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CND IN THE NEWS
CND in the News: 29 May - 4 June 2003
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1
Protests stunted growth
BBC News 3 June 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2957460.stm
It takes a leap of imagination to stage an effective protest these days,
as increasing numbers of traditional activists are finding out.
When father-of-seven Brian Haw quit his home in Worcestershire to take
up residence on the streets of London it was in the hope he could make
a difference.
That was two years ago. Mr Haw is still sleeping rough outside the Houses
of Parliament, his pavement shack covered in banners that protest against
the killing of children in Iraq and Palestine.
But this one-man demo has had little impact on the world at large. Few
people know his name or face. The recent efforts of MP Graham Allen to
ban permanent protests in Parliament Square looked like a direct swipe
at Mr Haw, until Mr Allen confessed he had never heard of him.
At the other end of the spectrum is Abas Amini, an Iranian asylum seeker
who last week staged his own protest at government by stitching shut his
mouth, eyes and ears.
Pictures of Mr Amini's tortured face were splashed across the television
and newspapers, and two days later his demands to stay in Britain had
been met and his stitches removed.
In a media-soaked society which has little patience for traditional politics,
those with a grievance are pushing the boundaries ever further to make
their voices heard.
It requires a curious mix of abilities, says Peter Tatchell, an experienced
gay-rights campaigner known for his headline-grabbing stunts.
"Most of my campaigns are planned months in advance. They draw on
the skills of a military theorist, a theatrical director and an advertising
PR," says Mr Tatchell.
Risk is usually a good way to guarantee column inches, as proved by Gary
Connery who took the perilous sport of base-jumping - parachuting from
tall buildings - to the top of London's Nelson's Column last month.
Pictures of Mr Connery leaping from the London landmark, against a backdrop
of a huge "Free Tibet" banner, featured prominently in the next
day's newspapers.
Sometimes it takes an injury to make the point. Anti-globalisation protester
Martin Shaw made the headlines this week after suffering multiple fractures
after dangling from a bridge near the scene of the G8 conference in Switzerland.
Police cut the rope and Mr Shaw plummeted 20 metres.
One of the most shocking and hard-hitting protests of recent times was
in 1999 when Nejla Coskun, a 14-year-old Kurdish schoolgirl, set her hair
alight in protest at the arrest of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Novel approach
As she dashed through a crowd of demonstrators in London, the fire melted
the skin of her neck. She is now scarred for life and still in pain.
Mr Tatchell, whose past protests have included staging a mass "queer
wedding" in Trafalgar Square, says media coverage is key to forcing
change in society. But that demands a novel approach.
"The old style march from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park has been
done to death. Even quite small, under-resourced organisations can have
a big impact with a carefully thought out and well planned strategy."
It's telling perhaps that while February's Stop the War in Iraq demonstration
in London, which attracted up to one million people, drew massive coverage,
subsequent big marches in the capital were ignored by some national media.
But stunts are not a new tactic and Mr Tatchell says he is simply following
in the tradition of the Chartists, Suffragettes and America's black civil
rights campaigners.
Veteran peace campaigner Bruce Kent, who led many a traditional CND
march in the 1980s, defends Brian Haw's one-man stand outside Parliament.
"It's a matter of conscience for some people. They don't think there
is any chance of a political change but they are still going to make their
stand anyway."
But he is also an advocate of innovate stunts and remains particularly
proud of his "exorcism" of a Scottish nuclear submarine base
in 1973.
"I was still a respected Roman Catholic priest at that time. The
theatre of it made police stand back respectfully as they didn't want
to interfere with what they saw as a religious service. It's been copied
many times since then, all over the world."
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2
AM bids for Plaid leadership
BBC News 2 June 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2957110.stm
Rhodri Glyn Thomas has announced that he wants to stand for leader of
Plaid Cymru in the Welsh assembly.
But Mr Thomas, the assembly member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, will
not stand for the party presidency.
That means he will only try to lead his party's 12-strong group in the
assembly if whoever is elected president is not an AM.
Ieuan Wyn Jones resigned as Plaid president last month after the party's
disastrous performance in the assembly elections.
