Author: igledebrick

Disarmament

Banning the Belt and Banning the Bomb

igledebrick

I was a secondary school teacher in Scotland at a time when it was still permissible for teachers to hit pupils on their palms with a leather strap. As a pupil I was myself hit in this way on a number of occasions. Corporal punishment was eventually banned in 1987, though abandoned in many schools and local authorities prior to that.

Looking back on these days, which were in this respect genuinely old and bad, I am hooked by the similarities between the banning process for the tawse and for nuclear weapons.. In the UN at the moment nation states are discussing the status of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Those nuclear-weapon states which are parties to the NPT, along with their willing or unwilling allies and client states, have a standard narrative: Like all of you we want a world free of nuclear weapons but now is not the time – the security environment is not there yet – when things are better we will look at eliminating our arsenals. They call it Creating an Environment for Disarmament. Now, for me that rings a loud bell. I recall the discussions in our school in Falkirk in the late 70s when the belt retainers argued that we should work gradually towards a disciplinary environment where enforcement by corporal punishment would be no longer necessary. But the idea of a belt-free school began to grow. Could such an unimaginable change actually happen? There was an increase in pupils refusing to accept the belt and in one case in particular the mother of the pupil in question took on the system with great courage and persistence. Gradually there was an acceptance that an official ban was on the way and the strips of leather disappeared from teachers’ briefcases. Not long after, a woman who lived in the bungalows behind the school expressed to us her surprise that the big crowd fights she used to see at the end of the school day were a thing of the past. The environment had changed. The ban had changed the environment.

The long grass kickers of the nuclear weapon establishment have this exactly wrong. It is the ban which can change the environment. You could also argue that the prospect of the Treaty on The Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons coming in to force, perhaps next year, is already changing the environment. Big international investment companies have divested from nuclear weapons. There’s a growing understanding that disarmament is not the exclusive property of the nuclear club – we are all affected and must all have a say. Above all, the windows of imagination have been opened. Alongside “we have to do this if we are to survive”, there is “we can do this, it can happen and it will bring so many other gifts in its train”.

Back to the days of the belt. I guess you asked a question of me then, and yes, I did myself wield the belt on occasion in my earlier days. No excuses, it was always wrong, but I don’t think we realise just how far things have progressed in Scotland since the fifties and sixties. Read The Invisible Spirit: A Life of Post-War Scotland 1945-75 by the late Kenneth Roy to discover just how brutal life was in these decades. In the same way, in a decade or two we could look back in wonderment that apparently sensible persons were once arguing that the way to get rid of nuclear weapons was to keep them.

David Mackenzie

International

Securing China’s Northwest Frontier: Identity and Insecurity in Xinjiang

igledebrick

A talk by Dr David Tobin of Manchester University

Tuesday 14th May at 7 p.m.

in The Brass Monkey 14 Drummond St, Edinburgh EH8 9TU

China’s “Great Revival” tells a story of the Chinese people uniting and rising to reverse ‘national humiliation’ by the West and return to their pre-modern, rightful place at the centre of world affairs. However, since outbreaks of ethnically targeted violence in Tibet and Xinjiang (2008-2009), the party-state has described the creation of a shared national identity based on Han culture and ‘ethnic unity’ as a “zero-sum political struggle of life or death” and a prerequisite to China’s rise. Towards dreams of unity and revival, China has operated mass extra-judicial internment camps since 2017 as “Education and Transformation Centres” in Xinjiang, interning approximately 10% of the adult Uyghur population. This talk analyses the social and political dynamics behind China’s ethnic minority policy shift towards “fusion” that has culminated in both mass extra-judicial internment camps and the “One-Belt-One-Road” foreign policy initiative. The talk draws from ethnographic fieldwork during the riots of 2009 and the latest official documents from the 19th Party Congress and Xinjiang Working Group meetings. It argues that the party-state exacerbates cycles of insecurity in the region by targeting Uyghur identity as a threat to China’s existence and provoking Uyghur resistance to official policy.

