Journal letter from Andrew Dey, Quaker Peaceworker at WRI

Dear Friends,

Looking back over the months since I last wrote, I'm realising it has been quite action-packed, without much time for reflection, but sometimes this is where life and work leads you!  Writing a letter is a great way of taking half a step back from the email inbox and to-do list, so I'm very grateful for that.  It was a privilege to travel to Cape Town in South Africa for three weeks in July, to attend the War Resisters' International (WRI) international conference, where the printed version of the 'Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns' I have been editing was released. There have also been several actions at Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment, and we've been getting on with the final preparations for the 'Wool Against Weapons' event on the 9th August.

The Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns has been the biggest project I have worked on this year, and it was hard to contain my excitement when there was finally a knock on the office door and boxes full of the printed book finally arrived, just in time to fill my suitcase and take them to Cape Town.  I'm pleased with the look and feel of the final product, and I hope it has achieved its brief in being accessible to a wide international audience, being user-friendly in terms of layout and language, and covering a broad cross section of different types of activism.  At the conference it was a pleasure to finally meet many of the people who have contributed articles to the handbook, and some of them spoke at a launch event.

One of the real learnings I will take from the conference is how different people relate to their activism in different countries or contexts; from the conversations I had, and presentations, films and workshops I attended, I was made aware of the privilege I have, as an activist in the UK, as to whether or not I participate in activism, and how shielded my life can be from the direct impacts of my country’s economic and military policies.  For instance, while watching a film about the residents of Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island, South Korea, who repeatedly (in some cases, ten times a day) block the construction of a US naval base on Jeju Island, I realised how little choice that community has to resist – the violence they are acting against is so active and is leaving such an impact on their lives they feel very little choice in whether they take action, even when exhausted physically and emotionally.  At the conference, I realised how much this contrasts with my experience of being an activist in the UK and in particular, the narrative that society attaches to activism.

It seems involvement in campaigns in the UK is often seen – within wider society - as a choice, almost as a hobby.  We're encouraged to think we could just as easily buy Fairtrade teabags as not, or take action against a nuclear weapons factory if and when it suits us.  I think this is because much of the violence we act against is latent; we are not faced with the literal impacts of nuclear weapons, drone warfare, arms sales, neo-liberal trade policies in the same way that communities like Gangjeong Village are.  This isn't a criticism of activists, but a comment on the wider social context we live in.

I was recently inspired by the words of a friend who was on trial a year ago for entering RAF Waddington (the base used by British drone pilots) and planting a peace garden; he described RAF Waddington as a “war zone”, and suddenly the latent violence of “a few people and some computers” became very real to me.  If we (as a society) reframe our understanding of places like AWE Burghfield and Aldermaston, Yarlswood Detention Centre, the DSEi Arms Fair, and so many other places of violence within our borders, I hope we will find it much harder to not take action against them – perhaps more people would refuse to pay their share of tax which goes to the military, or take action against dawn raids on migrant communities, or make more radical lifestyle choices to combat the impacts of climate change.  We could start to see these places with the same eyes that the residents of Gangjeong village see the naval base being built around them.

In my other work, Action AWE has seen an escalation of actions, including two successful blockades of Burghfield Atomic Weapons Establishment.  Trident Ploughshares successfully shut down the whole base with a blockade of every gate on June 9th ; three weeks earlier, a mixed group including members of Yorkshire CND and a Christian affinity group severely disrupted work by blockading the entrance used by construction vehicles for five hours – it was a privilege to be there with them! In the first week of July, a number of groups also participated in a week of action, attending their local police stations to report Trident, and the work of AWE Burghfield and Aldermaston to the police (we're still waiting to find out if the various crimes reported will be investigated...) The pressure on the UK's nuclear policy will continue to mount when, in a few short days, thousands of people line the route between Aldermaston and Burghfield, in the culmination of the Wool Against Weapons project.  The big pink peace scarf will finally be unrolled, and will hopefully be a significant milestone in the campaign to make sure that the government takes the opportunity to disarm Trident, rather than replace it in 2016. Part of my work over the last few months has focussed on making direct action at the bases more strategic, and we've been putting together plans for the final build-up to the election in 2015.  As well as work making sure the handbook is online and available to people who want to use it, my time over the coming month will be helping to lay the ground work for Action AWE's final months.

In peace and friendship,
Andrew

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Published by Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW). Andrew worked at WRI as part of QPSW's Peaceworker scheme.