Rai, Milan

Rai, Milan

Milan Rai

3 December 2009Comment

The climate conference in Copenhagen is a turning point in world history. The protests in Denmark and around the world before and during the conference are therefore of enormous importance.

As a species, we are now fully conscious of the effects of our actions on the world’s climate and therefore on all the interlocking ecosystems on which human and other forms of life depend. At Copenhagen, the world’s governments could give their informed consent either to a scientifically-…

1 December 2009Review

Niccolo Press, 2009: 239pp; ISBN 978-0-944-061-16-5; £9.50

Imagine a radical activist going through pretty much the entire publicly-available English-language literature on how to do soldiering (how to train a ground-hugging grunt), and also digesting quite a lot of the open literature on police forensics and government surveillance techniques – in order to extract the stuff that would be (or could be) useful for activists wanting to break into places and stop dastardly deeds.

Bumping Back is pretty much the result. Two randomly-selected…

3 November 2009Comment

Do you support the troops? Are you proud of them? It would be a brave – or perhaps foolhardy – person in public life who said no.

Indeed, in a recent speech to mark the end of military operations in Iraq, archbishop Rowan Williams – the dangerous radical who once got himself arrested at an CND protest – declared the need for all of us to “speak our thanks for those who have taught us through their sacrifice the sheer worth of justice and peace.” He was talking about British…

16 October 2009Feature

The British people are tired of the lies and evasions. We are sick of the futile deaths of British soldiers and the shocking airstrikes on defenceless Afghan civilians.

We have had enough of the war in Afghanistan. The anger we felt over the invasion of Iraq has not gone away. Now we are increasingly angry at the mounting waste of life in Afghanistan.

Eight for eight
7 October marks the eighth shameful anniversary of the US-UK invasion of Afghanistan. Coincidentally,…

3 September 2009Comment

The funeral of the last British survivor of the trenches of the First World War was held in Wells Cathedral on Hiroshima Day (6 August) attended with pomp and circumstance, and solemn honours from politicians and the mainstream media. While they proclaimed their respect for Harry Patch, who died at the age of 111, political leaders and media commentators almost entirely ignored the core message to which Harry Patch devoted his last years.

The man who saw some of his best friends…

1 September 2009News

For the first time in Britain’s nuclear history, an opinion poll has found that a majority of people in Britain are in favour of Britain abandoning its nuclear weapons - without regard to considerations of cost.

ICM conducted its poll for the Guardian on 10-11 July, asking: “Do you think Britain should replace the [Trident] nuclear weapons system with a new one or should it no longer have any nuclear deterrent?”

There was no prompting about the high cost of the Trident…

16 July 2009Feature

After the storm, we can make peace

After the turmoil of the post-election protests and repression in Iran, we believe that the most important thing that outsiders can do to help the people of Iran is to push for a new relationship between the west and the Islamic republic. Massive protests flared up after the 12 June Iranian presidential election because of the strong indications of fraud.

While it is possible that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election, millions of Iranians do not believe he won 63% of the votes,…

3 July 2009Comment

The massive election protests in Iran are an inspiring example of human courage and the power of ordinary people to affect powerful institutions. At the time of going to press, we do not know what the outcome of this clash is going to be.

One possibility is that there will be a replay of the 4 June 1989 massacre in China. One of the most thoughtful reflections on Tienanmen Square came in the Financial Times, where James Kynge (who reported the demonstrations first-hand) argued that…

1 July 2009Feature

It is testimony to the spirit of trust and unity created by the organisers of the recent Anarchist Movement Conference in London that it was possible to take a photograph of the 200-plus people who gathered for the final plenary of the gathering. Given that many of those present seemed to be the kind of people used to masking up in public, allowing a mass photograph felt like a significant departure.

The 6-7 June conference, held at Queen Mary & Westfield College in east…

1 July 2009Feature

The declaration of a semi-closed, semi-open, no-blame inquiry into the Iraq war is said to be part of British prime minister Gordon Brown’s strategy to secure his position as leader of the Labour party.

Interestingly, the announcement also hampers any thoughts the Conservatives may have of initiating their own inquiry with a broader remit if they win the next general election (the most likely outcome at this point) .

More important than these power games is the opportunity…

1 July 2009Feature

Earlier this year, I was invited to take part in a discussion about “growing the radical peace movement” in Britain. I immediately turned to my esteemed co-editor, who suggested that “the radical peace movement” would to some extent not be able to take part in the discussion because it was out in Gaza, standing alongside Palestinians as they faced the might of the Israeli state and then struggled to recover from Operation Cast Lead.

Another long-term activist objected that many of…

1 July 2009Review

University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 978 0 812239 69 0; £16.50; 459pp

Just over a year ago (PN 2497), we suggested there was a convergence of views of Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X in their later years, in particular their growing convictions that overcoming class oppression was central to black liberation.

We quoted King in 1966: “something is wrong with capitalism… there must be a better distribution of wealth, and maybe America must move towards a Democratic Socialism”; and 1967: “capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black…

1 July 2009Review

Oxford University Press; ISBN 978 0 197264 22 5; £21.99; 356pp

Professor Peter Hennessy is a tremendously well-connected insider, who has over the years lifted the lid on Whitehall in a way that no other historian has managed. His latest book Cabinets and the Bomb is perhaps the ultimate in revelation, in that it reproduces (photographically) top secret cabinet documents relating to the most sensitive topic in British politics: the British nuclear arsenal.

62 documents from 1940 to 2007 are presented (often in full), along with explanatory text,…

16 June 2009Feature

Britain doesn’t need an Armed Forces Day, recently invented by Gordon Brown. We already have Remembrance Day. What Britain needs is an Unarmed Forces Day - when we can remember those people, like Tom Hurndall, Rachel Corrie, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi, who dedicated their lives to nonviolent social change.

Unarmed Forces Day is a Peace News initiative. It is a celebration of the power of nonviolence, a call for real support for our damaged veterans,…

3 June 2009News

Russian social movements are struggling with Putin's repression and economic “liberalisation”, the war in Chechnya, neonazis and the mafia. (Organised crime apparently now controls over 20% of Russia's gross domestic product.)
On 14 and 15 April, unauthorised “Dissenters' Marches” in Moscow and St Petersburg by the new liberal-led coalition “The Other Russia”, were met with arrests and police beatings.
Veteran radical Boris Kagarlitsky observes that, “As things stand today, the…