Comment

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.

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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…

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…

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…

The enemy, this time, is the Beeb. Known worldwide for its fairness, its accuracy, its high standards of journalism; known at home for its current willingness to follow the government's lead on any significant story, its post-Hutton flaccidity, and for its paternalistic tone of voice.

Its intellectual conservatism can be ascribed to its status as one of Britain's leading institutions, after the city banks and the FCO. To a large extent it is staffed by people who will never see any…

At the end of August, 19-year-old Private Jason Chelsea killed himself. It was widely reported that he took his own life because he could not cope with the possibility of killing children during his, then imminent, deployment to Iraq.

Motivations for suicide are usually quite complex. However, realising you don't want to shoot children - but may be expected to - could certainly become a powerful dynamic in an already vulnerable mind.

Despite much being…

Sixty-four years ago, in 1942, Bob Hockley resigned as Treasurer of the local branch of the Peace Pledge Union in Southampton.

Not because he had changed his views, for he was as resolute as ever that “Wars will cease when men refuse to fight”. No. He had refused four times to attend a medical examination before being called up to the armed forces and had received a summons to attend the Court of Summary Jurisdiction.

He knew a prison sentence was likely and was paving the way…

According to press reports, the MoD is refusing to comply with the Information Commissioner's ruling that they should release details of the 500 civil servants employed to promote British arms exports because “they could be harassed by pacifists”.

Well, it's no wonder really. Everyone must have noticed those marauding hordes of militant pacifists, flaunting their white poppies, giving out leaflets about Gandhi, even trying to sell copies of Peace News - they're so…

The Defence Committee's first report on Trident replacement was much better than I had dared hope for.

Of course it didn't oppose a replacement, but the fact that it listed abolition as one of the options on the table was positive in itself. Most importantly , at this moment in the political process, it added its voice --with considerable force--to the demand for a full debate,with proper government participation. But ever larger numbers of people are actually now explicitly…

During the last six years under General Pervaiz Musharaf, it has been a very rare occasion that, when we wanted to organise some public event, there has been no intimidation, threats or arrests

It happens all the time. A police inspector, a deputy or a senior superintendent will call our office or my mobile. Sometimes, it is one of the intelligence services that call. The message is almost always the same: “Cancel your event, postpone it, there is a section 144 imposed.”

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Did the perpetrators who kidnapped Israeli Defence Force soldier Cpl Gilad Shalit anticipate the collective punishment that would be meted out to Palestinians? Perhaps they hoped it would provoke a greater uprising, or that their (changing) demands would actually be met. Or perhaps the consequences were in fact unseen.

It has been argued that the kidnapping was in reprisal for the assassination of Hamas government official Jamal Abu Samhadana; whatever, the fact is that the Israeli…

Ever get that feeling that only you in the whole world cares for the things that you care about; that the rapaciousness of global capitalism knows no bounds; that every High Street looks like every other High Street; that all governments are the same government; that Tesco has more pull than the UN?You do? W ell, at the risk of sounding like Samuel Smiles, let me tell you that mutuality, self-help and a 25-quid investment in Common Ground will work wonders.

Now,…

A pensioner like myself, an elderly man accosted me outside the railway station: “Hey, Mr Gypsy - you. You're a lot of land-grabbers! We don't want you in Crays Hill.” “If you mean Dale Farm,” I said, hiding my anger, “Travellers bought that land.” “Come off it,” he said, coming up closer. “Fucking thieves the lot of you. You should be put off there.”

In the exchange that followed, he said he was voting for the British National Party and wanted Gypsies deported or dead. It was two…

The government's response to the recent Home Office debacles has become all too predictable over the last nine years - promise new legislation, promise the repeal of the poor old Human Rights Act, and promise an ID card. This is a reactive government, not a proactive one.

The first two of these promises are easily dealt with; new legislation is likely to have little or no effect, and repeal of the Human Rights Act will still leave us subject to the European Convention on Human Rights…

Governmental attempts to soften up public opinion for an announcement of more nuclear power stations have their parallel in the nuclear industry itself.

The British Nuclear Group - they're the people who oversee the radioactive waste mountains at Windscale/Sellafield - are advertising for “environmental specialists” at salaries of up to #43,000 pa. Amongst the work needing doing is coming up with strategies for contaminated land. Dealing with contamination sounds worthy; but you…

The Mole is fascinated by some of the strange cults found above ground. You might have noticed one which has been particularly prominent in recent weeks, which seems to be very into S&M imagery (that's S&M as in sado-masochism, not as in the abbreviation for what's left of Yugoslavia).

For what else is the innocent observer to make of models and pictures of a grisly 2000-year-old method of execution being flaunted everywhere? [“Jesus died for his own sins - not mine!” -Ed.]…

The UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.un.org/right) was read daily at a “War & Peace” exhibition in the Friends' Meeting House in Nailsworth, Glos, during the last week of April.

The Declaration was drafted in 1947 by John Powers Humphrey (a Canadian who later helped establish Amnesty International Canada) and was adopted by the UN in 1948. Since then, some of the world's most unpleasant and dangerous regimes have paid lip…