Officially, there is no separate vacancy as leader of Plaid in the assembly.
Religion
According to the party's constitution, there will only be a separate leader
in the assembly if the party president comes from outside the assembly.
Mr Jones has been both president and leader in the assembly. But there
has been much speculation that the two roles could be split.
The only candidates to have declared themselves for the presidency so
far are both from outside the assembly - former AM Cynog Dafis and party
vice-president and councillor Dafydd Iwan.
In a brief statement, Mr Thomas said he would stand for leader of the
Plaid assembly group "should there be an election for the post".
Mr Thomas, 50, was born in Wrexham and is Plaid deputy leader in the assembly.
He has been AM for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr since the first assembly
election in 1999, is a minister of religion and is a former chairman of
CND Cymru.
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3
Arthur Brown
The Independent 30 May 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/story.jsp?story=410683
Foremost authority on the working-class history of Essex
Arthur Brown was an outstanding school, university and Workers' Educational
Association teacher and the foremost authority of his generation on the
social, economic and working-class history of Essex.
Born in Cardiff in 1914, the son of Arthur Brown, a Customs and Excise
officer, he was educated at Llandovery College, in central Wales, and
St John's College, Oxford. After beginning a degree course in Latin and
Greek, he moved over to Modern Greats, to study philosophy, politics and
economics, and graduated in 1937.
His change of course arose from his socialist convictions. He joined the
Communist Party and considered volunteering to fight with the International
Brigade in Spain. However, he took a teacher training course and went
to work for the WEA in the Rhondda before accepting a post to teach Classics
at Colchester Royal Grammar School.
In 1939, after the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the RAF
and spent several years in Africa. In 1945, he returned to teach Classics
and sixth-form history at Colchester Royal Grammar School. His interest
in WEA work, however, was undiminished and he became a full-time tutor
in 1948. In this capacity, he organised groups in a number of Essex towns
and villages to research and write up the history of their own localities.
The Story of Coggeshall 1706-1900, published in 1951, illustrates the
role that he played. "Without the help of Mr A.J. Brown, the tutor
of our class, we could not have undertaken the venture," the group
recorded in its foreword. Others produced similar publications under his
leadership, including groups at Lawford, Witham and the Maplesteads.
Brown was in an ideal position to offer guidance on sources because he
was already at work at archival collections, particularly that being built
up at the Essex Record Office under F.G. Emmison, a pioneer in this field.
Brown ploughed his way through mountains of documents and ancient local
newspapers which enabled him, in due course, to produce a series of fascinating
books and articles. These threw light on the poor and humble, absent from
most previous studies of Essex history. English History from Essex Sources
(1952) was only the first of these but, 40 years later, it still retains
its value.
In 1952 Brown returned to teach Classics at Colchester Royal Grammar School,
where he inspired generations of pupils with a love for the heritage and
languages of ancient Greece and Rome. He never ceased to visit Greece,
Italy and Spain and he was continually adding to the knowledge he transmitted
to pupils.
This did not, however, prevent his continuing with his work on Essex history.
When he retired from Colchester Royal Grammar School, in 1976, he began
teaching at Essex University in the Sociology and, later, the History
departments. He received an honorary doctorate and a research fellowship
and only gave up in 2000.
Over the period, he produced a steady stream of publications, including
Essex at Work, 1700-1815 (1969) and Colchester in the Eighteenth Century
(1969); Essex People, 1750-1900 (1972); The Chartist Movement in Essex
and Suffolk (1979); Colchester, 1815-1914 (1980); Meagre Harvest: the
Essex farm workers' struggle against poverty, 1750-1914 (1990); and Prosperity
and Poverty: rural Essex, 1700-1815 (1996).
Although he was never dogmatic, his work reflected an approach to history
that had much in common with that of E.P. Thompson, John Saville, Royden
Harrison and others influenced by Marxist ideas. His detailed studies
reveal the lives and aspirations of a section of society over the last
three centuries which were previously unknown. For this reason alone,
his work on Essex and Suffolk has an interest and importance which transcends
this area and contributes to our understanding of the past of Britain
as a whole.
