Features

First prize in the Copenhagen Greenwash Awards must go to Siemens and Coca-Cola for branding the host city “Hopenhagen”. Siemens set up a faux city, brightly lit in a mendacious green, extolling unsustainable technologies including super-fast electric sports cars. Coke posters proclaimed the mega-corp’s sugar- and exploitation-suffused product as “hope in a bottle!” Hopenhagen makes you sick.

There was never any hope of mitigating climate change or attaining climate justice via…

The War Resisters International Triennial (now held every four years, in a cunning ploy to avoid police detection and repression) is being held here in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, at Gujarat University or “Gujarat Vidyapith”. Coming from the recent ice, snow and slush of southern England, Ahmedabad is jarringly hot – but not too hot, dusty but not too dusty. The university, which was closed down three times by the British authorities during the national freedom struggle, was founded by Gandhi…

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is scheduled to hold its next review conference from 3-28 May, just when Britain is likely to have a general election. For many governments and NGOs, the NPT will be a major focus for their work in 2010. But should it be the main focus for disarmament activists? What, realistically, can be achieved at the 2010 review conference?

Even when important commitments have been adopted at NPT conferences, as with the “13 Practical Steps on…

28 December: Our situation is ironically biblical – never have I understood the story of Exodus so well. The irony is that in the story, it’s the Israelites petitioning Pharoah to let them go. Now, it’s the Israelites, or at least, most likely, the Israelis applying political pressure to the Egyptians to refuse us entry into Gaza.

We had buses scheduled to pick us up at 7am – but we received word the night before that their permits had been cancelled. We decided to go down to…

It is always much easier when the baddies are “over there”. This is especially true for those of us who like to think of ourselves as radical: challenging capitalism, the alienated society, the system, whatever we choose to call it.

That’s why it got uncomfortable when some women challenged radical men to look at our attitudes, values, behaviour. Yet this challenge can be applied across the board, not just to sexism. Why are we living against each other? Competing in the market…

A British soldier accused of desertion for refusing to serve in Afghanistan is now being prosecuted for taking part in an anti-war protest, on charges that carry a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment. Lance corporal Joe Glenton, 27, of the Royal Logistic Corps, appeared in court on 10 November in Aldershot, Hampshire, facing charges of disobeying a lawful order, as well as his desertion charge. At the end of the hearing, Glenton was imprisoned pending his trial.

Joe Glenton spoke…

On 31 December, hundreds of peace activists from around the world plan to enter through the Egyptian border to join a Palestinian-led “Mile-long March for Freedom” in Gaza, in protest against the Israeli siege.

At the end of October, Peace News facilitated a weekend training session for people considering taking part in the Gaza Freedom March.

After watching a film about Rachel Corrie on the Friday night, participants were led through some training on Saturday by…

Brimar – a Manchester-based weapons manufacturer – is the latest armaments firm to feel the heat from campaigners. 17 October saw the launch of a new campaign “Target Brimar” with a colourful procession and Critical Mass bike ride to the company’s factory in Chadderton, where there were speeches, music, food and a children’s playspace.

Two of the EDO “decommissioners” – on bail for damaging equipment at the Brighton EDO weapons factory last January, during the Israeli attack on Gaza…

Two new books have appeared that are essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how collective nonviolent action – civil resistance – can operate at a strategic level to further social and political emancipation.

The contributions in Howard Clark’s collection, People Power: Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity, look at the varied forms transnational solidarity can take – and the pitfalls it has to avoid.

In Civil Resistance and Power Politics: the…

The British people are tired of the lies and evasions. We are sick of the futile deaths of British soldiers and the shocking airstrikes on defenceless Afghan civilians.

We have had enough of the war in Afghanistan. The anger we felt over the invasion of Iraq has not gone away. Now we are increasingly angry at the mounting waste of life in Afghanistan.

