Kate Hudson:
We were saddened to hear of the death of whistleblower and peace campaigner Daniel Ellsberg, who died last Friday, aged 92. Daniel was a staunch anti-nuclear campaigner as well as a powerful voice for peace over many decades.
An expert in nuclear weapons planning, Ellsberg was perhaps most famous for his role in leaking 7,000 pages of classified military files in 1971, while working as an analyst for the Rand Corporation.
The Pentagon Papers revealed for the first…
April Carter’s father was an engineer with the British colonial service and April spent the first 10 years of her life in East Africa. Returning to the UK in 1947, April was enrolled at a public school in Gloucestershire, not far from the family home in Cheltenham. The staff at the school recognised April’s outstanding intellectual abilities and fast-streamed her through the English secondary school examination system – resulting in her being offered a place at Oxford university. Deciding…
Reluctantly, I finally read How to Blow Up a Pipeline (author: Andreas Malm, Verso, 2020) and went to see the feature film of the same name (director: Daniel Goldhaber, 2022).
When I finished the book, and when I walked out of the cinema, I had the same feeling. I was sad.
I felt sad that hundreds, maybe thousands, of committed young activists are going to come away from these experiences feeling that they ought to be taking on the climate criminals with high…
‘For 77 years, nuclear weapons have not been used at all. We should not allow the current situation to negate that history.’ – Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida, 28 April
‘We underscore the importance of the 77-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons.... Our security policies are based on the understanding that nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.’ – G7 leaders’ ‘Hiroshima…
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba: 75 years since hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from their homes; 75 years since over 500 Palestinian villages were destroyed, since ‘home’ was taken away. Palestinians call this ‘the Nakba’, which translates as ‘the Catastrophe’.
We mark the Nakba on 15 May every year, which is also International Conscientious Objectors Day.
There is a poetic beauty in this, as increasing numbers of…
In 2018, following an application from the Jamaican government, UNESCO recognised reggae music as an ‘intangible cultural heritage of humanity’ that contributes to ‘international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity’.
In the same statement, UNESCO described reggae music as ‘at once cerebral, socio- political, sensual and spiritual’ and observed that the genre serves ‘as a vehicle for social commentary, a cathartic practice, and a means of praising God’ and…
A supporter of Peace News from the 1950s, my husband David Graham died peacefully at home in April, aged 91.
From the time he was called up for National Service and decided to be a Conscientious Objector (CO), David committed himself to working for peace and social justice. After a year in prison in 1955 for being a CO, where he read about Gandhi, David decided to go to India to meet Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi’s spiritual successor.
David and his friend Ian Dixon wanted to…
Revolutionary eco-anarchist food producers, bookkeepers, cafe managers, visual communicators and documenters – there are free homes and unpaid commune jobs for you here in sunny Doncaster!
Just go through our two-month political education programme and two-month joining process and maybe we’ll accept you :-).
Hmm – perhaps it’s not surprising that recruitment is a bit slower than planned.
Given our very low capacity (managing Bentley Urban Farm, Twisted skate park, …
So, we have a king. That still feels strange to say, never mind sing, come the football, but here we are. Readers who remember my column about the late queen’s state funeral and all the pomp and circumstance and expense around it, can probably guess where I’m going with this. I’m sorry, readers, but I really am as cross as a bag full of badgers about this nonsense.
The figure that has been bandied about regarding the cost of the coronation is £100mn. Let that sink in.
In the…
Two wheels good, four wheels bad. Or is it the other way around?
Depends on where you hear comments reflecting the belief that one is inherently better than the other.
‘Four wheels’ implies a motor vehicle which, even if it is electric, is not completely pollution-free (and certainly the production of electricity is not carbon-neutral). Evidence shows that electric cars still emit harmful PM2.5 particles. Yes, EVs are better, but not as good as reducing the volume of motor…
I first heard the song ‘Bread and Roses’ sung by Edinburgh folksinger Eileen Penman. In 2009, we were collating a booklet of songs as part of the ‘Gude Cause’ project celebrating 100 years since the first women’s suffrage march in Edinburgh. ‘Bread and Roses’ was one of the songs she brought to the table, a song that strongly connects women’s movements with labour movements.
James Oppenheim wrote the poem ‘Bread and Roses’ in December 1911, possibly after reading a speech by Chicago…
Cherry Potts says she started Arachne Press, just over 10 years ago, out of a fit of rage with her then publisher: ‘I’d worked out on the back of a fag packet how much she owed me and it was about three grand. And it clearly was never gonna come. So I withdrew my books from her and said: “You may not continue publishing them.’’
Since then, she has published more than 50 books, mainly short stories, poetry, a few YA (young adult) novels and a photographic portrait book.
Potts…
Usually when I sit down to write this column I try to scrape up ideas and make connections between completely random things happening in my life and then shoehorn in some kind of significant observation or realisation.
But this month there are just too many exciting things to tell you, all filling my brain with new twists and turns and deadlines, leaving no space for reflections and ponderings.
We bought a skate park!
One of our new communards, who joined us via Bentley…
There are two different ways I am disabled. There is what my body, my individual biology, does that no one can change. I will always have chronic fatigue and I will always have pain. My medical team and I do the best we can to ameliorate both, but they are inevitable.
Then, there are the ways in which I am disabled by society: lack of accessibility, lack of support, lack of knowledge and rampant ableism, to name a few. These are far from inevitable.
The cost-of-living crisis is…
You can’t really know a person until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. So they say.
There was this TV show (called Backstrom) where a detective would try to imagine what a perpetrator or a victim might be thinking, in order to get to the solution. He’d say: ‘I’m a 16-year-old drop-out and have just been to see the local drug-dealer.…’
So. You’re a 15-year-old living in Albania. Your parents are not well-off, dad drives a taxi and mum takes in washing. Grandma needs meds so…
Image John McDonnell. Image: Rwendland, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Dear John McDonnell,
I’m sure every reader of Peace News is aware that you are a man of principle with an impressive record of standing up for peace and justice – and that your are an outstanding Labour MP.
I’ve read your long, thoughtful statement explaining why you support the British government arming Ukraine.
Putting aside the fundamental…
This note is addressed to the many people who are gathering in London in April, brought together by Extinction Rebellion (XR), hoping to contribute to positive action to tackle climate change.
In promoting this event, XR suggested that: ‘Gathering peacefully in such large numbers at the nation’s seat of power will create a positive, irreversible, societal tipping point.’ They referred to ‘the power of people power’, as shown by the success of nonviolent mass demonstrations in the…
For the last few months, I’ve been getting up early to join striking nurses as well as postal, BT, rail and ambulance workers on their picket lines in Hastings. Here are some of the things I’ve learned:
1) Claps don’t pay the bills
These groups are all essential workers. And now is the moment that they really need our support.
They are all being asked to take real-term pay cuts, at the same time as corporations are paying out vast sums to shareholders (or even – as in…
In my work as a community musician and singing teacher, I am a member of the Natural Voice Network (NVN).
As a community of teachers, we believe that everybody has the right to use their voice, that sound and movement are innate expressions of the human animal, and that it is the constrictive societal structures and attitudes surrounding us that prevent many people from feeling able to exercise this right.
We teach songs from all over the world, sharing in the oral tradition of…
Time and time again, history has shown us that the language politicians and the media use when talking about vulnerable groups can have dangerous consequences, says Julia Tinsley-Kent, policy manager at the Migrants’ Rights Network.
An example she gives is home secretary Suella Braverman’s description of ‘an invasion’ for the people who are making dangerous journeys, in rubber dinghies and small boats, across the Channel, in an effort to reach Britain so that they can claim asylum.…
