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…
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3 November 2009
3 November 2009
Do you support the troops? Are you proud of them? It would be a brave – or perhaps foolhardy – person in public life who said no.
Indeed, in a recent speech to mark the end of military operations in Iraq, archbishop Rowan Williams – the dangerous radical who once got himself arrested at an CND protest – declared the need for all of us to “speak our thanks for those who have taught us through their sacrifice the sheer worth of justice and peace.” He was talking about British…
3 November 2009
There was a letter in October’s PN headlined: “Research on Reading”. I missed the capital letter and found I was reading about Reading and the impact of the cold war on this town. In the way of things, everything seemed to connect with one of September’s Peace Week events in Stroud.
Bruce Kent and Kate Hudson were to speak at a public meeting, and Dennis Gould and myself had been rowed in as “peace poets”. An odd thing to be; a “peace poet”.
I’m no more a peace poet…
3 November 2009
Dear friends, Peace News is growing and expanding! We’re making ambitious plans for the future development of PN; we’re starting new regular activities to support the peace movement, such as the Peace News Summer Camp and the Peace News Winter Gathering (15-17 January in Nottingham); and we hope to do more to help support uplifting nonviolent initiatives with events such as the Peace News training for participants in the March on Gaza.
We hope to carry out more activities outside…
3 September 2009
The funeral of the last British survivor of the trenches of the First World War was held in Wells Cathedral on Hiroshima Day (6 August) attended with pomp and circumstance, and solemn honours from politicians and the mainstream media. While they proclaimed their respect for Harry Patch, who died at the age of 111, political leaders and media commentators almost entirely ignored the core message to which Harry Patch devoted his last years.
The man who saw some of his best friends…
3 September 2009
During the Second World War, BSA Cycles made folding bicycles for paratroopers. Thus, the machines descended into occupied Europe attached to the backs of terrified soldiers suspended beneath graceful silk canopies.
It’s hard to imagine a more surreal conjunction of mechanical ingenuity, inspired sewing and blind trust in morality. Mortality, though, would be a better word and ironies abound. BSA stood for Birmingham Small Arms, which manufactured Lee-Enfield rifles for the “poor…
3 September 2009
The British Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC) was set up in 2002 in response to the attempted military coup in Venezuela, aims to defend Venezuela’s sovereignty and independence, and to defend the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution, especially by promoting and strengthening links with Venezuelan trade unionists. For a period, VSC was organising international computer link- ups between British and Venezuelan trade unionists. VSC has also promoted and undertaken solidarity tours to…
3 September 2009
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…
3 July 2009
The British Tamils Forum (BTF) organised peaceful protests in central London (including the demonstration of over 200,000 Tamils on 11 April 2009) to show solidarity with their brethren in Sri Lanka and to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Sri Lanka.
BTF is an umbrella organisation bringing together individuals and Tamil community organisations for three main aims: To highlight the humanitarian crises and human rights violations perpetrated by the government of Sri…
3 July 2009
The massive election protests in Iran are an inspiring example of human courage and the power of ordinary people to affect powerful institutions. At the time of going to press, we do not know what the outcome of this clash is going to be.
One possibility is that there will be a replay of the 4 June 1989 massacre in China. One of the most thoughtful reflections on Tienanmen Square came in the Financial Times, where James Kynge (who reported the demonstrations first-hand) argued that…
3 July 2009
Not many people know this: the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) is 75 this year. I only know because a woman stopped me in Stroud High Street and told me. Her name turned out to be the same as a poet whose work I know and he turned out to be her father: Ian Serraillier (1912-1994).
Then it turned out he’d written an acclaimed novel for children, The Silver Sword, which has never been out of print in over 50 years. He was a Quaker, a conscientious objector in the Second World War…
3 July 2009
The idea began at the Friends Meeting House in Taunton in 1981. 11-year-old Jonathan Stocks felt that the room where they held the children’s meeting needed cheering up. He discussed it with their teacher, Anne Wynn-Wilson. They needed pictures. Why not a history of Quakerism in collage or mosaic? Or embroidery?
Anne was a professional embroiderer. She had recently completed a study of the Bayeux Tapestry, which is not really a tapestry but a 70-metre-long strip of linen embroidered…
3 June 2009
Sadly, the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests in London on 1 April was not an isolated case. Over 1000 people have died in police custody in the last 40 years - yet no one has been found responsible. Many families who have lost loved ones in police custody are still campaigning for justice after many years, including the families of Sean Rigg, Brian Douglas, Harry Stanley, Roger Sylvester and Christopher Alder.
The United Campaign Against Police Violence (UCAPV) has been…
3 June 2009
Anti-virals
Two years ago, we helped to initiate a letter to the Guardian signed by, among others, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Caroline Lucas, John Pilger, Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Nobel Peace Prize Winner) and Hans von Sponeck (former UN Assistant Secretary-General).
The letter said that humanity faced a massive global threat from pandemic influenza, which might kill over 60 million people – 96% of them in the global South, and called for an end to corporate patents that…
3 June 2009
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…
3 June 2009
They say that families live prison sentences just as much as the prisoner and that was certainly true for us. On January 22, my husband Chris Cole was sentenced to 28 days imprisonment for non-payment of a fine incurred at an anti-war protest in 2005.
This event was not a surprise to us, we had been planning for it in one way or another ever since we first met. However, recognising something is inevitable and dealing with the actual experience are two separate things.
The…
3 June 2009
All the fuss about MPs’ expenses made me wonder about what work MPs actually do that requires a second home in London. I was reminded of the “debates” I observed that preceded the Armed Forces Acts. This legislation occurs every five years. In theory, it is an opportunity to update military law and regulations and bring in necessary reforms. In practice, it provides an opportunity for the MoD to get legislation it wants passed and prevent any reform. The military top brass can rely on cross-…