Brown left the Communist Party in the early 1950s, but he retained his
left-wing views till the end of his life. Although he never joined another
political party, he became a member of CND and participated
in its activities.
He married Molly Provis, who taught art at Colchester County High School
and assisted him in his work. She died in 1976 and in 1979 he married
Patricia Dixon, a teacher and archaeologist, who gave him loyal support
until the end of his life.
Arthur Brown was interested in many aspects of Britain's cultural heritage
and particularly enjoyed classical music. A memorial meeting at Colchester,
held also to launch a book in his memory, Essex Harvest: a collection
of essays in memory of Arthur Brown, attracted some 200 people, including
former teaching colleagues, pupils and students, fellow historians, townspeople
and many others.
Stan Newens
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4
Labour gripped by paranoia as whips condemn hateful attacks
The Times June 04, 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-10-702505,00.html
PARANOIA swept through Labour ranks yesterday as loyal MPs claimed that
bitter attacks from colleagues about Tony Blair’s handling of the
war in Iraq were motivated by a sinister, hidden agenda.
“What have they got against us?” one junior minister asked.
“Why are they doing this to us?” He was referring to Clare
Short, Robin Cook, Peter Kilfoyle, Chris Smith, Frank Dobson, Malcolm
Savidge, Doug Henderson, Alice Mahon, Bob MarshallAndrews, Tony Lloyd,
Glenda Jackson, John McDonnell and Brian Sedgemore, who have been scathing
in their criticism not only of the war but also of the Prime Minister
himself.
What the whips find worrying is that Mr Blair lost the support of these
MPs so long ago and so totally that they are still fuming. “They
must really hate us,” one member of the Whips’ Office said.
“They are so bitter and twisted. The problem for us is why?”
The rebels say that they were pushed to speak out, that Mr Blair abused
their trust over Iraq and that they now doubt whether they can believe
him on any issue. But the whips say that a worryingly large band of MPs
is using the war to vent long-running and often deeply personal grievances.
Ms Jackson, a former Transport Minister, denied suggestions that she had
a wider agenda. “Are there no depths to which they will not sink?
People died in a war which I always said was not only illegal but immoral
and could and should have been prevented. The reason we were told we were
going to war now was because Saddam Hussein was a combination of Hitler
and Mussolini and had these weapons of mass destruction that could be
launched in 45 minutes.”
Mr Marshall-Andrews said: “(A wider agenda) may be the case with
some people. It is certainly not the case for me. I feel very strongly
about this. I am a parliamentarian and I don’t take these things
personally. Parliament was almost certainly misled on this issue. It is
very serious. There must be an inquiry outside Parliament and outside
the control of the whips.”
Mr Henderson, a former Armed Forces Minister, said of the whips’
analysis: “Some of them were backing CND when I
backed unilateralism. I’m someone who is against the war. I think
we are attacking terrorism in the wrong way. This is about stating your
conscience and letting people know what you think.”
Nevertheless, one minister said that Labour was suffering from “irritable
backbencher syndrome”. He had no idea how it might be cured.
It is thought that Mr McDonnell, MP for Hayes and Harlington, might lose
the whip primarily because of his openly stated admiration for the IRA.
As for the rest, the only hope was that the euro would explode on to the
scene next week, with Gordon Brown’s assessment of the five tests,
and replace the issue of weapons of mass destruction as the issue of the
day.
But a number of other contentious issues may become a focal point for
anti-government feeling, including the forthcoming report stage of the
Bill setting up foundation hospitals. Last night a rebellion on the Fire
Service Bill was contained, but only after manoeuvring by the whips.
The good news for the Government is that the majority of its MPs still
feel happy with their decision to support Mr Blair and military action.James
Purnell, MP for Stalybridge and Hyde, said: “My reason for backing
the Government was always a moral one, that Saddam Hussein was inflicting
terrible damage on his civilians and was a threat to his neighbours. His
removal was a clear benefit to people in Iraq and has allowed the Middle
East peace process to be restarted.”
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