Over 50 people gathered on 1 March for the 15th annual Peace Education Network conference. Delegates travelled from France, Ireland and around the UK to share ideas, resources and enthusiasm for Education for Peace.
After an introductory session in which we shared good news stories, resources and ideas from the last year, various practical workshops were offered.
Together as one
The workshops included one on how history can be used to challenge people’s perceptions of…
Can wearing a T-shirt be a crime? This was the question we set out to answer on the opening day of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on 27 March.
I was one of hundreds of people dressed in bright red “Stop Airport Expansion” T-shirts in the International Arrivals Hall that morning.
BAA, which runs Heathrow, was unveiling its grand new terminal before the global media, as a stepping stone to a third runway and a sixth terminal.
We wanted to create a visible sign of public opposition…
There is something surreal about the holding of a Peace History conference attended by some of the country’s longest-serving peace activists right in the heart of the Imperial War Museum.
The outgoing director of the museum, Sir Robert Crawford CBE, welcomed us all to the two-day event, thanking Bruce Kent of the Movement for the Abolition of War, a conference organiser, for his cooperation over the years.
We then heard an array of speakers on a wide variety of topics, almost…
Two figures towered over Black America in the 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr called for racial integration, for nonviolence, for love of the enemy. Malcolm X advocated racial separation, armed self-defence and self-love – black pride. Martin Luther King came out of the Black middle classes, the American South, the traditional Christian churches. Malcolm X came out of the Black underclass, the North, some new form of Islam. King spoke for reconciliation; Malcolm X for rage.
And yet, in…
Surrounded by kit, I sit facing my friends, cheeks burning so red that they suggest I am overtired. I shake my head, avoid eye contact, unsure how to admit my feelings.
Finally I break, tension flooding out: “I don’t feel prepared; I don’t think I can do it….” I was terrified our actions would be too extreme, that people wouldn’t relate to us…. So many paralysing thoughts.
This is what it’s like when you cease to keep your head down; these are the agonies you experience when…
Peace News has discovered that an international “peace” group (usually referred to as the “Martin Luther King Institute for a New Humanity”), which carries out nonviolence trainings in the UK, is actually run by a forty-year-old religious group that sends its youth to serve in the Israeli Defence Force and acts, in the eyes of the Israeli ministry for foreign affairs, as “effective contributors to the national public relations effort”.
A British representative of the Institute,…
Symon Hill of Campaign Against Arms Trade is buzzing with the excitement of a remarkable High Court victory. He forages through my hefty pile of BAE-judicial-review-related clippings–the story was strewn across the pages of all the national dailies–and upon finding the desired article takes great delight in quoting the Financial Times:
“What started as a David versus Goliath challenge, brought by a group of activists dismissed as ‘treehuggers’, yesterday culminated in a…
Police have intervened across the country to prevent screenings of the new campaigning film On the Verge about the Brighton-based anti-arms trade group “Smash EDO”. Police action succeeded in preventing the film's premiere on 17 March. Over the following days, there were reports of police and council intimidation of cafes and community centres in Southampton, Bristol, Bath and Hereford that had planned to show the film.
The film bills itself as “the story of one of the most…
When my son was coming up to school age, a friend introduced me to John Holt's book Teach Your Own, which I liked very much. I wouldn't have had the courage to home educate if it wasn't for the fact that my son also taught himself to read without help from me. (I'd started teaching him, and he said: Eugh
Play therapy has a role to play in preventing children from growing up violent. The child-led method which we teach at the charity Carefree Kids in east London enables children to express themselves freely - hate, anger and all - in our belief that discharged emotions are less dangerous than emotions which have had to be suppressed.
We therefore provide a gun, handcuffs, swords, a large inflatable “person” (bobo), police hat, and other things to beat up and to bash with. We provide…
On 19 March, the British prime minister launched the much–delayed National Security Strategy (NSS) – to little enthusiasm. The Daily Telegraph (which accompanied its report with a picture from Dad's Army) described the document as "a disappointing damp squib".
The report says that Britain faces "diverse and interconnected" threats, including pandemic influenza, failed states, transnational crime, terrorism and the proliferation of WMD. These have "diverse and interconnected"…
Over the last few years, and especially in the past six months, something special's been happening, is happening. It's happening in zines, on blogs, and across the web; via conferences, demonstrations, and workshops; in squatted buildings, on store–fronted streets, and around the bronzed military men on their Trafalgar Square plinths.
It's a feminist resurgence, and a radical one at that. This is grassroots, DIY, self–organising, non–institutionalised women's activism, and it's deeply…
In the month of the 97 International Women's Day, PN celebrates another year of women around the world rising up and resisting all forms of oppression and injustice:
Palestinian women have been protesting the devastatingly debilitating Israeli siege on Gaza. On 25 February, in a peaceful action called by the Popular Committee Against the Siege, thousands of Gazan women and children joined hands to form a human chain, risking a violent response from the world's fourth strongest army…
PN How does GALZ struggle for equal rights for LGBT people in Zimbabwe?
KG Recently, with the introduction of repressive legislation coupled with rising poverty and unemployment, GALZ has concentrated on assisting its members and embedding itself in the broader human rights movement in Zimbabwe.
We have various services for members: the Women's Scholarship Programmes; Skills for Life, providing vocational training for our members; and Positive Image, an access-to-affordable-…
On 16-17 February, CND celebrated its fiftieth birthday in style; holding a “Global Summit for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World” at London's dramatic glass-walled City Hall (courtesy of mayor Ken Livingstone, who opened the conference).
Future focusThe most striking aspect of the gathering was its resolute focus on the future.
Despite its being a birthday event, there was no massive exhibition detailing CND's turbulent and fascinating history, no panel of long-experienced…
The following quotes are from an amazing young African children's rights activist Kimmie Weeks, who has inspired and changed many young people's lives in Africa. He now lives in exile in America, where he has devoted his life to giving talks and bringing awareness for social change.
“I remain a strong believer in the power of young people to make change happen. I believe that young people have immense power, more than we realize. Once (young people) are informed and begin to feel…
Mike Turner, the head of BAE, is used to getting his own way. He wrote furiously to Gordon Brown last July, ranting against Brown's decision to close the Defence Export Services Organisation (DESO).
DESO is a marketing agency for private arms companies, paid for by taxpayers.
DESO's closure follows years of campaigning. In 2006-7, groups including Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) focussed on the economic arguments against DESO. Brown realised that he could save money by…
In Britain and especially in Glas- gow there are fewer and fewer outlets for independent and radi- cal materials.
Corporate bookshops rule the roost and offer little in the way of counter culture, radical voices or local independent materials. The Radical Independent Book fair project (RIB) has come about to help redress this imbalance.
Launched in October 2006, RIB has been an attempt to make available not just books, but jour- nals, DVDs, CDs, T-shirts and a plethora of…
This was the key message from a conference on "Trident, Trade Unions & Scotland's Economy" jointly held by the Scottish Trades Unions Congress and Scottish CND.
The cost of the Trident replacement won't come from existing Ministry of Defence budgets. Funds will be redirected from elsewhere, which means cutbacks in essential services. UK-wide, up to 30,000 public sector jobs are expected to be lost.
Of these, 2,500 will be lost in Scotland  more than the number of jobs…
