I’ve just been watching a TV programme (3 July) about trench photographs in the First World War, taken not by officers but by privates.
It showed the work of a 17-year-old German soldier and a 23-year-old English soldier; both volunteers and both initially thinking war – as Peter Pan said of death – ‘an awfully big adventure’.
The German boy’s early photos are posed poised and romantic – even excited: his comrades draped on their ugly big guns, relaxing with a pre-battle swim…
Many of you will know this song, 'Singing For Our Lives', by Holly Near. It has been sung in many contexts since she wrote it, but it began life as a cry for and from members of the global LGBT community in response to the killing of councillor Harvey Milk and mayor George Moscone in San Francisco in 1978.
There are songs that we inherit as radical activists, songs that are part of our history. I cut my teeth singing this song outside Faslane submarine base, and on all sorts of…
My personal earliest memory of Europe is, when I first moved to the UK, one of the reasons was actually to campaign and work against the [US] cruise missiles being stationed in Europe.
There was EP Thompson’s book Protest and Survive and as a result I became active. I went to Berlin in the ’80s and joined demonstrations about the cruise missiles.
I went down to Greenham Common which was also about cruise missiles in the UK. Back in those days, I considered the…
As usual, we rang people up to talk anonymously about a topic. This time, something came up for one person that needed more space.
Can I caveat this right before I agree to do this? I feel I am poor on my feet. I don’t do social media partly because I can’t get my head round how people do that. I have a bit of anxiety around this.
The other context is, depending on your topic, really good for your piece or really bad.
I have just been through the most enraging experience…
‘So, are you going to get married now?’ This seems to be the question everyone is asking me nowadays. Who would have thought that Britain voting to leave the EU would bring so much romance to my life?
On 24 June, I woke up in France, in Burgundy. I was on holiday, visiting…
‘So will you now be organising a cycle ride to Ende Gelände, the mass action in Germany in May?’
Filled with emotions and exhaustion, 125 of us had just reached Paris for the climate negotiations in December after a five-day ride from London, and all I wanted to do was crash in a corner, and not think of any new project that involved ‘logistics’ or ‘meetings’.
After catching a little sleep and recovering some energy, we rethought that suggestion. We saw the need to…
It’s not clear that Britain leaving the EU would significantly increase – or decrease – the risk of war or violence anywhere; or anyone’s level of military spending; or nuclear weapons development in any country.
On the peace movement’s major concern at this moment, the replacement of Britain’s Trident nuclear weapon system, Brexit seems irrelevant – unless you want to play a long and cynical game, calculating that the…
As I write this, the case for and against leaving the EU has raised the nauseating stench of this non-debate to hysterical levels. So far, it’s been a combat between dread and fear. Far from shedding light or sharpening a vision of what Europe could/should be, the exchanges have barely risen above the level of insult and derision.
The leavers’ Little Englanders bind is deeply unappealing and barely conceals a dread of immigrants and foreigners in general and refugees in particular…
If you don’t live in Scotland, you might not know the phrase, ‘the carrying stream’. It has come to mean being part of the passing on of tradition, particularly through music and culture, and comes from the words of Hamish Henderson. Hamish was, among many other things, a great Scottish songwriter, collector and passer on of traditional songs. His final words, taken from the elegy he wrote for himself, is where this phrase ‘the carrying stream’ comes from;
‘Maker, ye maun sing…
The death of Dan Berrigan, a week short of his 95th birthday, marks the passing of one of the 20th century’s most influential and inspiring Christian peacemakers. Certainly, he was the major source of inspiration – through his writings, innovative actions and wise presence – for my transition into radical activism.
Co-founder of both the Catholic Peace Fellowship and Clergy and Laity Concerned about Vietnam, in 1968,…
Joan was a new arrival in the CND office sometime in the 1980s. This warm-hearted woman with the sunny disposition had a desk opposite mine and I therefore saw a lot of her. Her job was to sell advertising for our CND magazine Sanity.
I marvelled at her technique. If, on the phone, a possible client hesitated, Joan knew exactly what to do. ‘I quite understand, Mr X or Ms Y, that you are too busy at the moment. It might be better if I called you…
Over his 91 years, George has been an extraordinary example of a human dedicated to making the world a better place.
He was until recently an active member and vice-chair of CND Cymru. Over many years, together with his late wife Jeanne, George was an absolutely reliable member of many other groups dedicated to change, including Cardiff Peace Shop, Cynefin y Werin, Ex-Services CND and Veterans for Peace, the Bridgend Bunker Campaign, the Snowball Campaign (…
It doesn’t feel like the right combination of words! Activism is not about running away, it’s about running towards.
I have often felt like running away, I suppose, like the nervousness before you’re about to enter a base or something.
- Woman, Leicester
I think what comes to me is ‘not taking responsibility’. Day to day, in my day-to-day living, with various aspects.
When you first said it, what came to mind was: Never!
- Woman,…
Though it goes by the formidable title of ‘An Appeal’, a pamphlet by the War Resisters’ International is in reality a valuable addition to the all too meagre information that is available concerning the heroic stand that is being made by pacifists in countries where the penalty for such views is exile, imprisonment, torture, or even death.
In French Guiana, France, Lithuania, Italy, Rumania, Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland, Switzerland and elsewhere it is the same story. ‘I may be…
It was quite easy to decide to do the action. We knew that the Davis commission was due to make an announcement that would recommend a new runway somewhere in the South East, we just didn't know whether it would be Heathrow or Gatwick. The Davis commission was flawed from the beginning, asking where we need airport expansion, not if we need it – and clearly we don't need it.
Airport expansion is being driven by 15 percent of the population taking 70 percent of flights; this isn't…
Let’s put two things next to each other. On the one hand, Peace News is committed to nonviolent revolution, to the nonviolent transformation of society including the replacement of capitalism by participatory democracy in the workplace and the reorganisation of the…
When I was at grammar school in the 1950s, our High Tory economic history teacher poured scorn on the Chartists, the suffragettes, the co-operative movement, trade unionism, conscientious objection and, of course, nationalisation.
When some of us asked about the freedom to protest and freedom of speech, he offered Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park as proof positive that we lived in a free country and anybody could say what they liked about anything.
Some of us had heard of Speakers…
It was a South African musician, whose name I can’t remember, years ago, said that ‘a group of people cannot all speak at once, but they can sing together’. And I’ve always kept a strong hold of this. It is important to remember.
When we have activist meetings, I always try to encourage folks to sing at the beginning and end of them so we can start from this place of everyone’s voice being heard, encouraging those who don’t want to sing to drum along on their knees or on the table…
Every three months, I take direct action against nuclear power. It doesn't involve sitting in the road, cutting fences or trespassing. I simply withhold 11 percent of my electricity bill, like hundreds of others involved in the Consumer Campaign.
The campaign is based on the fact that, quite apart from all the other arguments against nuclear power, the nuclear generation of electricity is more costly than other methods. Most other Peace News readers, like myself, will…
I think activism for me means acting in accordance with my own values and trying to live my own values.
For some years of my life I was vegan, and I’m not now, and eggs is still something I’m not sure around the ethics of.
I try to buy organic free range eggs or preferable from a local farm that I know.
Eggs also makes me think of Easter, a time of fertility and spring and hope.
- Woman, Colchester
Erm.... Well, I suppose eggs and Easter is about…
