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My general feeling is that this kind of question can't be faced in a meaningful way when it's abstracted from the context of particular historical concrete circumstances.

Any rational person would agree that violence is not legitimate unless the consequences of such action are to eliminate a still greater evil.

Now there are people of course who go much further and say that one must oppose violence in general, quite apart from any possible consequences. I think that…

Pax Christi outreach Pax Christi General Secretary Pat Gaffney gave an account of the Catholic peace group's outreach work at the Pax Christi AGM on 18 June. We've decided to print a few highlights, indicating the kind of work that vigorous peace organisations are doing every day.

On the nuclear issue, we distributed 10,000 campaigning postcards for Tony Blair in just one month, urging the government not to renew Trident; we organised a speaking tour with Senator Douglas Roche from…

The greatest danger to the peo ples of the Middle East, including the people of Israel, comes from Israel's determination to retain control of the land it conquered 40 years ago, and its willingness to use nuclear weapons to maintain its dominance of these territories.

Israel is committed to a semi-open nuclear policy referred to as the “Samson option”, a threat to bring down the entire Middle East, and perhaps even the world, to maintain its controlling position, and to prop up…

Unions and social movements have much to learn from each other. If we can combine the best of both, we can transform the world.

Unions and movements differ in recruitment, funding, means used to mobilise, and ways of achieving their goals. Most social movements, the peace movement included, recruit people based on their agreement with the movement's goals. If a social movement can get one percent of the population to turn out to a demonstration -- half a million people in Britain,…

It was in the winter of '94 and I had just moved to San Francisco and wanted to get involved in Food Not Bombs locally.

Local activist Keith McHenry came over and talked to me at an event, and immediately started introducing me to other FNBers and invited me back to his house for dinner. He asked me question after question about how I got involved and what we did in Whittier. He gave me literature, told me about the meetings, and asked me what I was interested in doing. Over the next…

As the largest “recuperated” or worker-occupied factory in Argentina, the Zanon ceramics plant in the Patagonian province of Neuqun employs 470 workers.
Along with some 180 other recuperated enterprises which provide jobs for more than 10,000 Argentine workers, the Zanon experience has re-defined the basis of production: without workers, bosses are unable to run a businesses; without bosses, workers can do it better.
The FASINPAT workers' co-op followed the slogan “occupy,…

A myth is being created. The myth of William Wilberforce, the great white liberator, as perpetuated by Amazing Grace, the Hollywood version of the abolition of the slave trade.

The reality is captured in Adam Hochschild's magisterial study, Bury the chains: the British struggle to abolish slavery, which brings to life “a pioneering mobilisation of public opinion, via boycotts, petitions, and great popular campaigns, all powerfully reinforced by the armed slave…

While in Amman, Jordan, in January, I received a joyful phone call from friends in Baghdad announcing that one of their daughters was engaged. Broken Arabic and broken English crossed the lines-”We love you! We miss you!”

“What an amazing family,” said a colleague, upon hearing the happy news. “Imagine all that they've survived.” A few hours later, the family sent us a text message: “Now bombs destroy all the glasses in our home- no one hurt.”

No one was home when a car-bomb…

“Salam”, the Arabic word for peace, is both a friendly greeting and the goal of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT) in Iraq. “Salaam is not just a greeting... it is the goal.” The heart of Islam is nonviolent, and the “God (Peace) within” gives MPT the courage to work in Iraq without fear so MPT can continue the important work.

The idea for a Muslim Peace- maker Team developed in January of 2005. It was inspired by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) that have been active in Iraq…

The demonstrations had been going for a couple of days, and my middle class ass was feeling impatient to join "the masses" and engage in the united protests against over 230 years of medieval tyranny in Nepal.

Attempts at gathering people for a candlelight vigil after curfew hours at the Infoshop failed. Only the singer of our band showed up; everyone else was afraid. Our pro-royalist neighbour expressed his dissatisfaction at the candles, and we thought he was going to turn us in…

Following the publication of the White Paper, The Future of the United Kingdom's Nuclear Deterrent, in December 2006, the government promised a parliamentary debate and vote on their proposals for Trident replacement. That vote is likely to take place in the second or third week of March (date unconfirmed when PN went to press).

It is believed that MPs will only be presented with one set of proposals to vote on (the government's, naturally). Despite polls consistently…

From 11 to 14 September, DSEi (Defence Systems Equipment International), the world's largest arms fair, returns to East London's ExCeL Centre.

Despite massive local opposition, and a huge bill to the taxpayer, arms dealers will once again be free to deal in death and destruction. “Stop the War” (whichever war) is useless sloganeering unless it is accompanied by a commitment to stopping the global arms trade. No wars will ever stop whilst weapon sales are a booming capitalist business…

Over fifty years ago, the peace movement burst into life in response to the very real threat posed by nuclear weapons. Mass collective action - from Aldermaston to Greenham Common - was successfully used to wake up the world to the madness of the cold war and the arms race.

Today, it is widely agreed that climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity. A new generation is mobilising to confront the root causes of this danger and to create a space for the radical social change…

“We stand at the brink of a second nuclear age. Not since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has the world faced such perilous choices ... As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilisation. We have concluded that the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons.”

On 18 January, the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands on the Doomsday Clock from…

Last year myself and filmmaker Mayyasa Al-Malazi spent several weeks interviewing and filming people involved in the Shell to Sea campaign, including the Rossport Solidarity Camp, in the region of Erris, county Mayo, south-west Ireland. We got to know and love the area and had the privilege of being welcomed by a warm and open-hearted local community, who until recently led quite settled and tranquil lives. (“We used to be so boring...” they laugh,”Now the telephone hardly stops ringing…

On 4 December the government published a White Paper outlining its preferred option for the continuation of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, committing the country to a new fleet of nuclear submarines and to a service life extension for the US-owned Trident D5 missiles. Buried on page 30 was the news that the future of Britain's nuclear warheads would be determined in the next parliament. For now, a reduction in existing warhead numbers, from the equivalent of approximately 1,600…

On 4 December the government published a White Paper outlining its preferred option for the continuation of Britain's nuclear weapons programme, committing the country to a new fleet of nuclear submarines and to a service life extension for the US-owned Trident D5 missiles. Buried on page 30 was the news that the future of Britain's nuclear warheads would be determined in the next parliament. For now, a reduction in existing warhead numbers, from the equivalent of approximately 1,600…

A lot has changed over the last 15 years. We now live in a world ravaged by Climate Change, a world where the World Health Organisation estimate that 150,000 people die every year and the development charity Christian Aid estimate that 182 million will die in sub-Saharan Africa alone by the end of the Century, as a result of diseases exacerbated by climate change.

Here in the UK we're told that we've never had it so good. Social inclusion, community involvement and environmental…

I first met Plane Stupid in November 2005, at a protest outside a conference gala dinner for aviation executives on London's TowerBridge.

I was struck by the juxtaposition of coach-loads of radicalised grannies from local airport residents' opposition groups standing side by side with the young climate change activists who had broken up the conference earlier that day with an inspired combination of balls [ovaries?] and brains. This looked interesting...

At the Camp…

Why is road building back on the agenda after the infamous protests against road building in the 1990s forced a dramatic turn around in government transport policy away from building roads? Why is the government following yet again a “predict and provide” model, and allowing for massive traffic growth, when road transport contributes 20 per cent of UKCO2 emissions? What is being done about this?

In the 1990s the then Conservative government launched what they termed “the largest road…