The Free Gaza Movement was formed in 2008 by a coalition of Palestine solidarity activists and organisations, including various Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups. Their mission is to break the siege of Gaza, raise international awareness of the devastating effects of the Israeli-imposed closure, and pressure the international community to review its support of the Israeli government.
The Free Gaza Movement has broken the siege five times in dramatic and highly publicised boat…
Comment
3 February 2009
3 February 2009
Activism and boredom? I just wouldn’t connect the two things. Honestly, they are just two unrelated things in my mind.
Activist, male, 40, Milton Keynes
The most boring thing I’ve ever done in connection with activism was making boring phone calls. Making hundreds of phone calls trying to mobilise people to come to an event, using exactly the same words to each person.
Going on big rallies with the same speeches and the same people over and over again (and it’s…
3 February 2009
The Israel assault on Gaza has left many of us angry and sick at heart. The glaring injustice of the conflict is reflected in the wildly disproportionate casualty figures. The government of Israel says it was motivated by fear of Palestinian rockets and mortars.
From November 2001 to November 2008, precisely 23 people were killed inside Israel by Qassam rockets (15) and by mortars (8) fired from Gaza (not all by Hamas), according to the pro-Israeli-government group The Israel…
3 February 2009
When our friend Adrian died on 20 December 2008 a miracle occurred; the word PACIFIST appeared in newspaper headlines and on radio news programmes. How he loved this despised, forgotten word and how his work proudly championed and broadcast it. One way or another it informed most of what he wrote. And what he wrote made him Albion’s greatest living poet. His passing leaves an achingly painful void: personally, collectively, privately, publicly, politically, nationally, internationally.…
3 December 2008
When I was younger and more active in the peace movement, I would say to people who said “I was once in CND”, or who were a bit too old for active service: why once? You can still write!
Pithy letters to the press – that's one thing you can write – or inspiring verses if you’re a bit of a poet. And of course people who are in prison - who've gone the distance - need support.
Now I’m in the category of the has-been-active supporters, but I can still lay down in the street with…
3 December 2008
Why should Peace News, a paper devoted to peacemaking, concern itself so much with economic issues? Over the period of our editorship we have come back to class politics again and again and again.
Dan Clawson’s wonderful essay “Fusing our power” back in May 2007, at the start of our editorship, showed how activists from the new social movements have begun to revitalise parts of the US trade union movement, turning them from narrowly-focused bureaucratic monoliths into whole-person…
3 December 2008
Back in September eight short video films were shown in Stroud to mark World Peace Day. Collectively the films tried to answer this question: what does it take to build peace? The screening of the films was followed by a discussion with some of the film makers on the subject “Can Art promote a culture of peace?” Heady stuff and around 30 people attended and took part. I attended too and found each of the eight films powerful in their various ways. The film that most touched me, however, was…
3 December 2008
The current set of Poems on the Underground contains two poems that relate directly to the 90th anniversary of the Armistice at the end of the first world war – the war often misnamed The Great War. We chose On Receiving News of the War by Isaac Rosenberg to celebrate the short life of a very promising poet and painter. And to draw attention to the savagery and brutality of war. Rosenberg joined the army as a private to supplement his family’s small income. He was killed in April 1918. He…
3 November 2008
Cageprisoners is a human rights organisation that raises awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the “War on Terror”. It has the backing of both Muslim and non-Muslim lawyers, activists, former detainees, families of prisoners and academics.
Its aim is to educate the public by being a comprehensive resource of information on Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the “War on Terror”, highlighting their plight and…
3 November 2008
A very long time ago, in 1994, I managed to use my membership of the Royal Horticultural Society to obtain the freedom of an imprisoned peace activist!
There had been a protest in Farnborough, against the sale of Hawks to Indonesia, and my daughter had been arrested for filling British Aerospaces’ fountain with red dye and taken to the police station. I was asked to go up there and try negotiate her release since she refused to give her date of birth.
At the reception desk, I…
3 November 2008
Sitting in front of a panel of MPs and lords for the second time this year, Peace News abandoned etiquette and spoke plainly. The problem with giving evidence about the law on protest we said, is that parliament, the judiciary and the police have failed to take the action they should have - against the illegal invasion of Iraq, or those causing devastating climate change, for example.
In such circumstances, it is difficult to be forced to discuss “the policing of protest”, when…
3 November 2008
I don’t think November is a favourite month for campaigning by any means. It is easy to feel discouraged when the days are wet, windy, cold and dark, whether you are marching in the rain, listening to speeches hoping your comrade’s umbrella doesn’t poke you in the eye, sitting down dangerously near a puddle or trying to climb a wet fence.
I recommend the musical protests favoured by East London Against The Arms Fair as more suited to the season. We are holding two this month. (…
3 October 2008
In the current edition of the always interesting Fourth World Newsletter*, there is a page which brought me up short.
Titled A Bill of Rights for Future Generations, it originates from Adbusters** – a Canadian “radical arts journal” – and something about the directness and simplicity of its composition lifted my spirits during a bleak spell of unrelieved wind and rain.
Its authors may be radical and arty but they’ve pleasingly compressed their thoughts and feelings into…
3 October 2008
The Network for Peace (NfP) was set up in 2001 to continue the work of the National Peace Council, one of the oldest peace organisations in the UK.
NfP is an organisation-based network. Individual members are welcome, but we do not involve ourselves in organising actions or events (apart from our annual meeting – held in the spring).
Our member groups are wide-ranging; from the religious peace organisations; local and regional CND groups, small local peace groups, to larger…
3 October 2008
On 17 September, the Department of Health announced that it had identified nine personality types of heavy drinkers who are at risk of liver damage and other alcohol-related illnesses. By pure chance, on that same day, Peace News announced that it had identified nine very similar personality types of “heavy activists” who frequent meetings rather than pubs, and who are at risk of brain damage and other activism-related conditions.
The nine personality types are:
“De-stress…
3 October 2008
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has sparked enormous enthusiasm throughout the world – and a fair amount back home in the United States – as a symbol of change. Many progressive-minded people are hoping that he will bring about genuine reform in domestic and foreign affairs.
Our opinion, to be blunt, is that Barack Obama is another Tony Blair.
It is difficult to remember at this point – steeped as we are in the blood and lies of the Iraq war – the excitement…