Peace campaigners from Bristol set off this morning driving over four hundred miles to Glasgow towing a giant peace logo. The journey which is spread over several days will be linking up with peace groups and XR groups for photo-opportunities and public meetings.
The logo, finished in multi-coloured patterns and mounted on a trailer, stands some three metres high. For pictures see https://thebristolactivist.com/2021/08/03/touring-peace-symbol-brightens-bristol/
Once in Scotland the giant logo will be used as a stage-backdrop for rallies with local politicians and peace campaigners. Over the weekend of 11th-12th June it will join the 40th anniversary celebrations at the Faslane Peace Camp near the Trident nuclear submarine base (HMNB Clyde), west of Glasgow. After this it will tour the nearby Coulport base (RNAD Coulport) where the UK stockpiles over two hundred of its nuclear warheads. It will be present during demonstrations and protests against UK nuclear weapons. FFI SEE
https://cnduk.org/events/confronting-the-uks-weapons-of-mass-terror-disarmament-camp10-17-june-2022/
The tour to Scotland leads up to a four-day Peace Gathering organised by Bristol peace groups from Saturday 6th to Tuesday 9th August in Castle Park remembering the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The event will include music and craftivism alongside a full program of workshops from local groups.
Dr Rowland Dye (XR-peace-bristol) Contact 07711-214168 who has a PhD in Nuclear Physics says “Speaking as a former nuclear scientist I know too well the risks to people in this country of manufacturing and maintaining nuclear weapons. Added to this is the ruinous financial burden – this money would be so much better spent on the NHS, feeding hungry children, or combating the urgent catastrophic problems of climate-change”
Hannah Tweddell (chair Bristol-CND) says “The terrible crisis in Ukraine has made it clear that not only do nuclear weapons not prevent war, they increase the likelihood of aggression from the countries that have them. We must oppose nuclear weapons and call on the government to sign up to the United Nation’s Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons”
Travelling with the group from her home in mid-Wales, is “veteran” Peace campaigner, Angie Zelter Contact 07454-573135 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angie_Zelter) who was joint recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. Angie has dismantled Trident research facilities, ‘borrowed’ a police boat to investigate war crime preparations, cut fences with Catholic Priests around a US base, protested the logging of old growth forests, helped organise a 7-mile-long pink peace scarf and been arrested around 300 times. She will be giving talks and public meetings along the route about her latest book https://tridentploughshares.org/activism-for-life-a-new-book-by-angie-zelter/
The giant peace logo started life as part of a set of three-dimensional symbols commissioned in 2018 to mark the 60th anniversary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. They toured Britain being photographed at more than twenty dramatic locations. Organisers say “the giant peace logo was too good to lose” and has been repurposed as a touring exhibit.