Month: July 2016

Uncategorized

TIME FOR A LITTLE DIRECT..

Janet Fenton

 

 Cordless angle grinders or portable oxyacetylene cutting torches in the hands of twenty or thirty peaceful non violent civilians working together could have the fence at Faslane down in a very short time.
Half a dozen peaceful protesters could use simple and safe techniques to close dozens of places that represent or administer Westminster’s  foreign policy in this country, places in Edinburgh like The Scotland office in Melville Street, Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, or in Glasgow there’s the Milton Street Passport Office, Brand Street UK Borders Agency office, then there is Dungavel Detention Centre and  Balmoral…
Simpler acts like utilising a slow and friendly procession around all the pedestrian traffic signals in the city centres would create a bit of time for reading banners and enabling discussion of Ms May and her government’s policies.  Remembering Thatcher And the Poll Tax, remembering the threats of Scotland being forced out of Europe if it chose independence,  remembering the Tory consideration given to jobs for the miners in the 1980’s, will Brexit and Trident  renewal indicate such disregard of Scotland’s elected representatives that non co-operation with the state becomes inevitable?
Cat Boyd and others have been talking about nonviolent direct action and making Scotland ungovernable for long enough.
Uncategorized

SCOTTISH PEACE NETWORK COMMEMORATES SOMME

Janet Fenton

On July 1st at 5pm, the Scottish Peace Network is holding a centenary event at the Dewar’s statue on Buchanan Street in Glasgow city centre to remember the disaster of the battle of the Somme.

The Somme was the bloodiest battle of World war I. More than one million soldiers were either killed or badly wounded. In the end, the battle changed little and the war continued to grind on for two more years.

In addition to words describing the historical context and a a time for everyone attending to reflect on on war and militarism, poems twill be. Read, and David Mackenzie has written this for the occasion.

 

How long have we been at the school of the Somme,

My very dearest?

One hundred years at the school of the Somme,

If only the truth be known.

And in those years, these long, long years,

Tell me, how has our knowledge grown?

By leaps and bounds, my earnest love,

With the screech of the guns and the tearing flesh

And the strips of men hung on the mesh

From Belfast, Ems and Bangladesh

And the long, long list of their names.

 

And what about learning, sweetest my love,

What treasures have we brought home?

Ah, darling my dear, strategic sense,

Not to marshal troops in ranks so dense

And order them onto a barbed wire fence

And a blade of humming steel,

But to stay well clear of the killing zone

And summon the targets by mobile phone

Then finish them off with a mindless drone

And so cherish our delicate hands.

 

But what about wisdom, heart of mine,

The wisdom that changes ways?

Ah, that is the gap in the course, my love,

Unfilled across the years

Wisdom, such as a child may know

That there are but two ways for the world to go

Mad Neighbourhood Watch and its whimpering end

Or to act in peace and carefully tend

The shoots of our bonds and love,

To know that war is the zero sum,

To stay unmoved by the flag and the drum

And care for all – from wherever they come,

In our little rowing boat.

 

The Scottish Peace network can be contacted here: http://www.scottishpeacenetwork.org.uk