; I go to Raise Your Banners. Instead of going to Glastonbury, and spending lots of money and seeing a CND stall on the side, I go to support a festival of political song.
There are sort of two parts to the festival. There are a number of political choirs, so in one part of the festival there’s a showcase for them, and so there was the London Socialist Choir, and Red & Green, and then all the northern choirs.
This year the festival was in…
When I go, I feel revitalised, and reawoken, and really stimulated. I used to think maybe it was a bit lifestylist, and fetishist, but actually the level of debate and discourse I reconnect with when I go is really inspiring.
It’s actually more inspiring than any other forum I go into. I learn a lot. It could be more focused, but ultimately I feel I’m back with “my gang” and my mates. It helps keep things real and radical.
It reminds me to not make compromises, to keep believing…
I didn’t think there would be such a mix of ages, but then people young and old set up camp, and the variety of workshops was fit to please all.
My favourite workshop was on the Saturday night. Les (a warm and bubbly activist) had organised a felt-making workshop. We stretched out warm and fresh lamb’s wool across a board, soaked it in hot water and soap, and then people began to dance on the wool to help it bind together.
An old record player boomed out old hits from bands such…
It was a long time ago that I read The Women’s Room, nearly 30 years ago now. Another time in my life, almost like another life. Sometimes life can be like that, the feeling of having lived a number of lives in one life, like a snake shedding its skin and starting renewed.
I was given a copy of The Women’s Room by a woman who lived in a flat downstairs, I read this book that proclaimed to “change lives” when I went into hospital to give birth to my first child. At the time I had been…
“I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2nd Corinthians, 12:10
As a devout Catholic and political activist, that quotation has always stuck out in my memory. There’s a great tradition in my faith of finding strength in times of struggle. And it’s no great secret that those of us in the activist community have a multitude of obstacles in front of us: police barricades, political manoeuvres that leave…
Because it takes so many years to actually get anywhere, even in the council election, I’ve found there’s more focus on building a campaign than actually becoming a part of the “party machine”.
I’ve never felt the sort of necessary dedication needed to actually get elected for office. I’m not really a party animal.
I’ve been surprised by how much more time people spend talking about tactics than they do talking about policy.
I think so many people who stand for office…
Guilt is the feeling that “I can’t do enough”. That as much as you try to go to all the meetings you can, do all the bits and pieces you can, you never feel you’re doing enough.
I also think sometimes when you find yourself getting to burnout, then a big part of not being able to recognise what’s happening is the feeling that “I can’t stop because if I stop, it won’t get done”.
That is, we think we’re very, very important, and of course what we do is important, but there has…
Activism and boredom? I just wouldn’t connect the two things. Honestly, they are just two unrelated things in my mind.
Activist, male, 40, Milton Keynes
The most boring thing I’ve ever done in connection with activism was making boring phone calls. Making hundreds of phone calls trying to mobilise people to come to an event, using exactly the same words to each person.
Going on big rallies with the same speeches and the same people over and over again (and it’s…
When I was younger and more active in the peace movement, I would say to people who said “I was once in CND”, or who were a bit too old for active service: why once? You can still write!
Pithy letters to the press – that's one thing you can write – or inspiring verses if you’re a bit of a poet. And of course people who are in prison - who've gone the distance - need support.
Now I’m in the category of the has-been-active supporters, but I can still lay down in the street with…
