Activist history

1 February 2015News in Brief

‘Arming All Sides’ is an excellent new online First World War resource initiated by Campaign Against Arms Trade.

The website questions what role the arms trade played before, during and after the war, what opposition was mounted to the trade, and how the war affected what people thought about making and selling armaments. armingallsides.on-the-record.org.uk

1 February 2015Review

Tangent Books, 2014; 256pp; £12

Featuring a tractor ploughing up the tarmac road of a terraced street, the cover gives you the impression you’re opening a book for the next ‘back to the land’ generation. Not so.

Instead we are offered something far more encompassing: a comprehensive account of the revolutionary politics of Street Farm (SF), a collective founded by three British architect friends (Graham Caine, Peter Crump and Bruce Haggart) in the 1970s.

A visionary ensemble strongly…

1 February 2015Comment

Being open to issues, perspectives and debates largely ignored by other political papers has often been a distinguishing feature of Peace News. Sexual politics, including men’s reactions to women’s increasing commitment to feminism, has been an example of this. Here, Paul Seedhouse describes his own move towards change.

I think of an issue: the state of the world, for example. I expect myself, and I am expected, as a man, to analyse rationally and objectively, to present solid arguments, to take decisive steps, and above all not to get emotional. Actually I’m totally ignorant and confused and feel like crying about the mess the world is in. I can’t admit that I don’t know; I can’t cry because I’m a man.

Because I’m a man, I cannot admit when I’m sad, hurt or humiliated. I cannot be joyful, or give…

1 February 2015Feature

Another story-poster from PN's 'The World is My Country' project

Skeffy by Emily Johns.

A passionate feminist, the Irish pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington viewed war and anti-feminism as ‘branches of the same tree – disregard of true life-values’. It is therefore unsurprising that, less than a fortnight after Britain’s declaration of war in 1914, the paper he…

25 November 2014Feature

Celebrating the memory of a forgotten German pacifist


Bertha von Suttner 1906. Photo: Carl Pietzner

She is hardly known in this country. Faces go blank when I mention her name. Even amongst friends in the peace movement. At the same time numerous schools, streets and public squares in Austria and Germany are named after her: Bertha von Suttner, who lived from 1843 to 1914. The commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War would give a distorted picture if we did not simultaneously remember the courageous stories of those who…

25 November 2014Comment

WW1 COs' resistance didn't end when they entered prison ...

Housed in the Quaker Library in London’s Euston Road, is a remarkable document. Measuring about five inches square, created from sheets of lavatory paper and bound in hessian taken from a mailbag, it consists of 100 pages of articles, jokes, poems, and even a spoof children’s page. Dated 18 December 1918, it is an edition of the Winchester Whisperer, one of the many tiny newspapers produced by imprisoned conscientious objectors, right under the noses of their prison warders.

25 November 2014News

Garden handed over to Community Trust

For nearly 20 years (1981-2000), the women of Greenham campaigned relentlessly against land-based Cruise missiles. They put their lives at risk for peace and Helen Thomas, a young Welsh peace activist from Newcastle Emlyn, was killed at Greenham Common in an accident on 5 August 1989.

When the base closed, the women planned a garden on the site of the nuclear nightmare. To honour Greenham’s strong Welsh connections, they decided to use pPennant sandstone from Wales for the…

28 September 2014Comment

In which 50 COs are sentenced to death ...

About 8,000 conscientious objectors were forced into the British army during the First World War, either into the non-combatant corps (NCC) or into combatant regiments. Most adopted a strategy of nonviolent resistance, refusing to put on uniforms, drill or obey any military orders. The army’s reaction varied: some commanding officers tried to reason with objectors; others reacted with verbal and physical abuse, using any means, however brutal, to try and force objectors to become soldiers.…

28 September 2014Review

Jonathan Cape, 2014; 192pp; £16.99

 

Most people in Britain, I suspect, know little or nothing about women’s struggle for the vote here. For those who know a little, I would guess that the suffragettes would be top of the list of recognised names, followed by Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Wilding-Davidson.

They might also recognise the name of the non-militant suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett, but that’s probably about it. Sally Heathcote Suffragette…

28 September 2014Comment

Peace News had recently moved its main office out of London, as part of a strategy of changing the balance between its alternativist and ‘constructivist’ coverage on the one hand, and its involvement in more mainstream politics, on the other. Nevertheless, the paper found itself sucked into the defence of a group of activists – some closely connected with PN – who were facing the possibility of years in prison.

Six anti-militarists busted

Six pacifists were arrested in…

28 September 2014Feature

Another story-poster from PN's 'The World is My Country' project

The Women's Peace Crusade, 1916-1918
by Emily Johns

The Women’s Peace Crusade was '[t]he first truly popular campaign [in Britain], linking feminism and anti-militarism’ (Jill Liddington).

21 July 2014Feature

Another story-poster from PN's 'The World is My Country' project

On 10 March 1917, Alice Wheeldon – a 52-year-old seller of second-hand clothes, living in Derby – was sentenced to 10 years’ hard labour for conspiring to murder the prime minister. Accused of scheming to have a blowdart dipped in the exotic poison curare…

21 July 2014Comment

Ann Kramer examines the Tribunal system for WW1 COs

‘How does one feel when trying, in public, to convince people, who are trying to misconstrue anything one says, that because of one’s religious convictions — no matter what the consequences — no war service is possible?’ asked printer and conscientious objector (CO) Fred Murfin.

It was a fair question. Whether religious or not, First World War COs knew they were sincere. But self-knowledge was not enough: under the terms of the Military Service Act (1916), they were required to attend…

21 July 2014Review

A. W. Zurbrugg (ed), Not Our War: Writings Against the First World War (Merlin Press, 2014; 264pp; £12.95) / Ernst Friedrich, War against war! (Spokesman, 2014; 242pp; £9.99)

In the UK, the centenary of the First World War has already prompted a deluge of books, events and media coverage. The BBC alone has announced 2,500 hours of programmes, which – like 99% of the mainstream response – will doubtless run the A to B of the mainstream political spectrum.

True, Thatcherite historian and apologist for imperialisms past and present, Niall Ferguson, was granted 90 mins on BBC2 to argue that Britain should have stayed out of the war, at least at the outset. In…

21 July 2014Review

Honno Welsh Women’s Press, 2014; 450pp; £10.99

Every now and then, I am sent a book to review that is an absolute pleasure to read from cover to cover. This marvellous collection of interviews and essays by women activists is one such book.

I have to confess to having a personal investment – one of the essays is by my friend Zoe Broughton, and I know several of the women featured – but I suspect that might be true of many PN readers. For, between them, the interviewees have been involved in every major campaign in the UK…