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Peace News log archive: July 2011
Articles from the Peace News log.
For archive articles from the whole site, look here
I’m doing a talk about al-Qa’eda for Peace News Summer Camp which is in two weeks. (Really looking forward to seeing Tracy Curtis perform – I’ve heard Seize the Day and the Carbon Town Cryer before – they’re fantastic.)
I’m marvelling once again that the name al-Qa’eda was invented by the FBI.
The FBI led the investigations into the August 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa, when over 230 people were killed near the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They used their normal Mafia-style-organisational model, with a hierarchical pyramid and a supreme leader, and they looked for the name of the organisation, and ‘members’ of the organisation, to help secure convictions.
The CIA had used the title ‘al-Qa’eda’ for the network around bin Laden, probably tracing it back to an article by Abdullah Azzam, bin Laden’s mentor in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet occupation – the FBI picked it up and it became the US term for the bin Laden grouping. (Jason Burke explains all of this well in the first pages of his excellent study Al-Qaeda.)
...Read MoreGoing to Gaza
As September approaches, a potentially momentous political event looms before us: the admission – or not – of Palestine as a member state of the UN. There are diverse opinions on whether this is a good or bad thing, but the discussion must be held, and quickly. Those of us concerned with the upholding of human rights and fair play in this world know that we cannot ignore this complicated issue which deserves serious and detailed consideration. The fate of the Middle East, so long confused and befuddled by meddling outside powers is on the brink of a breakthrough.
The latest Freedom Flotilla, fifteen boats carrying activists from more than twenty countries, will attempt to break the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza. The last flotilla ended with 9 deaths and many injuries. Six young men were summarily executed by gunshots to the head at point blank range. The event was grossly manipulated by the news press and Israeli propaganda, to the point that the BBC eventually had to make a public apology for breaches of accuracy and impartiality in their report “Death in the Med”. The Israeli government has already called on the UN and the international community to stop the current flotilla despite the fact that it is carrying badly needed humanitarian aid.
...Read MoreI have been a peace campaigner more or less continuously since I was imprisoned as an unconditionalist conscientious objector from September 1954 to January 1955, and over nearly 60 years have learned the necessity of keeping on keeping on. Many in the peace movement fall by the wayside. Some – and this is particularly true of politicians – end up as enemies of the movement they once supported; others, perhaps even more inexplicably, without any change of belief, after a period of activity suddenly decide they have had enough, and are never seen again.
To ensure that this does not happen in your own case, you must pace yourself, decide what volume of activity you can sustain while still leading a normal life, and stick to it over decades. Otherwise you are likely to burn out.
Brian Haw, whose death has saddened me and, I am sure, many others as well, was unique in that only death could end his total commitment to working for peace no matter what the personal cost. That is why he was a great man.
...Read MoreLooking back, looking forward
So Peace News was first published on 6th June 1936. 6th June was also, as it happens, the date of other momentous events – the D-day landings in 1944, the publication of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949, the bombing of Haiphong during the Vietnam War in 1972.
2011 seems to be a year of significant anniversaries: 75 years of Peace News… 50 Years of Amnesty International… and good grief, very nearly 10 years of our local peace group, Bangor & Ynys Môn Peace & Justice. Still meeting every week, still attracting new members, and most importantly still part of a lively network of independent groups campaigning across Wales for peace and justice, many of them set up during the tumultuous autumn of 2001.
On the agenda for our Bangor meeting on 6 June 2011 were plans for a poetry reading for the Shaker Aamer campaign, as well as options for a public meeting to consider the Arab Spring in relation to the situation in Palestine. There were discussions about Bradley Manning, about the use of depleted uranium weapons and about the next Gaza flotilla. Also discussed was an inspiring letter from Bustan Qaraaqa, a community permaculture project established in Palestine by former Bangor Students.
...Read MorePeace News is 75. Happy birthday! Today is another anniversary; it’s two years since my Mum’s death so I’m feeling somber, remembering the failings in the hospital care she received and our struggle to get her home so she could die as well as she had lived: in peace, with her family, in familiar surroundings. Time was short, and when some of the things that should have happened to facilitate this did not and our questions met with poor excuses, we blew the whistle to get things moving. Although this had the desired effect and there was soon a proper package of support in place, we were treated with suspicion and downright hostility by some of the professionals involved and we know that their displeasure was communicated to Mum, causing her a lot of distress. It helps that the ultimate outcome was three months of excellent care at home before she died, but I’m still upset about the way it was dealt with.
I’m also reflecting today on the recent revelations of abuse at a Bristol care home, exposed last week in a BBC Panorama programme. The authorities had simply ignored the concerns raised by the care worker, which allowed the abuse to continue. I wonder about this unidentified whistle-blower’s future career prospects. I had a conversation about whistle-blowing recently with a work colleague who has been working in learning disability services for years. She said that in almost all whistle-blowing cases she was aware of, the person exposing the abuse had subsequently found themselves investigated: either fabricated allegations or a big fuss made about a small transgression. Without exception, they had been bullied, victimised, ostracised, made ill and eventually hounded out of their jobs, giving the lie to workplace whistle-blowing policies and ‘protection of vulnerable adults’ training which imply that the authorities will be grateful to have these matters, which workers have a duty to report, brought to their attention.
...Read MoreArrested 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 friends – cardboard cut-outs of a whole bunch of arms dealers, dictators and torturers on the guest list for the joyful occasion. Our banner read: “‘BAE Systems: Exporters of blood across the globe, by Royal Appointment”.
These theatrical props had been packed away in our van, but we were so ahead of time we decided to celebrate with a drink at our local pub. On returning a little later, we noticed someone loitering around: evidently a plain-clothes cop.
I was just getting my keys out ready to drive off, when 25 uniformed officers swooped on us from five vehicles. A woman police officer announced: “You are under arrest!” “Why?”, I asked. “For conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.”
...Read More