There are a lot of issues that are debatable about the First World War. There is one fact, though, that ought to be beyond debate, and which ought to be acknowledged on all sides in the national conversation during this centenary year.
Reasonable people can differ, for example, on how important imperial rivalry was in causing the war. What all reasonable people should agree on, however, is that if, by some miracle, the major European powers had managed to stabilise their relationships…
The social centre before it was occupied.
Photo © Enredadera Tetuán
On 3 February, the PN co-editors interviewed a key figure in the Centro Social Okupado la Enredadera (the Vine occupied social centre) in northern Madrid. The social centre is one small part of the huge, nonviolent, anti-austerity, non-hierarchical ‘15M’ movement which began in May 2011, and has shaken up Spanish politics and empowered millions of people.
Peace News What was the beginning of the social centre…
The village of Ein Hiljeh in the Jordan Valley was
reoccupied by Palestinian activists on 31 January.
Photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Active Stills
The Middle East ‘peace’ negotiations being led by US secretary of state John Kerry will (unless there is significant resistance in Palestine itself) shortly demolish the international consensus on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and impose a devastating ‘framework agreement’ that will turn the Israeli…
This year’s centenary of the start of the First World War is accompanied by a tidal wave of events and commemorations. But one key aspect of the war’s history is likely to receive little or no attention: the history and stories of the people and organisations that opposed the conflict.
Moreover, this history – of police raids and buried documents, feminist peace initiatives and clandestine printing presses, striking German munitions workers and communities of…
Writing in the afterglow of a beautiful day of guerrilla nonviolence at Torness, I’m no longer daunted by the question with which I’ve been shadow-boxing these past few weeks: ‘exactly how do we intend to reverse the nuclear power programme?’
“The anti-nuclear movement already has its equivalents of the charka”
On that site, I saw for myself the achievement of the people who occupied Half Moon Cottage in creating a symbol for us to rally around, and also in…
Grannies Are In Action (GAIA) set up a ‘car wash’ in the
floodwaters of Combe Haven, East Sussex, on 12 January.
Photo: Marta Lefler
Over half the charges against Combe Haven Defenders (CHD) anti-roads protesters have been dropped or abandoned, or have resulted in not guilty verdicts, in the four trials so far concluded. At the time of going to press two trials were still underway, continuing into early February.
CHD, an East Sussex anti-roads…
Kickstarter site: http://tinyurl.com/theworldismycountry.
In 2014, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, Peace News is launching a major new project: "The World is My Country": A Visual Celebration of the People and Movements that Opposed the First World War.
At the centre of this project will be ten new full-colour posters designed and made by PN's co-editor…
New Year’s Day 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of one of the last significant uprisings of the 20th century. The Zapatista rebellion of 1994 was the first revolt of the post-Soviet era, the first uprising to be announced via the then-novel medium of the internet and the first indication that Western-style neoliberalism wasn’t going to have it all its own way in the recently announced ‘New World Order’.
The Zapatista army, the EZLN, quickly…
August 2013. The Zapatistas in Chiapas open their doors to their ‘solidary brothers and sisters’ from Mexico and from across the globe. August 2013 is the 10th anniversary of their autonomous government structure: their local, municipal, and regional government bodies; their education, health, and justice provision; their own security system.
They want to share with us what they have built up and what they have learnt, so that we take this learning back to our…
The received image of the British public’s reaction to the outbreak of the First World War is usually that of jubilant, flag-waving crowds, assembling in front of Buckingham palace to cheer the royals and sing the national anthem. On 5 August 1914, an editorial in The Times described the previous evening, saying that: ‘the streets were packed with cheering masses.… Flags were waved from cabs, omnibuses and private cars.’
Less-well-recorded is the fact that just two days earlier, an…
The three people who have agreed to share their experiences in PN have all been heavily involved in the peace movement and are also recovering alcoholics (their drinking was out of control, but they’re now many years sober).
One of them is religious, two aren’t. One was drinking at her most intense period of activism; the other two were several years sober before they took part in high-risk activities. All three have been to prison for their…
Since September 2000, Israeli security forces have killed a Palestinian child every three days, on average. Estimates of the death toll among Palestinian children range from 1,398 (children’s charity, Defence for Children International) to 1,518 (the Palestinian ministry of information in Ramallah). Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, stated in May 2011 that Israeli forces had killed 1,335 children in the…
Women in Black vigil in Jerusalem. Photo:Pat Gaffney
As a Christian, I had often thought of going to Israel-Palestine but had never quite been able to overcome the uneasy feeling of visiting a place regarded as ‘holy’ which is also a place of such injustice and violence.
That changed in 1999 when Pax Christi held its international council in Jordan and Jerusalem to offer support and encouragement to its partners in the whole region. To be invited by…
“My vision of nonviolent revolution isn’t of a united mass movement sweeping away the institutions of the status quo, but of people acting in their own situations to take control of their own lives and asserting different values, values which have been systematically suppressed.” Howard Clark, from the introduction.
For this 2012 edition of Making Nonviolent Revolution, Howard Clark has added an afterword referring to the experience of the Spanish indignad@s (an inspiration…
When I see a man approach and I cast down my eyes
I’m not laying down a hand, I’m not looking for a prize
It’s just a force of habit, this avoiding the male glance
’Cos it isn’t worth the trouble and it isn’t worth the chance
Of them thinking that you’re actively ‘giving them the eye’
And not simply acknowledging a fellow passerby...
And no, I don’t know what they’re thinking but I know what men have thought
And I live by my experiences and the lessons I’…
Chelsea Manning was already a hero of mine after releasing hundreds of thousands of classified documents revealing US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her whistleblowing was digital direct action akin to the 1960s Spies for Peace revelations of UK preparations for nuclear war and exposure of the US COINTELPRO programme in the 1970s.
And then, as the world watched a military judge give her a 35-year sentence, she opened herself up with a beautiful and articulate statement: ‘I want…
On 7 October, six peace activists were found guilty of criminal damage during a protest at a British drones base, RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. They were given a conditional discharge for six months, were fined £10 and ordered to pay £75 in court costs.
Defendant Keith Hebden told PN: ‘The judge recognised the validity of our arguments, saying Waddington was a “legitimate target for protest”. The token order to pay £10 in compensation reads to me like an invitation to press home the…