 

Dr David Tobin is Hallsworth Research Fellow in the Political Economy of China at the University of Manchester. He is currently researching how postcolonial relations between China and the West shape foreign policy-making and ethnic politics in contemporary China. His forthcoming book with Cambridge University Press, Securing China’s Northwestern Frontier: Identity and Insecurity in Xinjiang, analyses the relationship between identity and security in Chinese policy-making and ethnic relations between Han and Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Uncategorized

Wey Forrit

igledebrick

Wey Forrit – Reflections

In the week beginning 11th March 2019 a series of meetings were held in Glasgow and Edinburgh featuring European visitors and discussing peace-building opportunities and challenges in the context of Brexit, the future of NATO and the militarisation of the European Union. A detailed compilation of their presentations over the three meetings is below this article.

At first glance the contributions of the four speakers to the meetings could be seen as diffuse, with no obvious unifying theme. Given time to digest the inputs, the messages are both coherent and relevant.

One element in the meetings was represented by two speakers from small countries, Scotland- sized but independent, Anne Palm from Finland and Roger Cole from Ireland. Both nations, in tension with that independence and a good track record on positive international diplomacy, have behaviours that place them firmly in one or more of the world’s major power blocs and with dubious connections to global conflict. Ireland has the notorious Shannon airport contradiction and is content to play its part in the militarisation of the EU. Finland provides intelligence to NATO and has a significant arms exporting record, some of it to dubious regimes. There is a marked difference between Anne and Roger on the EU. Ann sees the EU as a positive institution and feels the military plans do not amount to much while Roger reckons that the EU has imperial ambitions that it is increasingly ready to back up with a genuine war-making structure.

Many will feel that tension within their own take on the EU and on Brexit, responding on the one hand to the early post-war European vision for peace across the continent and the EU’s institutional frameworks for human and workplace rights and for environmental standards, and on the other to the realistic recognition that the Union operates as a global trading bloc on neo-liberal economic principles, making it highly plausible that it will aspire to a fully-fledged military identity. It also seems highly likely that Brexit will serve to accelerate that process, given that the UK has been resistant to a clear EU military identity on the grounds that it will undermine NATO and reliance on the US for military security.

All these questions and suggestions are sharply relevant to a Scotland moving towards independence. Those of us who want our country to be for peace will interrogate such options as we will have. This will include looking twice at any EU membership option and exploring whether Danish-style military opt-out protocols are possible. Can we be genuinely non-aligned or do fail to set our ambitions beyond a fudge in which our bloc alignment actions are covert or simply downplayed? On the positive side will we match Ireland and Finland in contribution to genuinely inclusive international institutions? Will our concept of security be limited to conventional military threat-related perspectives or based (as Anne Palme proposed) on real human needs?

The scrutiny of the future options also impels current action. There is much that we can do right now to contribute to the inclusive international institutions by seeking assertive and imaginative ways to participate on the basis that so much of our aspiration for a peaceful world is subverted by being formally represented through the narrow channel of the UK.

There are the tricky but inescapable challenges in Scotland’s arms exporting and the support the Scottish government give to it. There’s education, formal and otherwise.

Then there is the question of whether we will have any future at all. Dave Webb’s presentation of one of two (known) existential threats we face was stark He made it clear that our response needs to be global in its perspective, in the way it works at solidarity, in the way it links the grass-roots with the governmental and diplomatic, in the requirement to work together worldwide to provide the essential counter-narrative. Working for the TPNW covers all these elements.

Ann Paterson’s contribution took us to the heart of the dynamics of violence and of peace. Her warning that internecine violence can break out at a moment’s notice is to be heeded. We are aware that our social and political discourse has become more and more polarised. We need to balance our commitment to good and just stances with the ability to cross the boundaries and identify common values. In the peace movement we have the resources to hand to do this but we have to give this part of the work greater prominence and status within our programmes and personally.

David Mackenzie February 2019

Compilation

Dave Webb, chair of UK CND, has a science background and at one time worked for the MoD on assessing Soviet threats in space. Appalled by the confrontational “worse-case scenario” approach of the planners he got involved in politics during the mass movements of the early 80s. The possibility of intermediate range nuclear weapons coming back into Europe is alarming. NATO has completely reneged on the agreement it made at the time of the break up of the Soviet Union that the Alliance would not seek members among those states physically closest to Russia in order to have a buffer zone. Acknowledging that there was currently no such mass movement confronting the current perilous situation but there is hope that one can now be built, especially given the grass-roots impetus behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The SNP in changing to a pro-NATO policy has made a serious error given that the UK’s nuclear weapons are allocated to the alliance and how the NATO military infrastructure is designed to be inter-operable with US systems to the benefit of US arms corporations. In this scenario the UK cannot fail to have a first-strike nuclear policy since that is the NATO stance. As regards the increasingly militarised EU, do we leave or stay in and attempt reform. We should bear in mind that there are three forms of violence, direct, structural and cultural and all need to be resisted. Co-operation and negotiation has to be the way forward.

