In equal measures: hope and despair
This March marks the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the start of the long-term military and economic occupation.
Tens of thousands of civilians and more than 3,000 coalition soldiers have been killed; thousands more have been horrifically wounded. Over the past four years people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their families and their minds. Iraqi society is in ruins and the occupiers' political stability is on a…
The white poppy and red poppy debate continues here in Stroud but it's pointed me in an unexpected direction. The local Green Party (of which I'm not a member - or of any political party come to that) hosts occasional meetings/debates in a local cafe', and in January I was asked to talk about red and white poppies. This I was happy to do but was surprised to have been asked.
The subject of the evening was culture, identity, and difference and three Muslim women from Gloucester - and…
Many older readers will remember Len from his work from 1962 through to 1988 running the Film Van, a vehicle he drove around the UK during the summer months, appearing at showgrounds, market squares and many other locations around the country, where he would show anti-war films from the back of the van in the open air, campaigning for peace against war and violence. While showing the films, he would make peace books, leaflets and other material available, such as Peace News,…
Aims and objectives:
Enough! is a major coalition effort to work for peace and freedom for Palestinians and Israelis alike. It begins this year, on the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War and the Israeli occupation of the rest of Palestine. Enough! is bringing together range of UK-based groups that value nonviolent campaigning.
Established: The Enough! coalition was launched on 30 January during a rally in central London. The coalition is 41 groups strong and growing: various…
Cassandra was working with Peace News on a spring semester internship via Ithaca College's London Center. She had just returned from a weekend trip with fellow students when, on 12 February, she died suddenly of natural causes. Peace News sends condolences to her friends and family.
It's taken some time to come to this conclusion, but The Mole is now totally convinced that there's a conspiracy to be uncovered about the story of the collapse of the two World Trade Centre towers in New York in September 2001.
There's a film going the rounds called Loose Change, explaining how the towers were brought down by previously placed explosives, not by the impact of the planes which people think hit them. In a Guardian article recently, Tim Sparke - the producer of that…
As US troops begin their “surge” into Baghdad, the Bush administration is preparing a scapegoat for the failure of this latest escalation: Iran.
After weeks of hints, a “dodgy dossier” accusing Tehran of supplying weapons to Iraqi insurgents was finally presented in Baghdad on 11 February (but no paperwork was handed over, reporters weren't allowed cameras or tape recorders, and the three US presenters insisted on anonymity). On the one hand, the briefers said the “highest levels”…
London's 2012 Olympics have been taking a bit of a bashing in the mainstream press, but not being the type to jump on the bandwagon, PN attempts to take a rather more kindly look at this controversial project.
The modern Olympic Games began with the noble aim of promoting international understanding through sporting competition, and in the past the Games have seen country delegations as well as individual sportsmen and women promote understanding of some important political…
Several years ago I was involved in an intensive period of peace campaigning. I protested at Faslane, blockaded an arms factory, disputed with directors at the BAE Systems shareholders' meeting, trespassed at the nuclear submarine base at Barrow, and vigilled outside the DSEi arms fair.
These were exciting and challenging experiences, but I came away from them with growing doubts about the peace groups I had worked with. How did the methods we adopted actually contribute towards…
The big shopping splurge of the year is upon us. Are we buying war and injustice for gifts and ourselves? It is time to consider the implications of our shopping habits. Around the world people are speaking though their wallets: boycotts and ethical buying are powerful tools.
First of all, we can support international boycotts of corporations embedded in war and oppression. The global boycott of corporations that support the war in Iraq was launched in 2004 at the World Social Forum…
I spoke for the first time at the School of the Americas Watch protest at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Saturday 27 November, 2006. As a US Army veteran with 29 years of active and reserve duty who retired as a Colonel, I felt tremendous emotions addressing over 20,000 protesters from a stage in front of the gates of a major US military installation.
We were there as witnesses to a history of involvement in torture by graduates of the US military's School of the Americas (SOA), now known…
Tom Lehrer, the US scientist turned satirical singer-songwriter, gets “rediscovered” from time to time, delighting a new generation of admirers. But they have to discover his old material, rather than anything new, since he famously gave up writing satire in despair the day that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. (Historical note: Kissinger was a warmongering US Secretary of State responsible for much of US policy in the Vietnam War era, winning the prize after the war stopped.)…
It might have been described in North Korea as a “happy” test, but North Korea's nuclear explosion on 9 October was deeply sad.
Sad for the people of North Korea who are oppressed while their preening “dear leader” Kim Jong Il beggars the economy and pours scarce resources into building plutonium weapons. Sad for the nuclear non-proliferation regime, widening its credibility gap and yet again showing how the “promise” of nuclear power can be diverted into nuclear weapons by…
In the controversy over the veil sparked by Jack Straw, there is one thing that is ignored both by his supporters and his detractors: “The veil” (singular) is not a dress code rooted in culture or religion. The form of veiling that we now see spreading all over European and North American countries comes from nowhere: it is a recent syncretic outfit, picking up from various traditions, that has been invented by fundamentalists as their political uniform, as their very visible flag.
…
Here's a quiz: who said this? “It is also a time when XXX - totally united around its goals and in support of its leadership - has an increasingly high profile ...” That's the second sentence of a recent press release (from organisation XXX). The language is reminiscent of that in the news-sheets of the (greatly missed) Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism which had several members in South London 25 years ago.
Clearly this is from some throwback to an earlier era, when…
Adam Curle, founding Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, was born on 4 July 1916, into a family of thinkers. His mother, who had lost three brothers in World War I, instilled in him a loathing for all war. Nonetheless, he was a soldier in World War II, rising to the rank of Major, and after the war was over he worked, at the Tavistock Institute, for the rehabilitation of British Servicemen.
No doubt this experience, and his early study and university teaching as a…
Established: The campaign was founded in 2001 by Phil Thornhill as a response to the growing urgency of climate change action.
Aims and Objectives: Its aim is, firstly, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol by all nations - including those who have refused to sign: the United States and Australia. This is, however, only the first step. The world's governments must be encouraged to adopt a sustainable energy policy that does not allow the rampant polluting of the biosphere with carbon…
Phil Reardon (PN obit July/August) was a gem of a bloke “very much in the William Morris News From Nowhere tradition” as Howard Clark put it and his wonderfully inventive tract on re-cycling cycles is still my constant companion.
Here in Stroud, the founders of Bicycology shyly admit to having never heard of Phil or his great work but they are clearly his philosophical descendants. By osmosis, or otherwise, their excellent guide has been compiled with the same wit and flair…
“Is peace for wimps, whereas real governments sell weapons?” So asked George Monbiot recently in The Guardian.
His comment highlighted the government's drive to maximise British arms exports and exposed the activities of the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO), a government agency focused on identifying potential opportunities for arms sales and then pushing for deals. The 500 taxpayer-funded civil servants working for DESO are placed entirely at the service of arms…
Once upon a time there were far more political bookshops around the country than the handful left today, including several right in the heart of central London's bookselling zone around Charing Cross Road. These shops were very convenient to help the Met Police's Special Branch keep track of things - they could (and did) short-circuit a lot of research into the political scene by simply strolling up the road and buying armfuls of the radical papers and magazines on sale.
But the…