Eight for eight
7 October marks the eighth shameful anniversary of the US-UK invasion of Afghanistan. Coincidentally,…

To mark the first anniversary of Israel’s bloody 22-day assault on Gaza, hundreds of international activists will march nonviolently alongside the people of Gaza on 1 January 2010, breaching the illegal Israeli blockade.

The marchers (following a code of nonviolence) will leave Cairo on 27 December, cross into Gaza from Egypt and continue to the Israeli border. Amnesty International has called the blockade a “form of collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza [and] a…

Sometimes in your life you find yourself under the influence of a powerful personality: it could be a lover, a political leader, an author, or a spiritual teacher. It happened to me with Keith Mothersson, who died on 3 July at the age of 61.

Keith combined many of these elements and yet in some ways his life failed to yield the fruits which his talent predicted. Among the brightest minds of his political generation, he distilled much of the counter-cultural zeitgeist of the 1970s…

This summer I participated in my third International Walk for a Nuclear-Free Future, from Geneva to Brussels. This year’s “pilgrimage”, organised by Footprints for Peace and Sortir du Nucléaire, set off from Geneva on 26 April, the 23rd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

The walk passed through Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, covering around 850 miles on foot over 10½ weeks, staging events at the World Heath Organisation headquarters in…

With the Big Green Gathering cancelled at the last minute, a few Bicycology activists visited the Isle of Wight to support Vestas workers occupying their wind turbine factory to protest against its closure.

The workers were about 200 metres away with access to a large balcony. When we arrived, they were being effectively starved out by Vestas, surviving on one small evening meal. This was supplemented by whatever could be stuffed into tennis balls and thrown to them. About 1 in 20…

Members of the jury.
I’m going to try to summarise why we feel that we are not guilty, why we feel that what we did was right, despite the very proper laws against obstructing trains.

From what evidence we have been able to get across to you, with his honour’s indulgence, we hope that you can see that these facts [about coal and climate change] speak for themselves, and our actions, though harmful, were indeed necessary to try to stop a greater harm. And if you agree with that…

Four separate polls undertaken throughout July by the BBC/ Guardian, ITN, The Times and the Independent consistently showed that the majority of Britons want immediate or rapid withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Yet the sources largely downplayed their findings.

The ICM study, conducted 11 July for the Guardian, found that 42% of people want Britain to pull out now and 14 % by the end of the year – putting 56% of Britons in favour of withdrawal.

The Guardian, however,…

On 20 June, activists occupying a plot of derelict land beside Kew Bridge, London, held an “open day” for their planned eco-village. The site was taken by over 70 people on 6 June.

The campaigners say they were inspired by the example of the “Pure Genius” land occupation in Wandsworth, carried out by The Land Is Ours (TLIO) in May 1996 (see PN 2406), and the tradition TLIO traced back to the 17th century English movement known as “the Diggers”.

Local people have been very…

After the turmoil of the post-election protests and repression in Iran, we believe that the most important thing that outsiders can do to help the people of Iran is to push for a new relationship between the west and the Islamic republic. Massive protests flared up after the 12 June Iranian presidential election because of the strong indications of fraud.

While it is possible that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election, millions of Iranians do not believe he won 63% of the votes,…

This is a list of six things I have learnt since leaving the world of conventional education.

1. Children want to learn. The children who came to Jürg Jegge, the [author of] Stupidity is Learnable, were desperate to learn, but had accepted their teachers’ view that they couldn’t. The street children who come to Butterflies, [a street school in Delhi] are so eager to learn that they are prepared to face the likelihood of being beaten or going hungry in order to attend lessons. Even the…

13 years after the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni human rights activists Shell was brought to court in New York for complicity with the Nigerian government for these state murders.

The Ogoni were to use US Alien Tort Statute but Shell settled with them out of court on 8 June with a payment of $15.5m (the equivalent of four hours profit for Shell), seemingly to prevent evidence about their corporate entanglement with the Nigerian military dictatorship reaching the…