Ann Patterson of Belfast Peace People. In Ann’s experience most people are peace people. The roots of her own pacifism was the accounts of the Holocaust told her by her Jewish teacher. Ann worked with the Quakers and was aware of their good reputation in Ireland. On one occasion amidst the anger of a big protest against the release of 3 convicted British soldiers her Quaker minibus was let through the crowds by protesters who said that the Quakers had saved so many during the Famine. She had engaged in prison education in the infamous H Block. The horrors of ISIS and Syria recalled for her the terrible state of NI during the troubles. The founding of the Peace People resonated very deeply across the polarised and divided community, and very quickly resulted in the formation of nearly four hundred small but vociferous and active groups forming and demonstrating locally every week, eventually this included together travelling to London where together they filled Trafalgar Square.

Ann showed a moving film about the NI Troubles and the widespread revulsion at one particular tragedy that led to peace-making across the boundaries. There was the sense that the community had lost its soul and that the violence had to stop somehow. The Brexit threat to the open border between north and south is very worrying since violence can break out so very quickly in an apparently calm and stable situation.

Ann Palme, of the Finish Wider Security Network (formed 2015) spoke of the Finnish view on peace. The Network operates in an integrated way with Finnish Government rather than just as a pressure group.

Finland has not been involved in armed conflict since 1944 and is currently at No 7 on the Global Peace Index. Current concerns are the Trump unpredictability, Russian aggression, the general descent into power politics and Brexit – all indicating a decline in international co-operation. Ann was very positive about the EU and the need for a common security and defence policy. In her view the European army was hardly a reality. She said that Finland has stayed out of all alliances and plays a big part in peace-keeping via the UN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Finland only became independent in 1917 after being part of Sweden and then Russia with whom it shares a 1340 kilometre border. Finnish people just want a quiet life! Finland has not signed the TPNW due to its NATO alignment and says that the NPT is the important treaty in regard to nuclear weapons. added that the main parties in Finland wanted to stay out of NATO, a stance affected by Russia’s proximity, but still remain closely co-operative with it. Peace-building and mediation are essential and we need more women and young people to be active in these fields. In its mediation activities, Finland pays special attention to measures that enhance the role and ownership of women in peace processes in line with the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, “Women, Peace and Security”. Finland has its own National Action Plan for the implementation of Resolution 1325, and Finnish experiences have been shared with partners in countries such as Kenya and Afghanistan.A big advantage in Finland is government funding, without strings, for NGOs. Scotland could play a significant part in peace-building and mediation. The Finnish have the word “sisu” (stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience and hardiness) to describe their national character, a term similar to the Scottish “smeddum”!

Roger Cole of the Irish Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA). PANA is committed to Irish independent operation in the context of the UN and was instrumental in initiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Roger spoke of the growing militarisation of the EU and the recent mentions by Macron and Merkel of the European Army. Based on its concerns about neutrality PANA had campaigned at a series of referenda on Europe, including successfully at the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The plan for developing the EU as a military power is in the Lisbon Treaty leading to battle groups and the 2017 EU Permanent Structured Cooperation on Security and Defence Organisation (PESCO), and it could involve nuclear weapons. It is notable that Denmark in joining the EU did so on the basis of protocols which excluded it from the the military dimension. As things stand for Ireland membership of the EU and involvement in the military aspect mean that the Irish have given up their loyalty to their own country in favour an external union. PANA is in favour of an economic partnership and does not advocate leaving the EU. Independence and neutrality are key. Irish neutrality is of course critically compromised by the use of Shannon airport for regular transit of US forces. Most Irish people, though against the never ending wars, know nothing of this – it is not reported in mainstream media and we have to harness the power of social media to get the story out. PANA now has the support of 52 Irish parliamentarians and 70% of the population is against the US use of Shannon. While stressing neutrality and independence Roger was clear that PANA’s is not a “Little Irelander” stance and it supports independence for others, such as currently Venezuela.

END