In the current issue of The Friend, Rosemary Burton challenges us to greater engagement with the arms trade. Apposite that the news this week has been dominated by the redundancies in naval shipyards. No doubt the same arguments would be deployed if there were any suggestion to abandon Trident submarine construction. I joined a Friends of the Earth delegation to see Peter Atkinson MP on that subject, where it became clear that jobs were one issue. The other was that we needed to mirror what France had. I hope that the whole subject of the arms trade and why the public implicitly support it continues to be explored in the Hexham Debates. I would interested in other contributions.
Let slip the doves of peace
07 Thursday Nov 2013
Posted in Uncategorized
Quakers north east 
Andrew Feinstein, featured in Rosemary’s article, is booked to give a talk in the Hexham Debates series on Saturday 8 February 2014, 11.00am at the St Mary’s Centre
An interesting article in OpenDemocracy http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/adam-ramsay/hiding-behind-cenotaph-cameron-will-seek-to-re-write-history
Brilliant article. Thank you. How can we influence the educators? We need to say more too about how the war began – the treaties, the ultimata, etc, plus what was described as a ‘will to war’ which then was said to be in the general population, but pre-Iraq was only in the politicians. Who are the historians currently looking across the century to see ‘how wars begin’. I know AJP Taylor wrote on that. Anyone since?
Jenny