First World War Centenary: August 4th 2014

Silent vigil 12 noon - 2.00 p.m.

Monday 4th August

on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields 

Trafalgar Square, London.

- See more at: http://www.ppu.org.uk/nomorewar/a_general/vigil.html#sthash.pRjIdYwA.dpuf

The vigil is organised by a number of peace groups including: Conscience, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi, Peace Pledge Union, Peace News, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Similar events will take place around the country including: 

Liverpool: 12 noon - 2.00pm a silent vigil in the Peace Garden, St James Lane, Liverpool
Grassington:  11.00 am - 12.00 noon, Grassington Square.
Skipton: 2.00pm - 3.00 pm, outside the Town Hall, Skipton. 
Glasgow: 10.30 - 11.30 am, Donald Dewar Statue. Buchanan St, Glasgow
Bath: 12.30 to 12.50pm at the Amphitheatre, University of Bath
Portswood, Southampton 7 – 8 pm , Immaculate Conception RC parish, 346 Portswood Road
Wisbech, East Anglia: 8.00 -9.00 pm a silent candlelit vigil at the Clarkson Memorial.
Wokingham 12.30 - 13.30 Town Centre in the Howard Palmer Gardens

Women's anti-war actions in First World War
11am - 12 noon women will gather opposite Holborn tube station (original site of Kingsway Hall) to commemorate a peace rally held there on 4 August 1914 and the delivery of a resolution to Downing Street requesting a meeting to discuss peaceful solutions to world conflicts.  

The women will be 'joined' by Kathleen Courtney, Chrystal Macmillan, Catherine Marshall and Emmeline Pethwick-Lawrence, key organisers of the 1914 rally.

- See more at: http://www.ppu.org.uk/nomorewar/a_general/vigil.html#sthash.KuNrRvyZ.dpuf

http://www.ppu.org.uk/nomorewar/a_general/vigil.html

AND

No Glory in War Manchester in association with Artists for Peace present ‘1914 Peace Rally’.

Saturday 2^nd August 2014, Manchester.

On Saturday 2nd August 2014, please join us to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the mass peace rallies which took place around the country in opposition to Britain joining the war. Hear what peace activists and war resisters from 1914 had to say about the prospect of the Great War and their pleas for peace through this pop-up street theatre event. Featuring Chilean actor Marcela Hervia, newly-elected MEP for the North West Julie Ward, and theatre director Hazel Roy.

Join us at…

2pm Manchester Central Library (outside)
2.45pm Albert Square
3.30pm St Anne’s Square
4.15pm Cathedral Green

No Glory - No More War event Monday 4 August 6.30 pm
Parliament Square London
100 years since Britain declared war
Join No Glory on WW1 centenary
Wear white poppies. Use Twitter hashtag #NoMoreWar

Monday 4 August is the centenary of the day that Britain declared war against Germany. The No Glory in War campaign will hold an event in Parliament Square to commemorate the 15 million killed in the "war to end
all wars", including nearly one million British soldiers, and to say they can best be commemorated by creating a world in which there is no more war.

Join us in Parliament Square and show your opposition to further wars.
Hear the truth about the First World War and the protests against it at the time. MPs, actors, historians, campaigners, war veterans and others will be speaking and reading from anti-war authors and activists in
1914-18. German historian Juliene Haubold Stolle and Neil Faulkner, author of pamphlet No Glory - the real history of WW1, will challenge current accounts of the war.

Speakers and performers include:

Sam West actor • Jim Radford • World War Two veteran • Jeremy Corbyn MP •
Lindsey German Stop the War Coalition • Kate Hudson CND • Juliene Haubold
Stolle German historian • Neil Faulkner author of pamphlet No Glory

From WCML email newsletter 01/08/2014 

 Working Class Movement Library, 51 The Crescent, Salford, U.K. M5 4WX

www.wcml.org.uk/ 

1. The Library's new exhibition, World War One: myths and realities, opens on Wednesday 6 August.  

It explores topics such as the soldiers who refused to fight, why some young Salfordians were so eager to enlist, and the strength of the anti-war movement. The exhibition is open during our drop-in times, Wednesdays to Fridays 1-5pm.

There will be a series of free Wednesday 2 pm talks accompanying the exhibition:

24 September  The art of WW1 - John Sculley

1 October  Winifred Letts, local poet - Cynthia Greenwood

8 October  British trade unions and the First World War - John Newsinger.




NEWS FROM NOWHERE CLUB
http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/NfNHome.html
President: Peter Hennessy
8pm Saturday 9 August

Little Germany: Stratford and East London 1914
http://little-germany-stratford-1914.tumblr.com/

On Tuesday 15th December 1914 a small group of Germans were led to William Ritchie & Sons, an old jute factory on Carpenter’s Road, now to become Stratford Camp.   Interviewing decedents of the Germany Community in Newham and East London, Eastside Community Heritage launched an exhibition in July 2014 which is now open to the public.

Epicentre
West St, Leytonstone, E11 4LJ
http://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/NfNfindus.html

Enquiries:   0208 555 5248    or
info@newsfromnowhereclub.org.uk


And yet more...

There's a small exhibition at the Socialist Party's premises in London of
the party's opposition to the war with various documents and leaflets from
the period. It's open all this week from Monday 4 August to Sunday 10 August
from 11 am to 5pm and also on the remaining weekends of August (16/127 and
23/24).
The address is 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. Nearest tube is
Clapham North. Even nearer is Clapham High Street station on the Overground.
Further details:
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/socialist-party-and-first-world-war-exhibition-london-11am-5pm-all-days

MEETING - Housman's Bookshop : 50 years young

A speaker from the bookshop has been invited.

Wednesday 11 November at 8 p.m.
at The Postman's Office, the North London Community House.
Its address is 22 Moorefield Road, London N17. The venue is just around the corner from Bruce Grove British Rail Station, where Bruce Grove meets the High Road in Tottenham.

We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of Housman's, at 5 Caledonian Road, N1. The bookshop has its origins in the pacifist movement and takes its name from Laurence Housman, a long-serving officer of the War Resisters International, an organisation which grew from a small committee in 1921 to a body with over 90 groups in 43 countries, plus other networks. The anti-war movement comprises several strands - mainline pacificism, anarchism, socialists, a section of the labour movement, various religious groups - but a crisis developed in the mid 30s over how to deal with the menace of Nazism. Many broke with the pacifist movement believing that a defensive war against invasion and mass executions was justified, including president Fenner Brockway.

On the other hand, the movement for peace - reacting to atrocities in Spain and war in Abyssinia, etc. - grew proportionally. A large mass movement, the Peace Pledge Union, was set up and played a significant role over the next 70 years. Subsequently, the PPU published its new journal Peace News and in 1945 opened its bookshop in Shaftesbury Avenue. This later moved to Finsbury Park. An unexpected donation gave organiser Harry Mister a chance to suggest the purchase of a House/shop for both organisations and 5 Caledonian Road, Peace House, was opened in 1959.

These were dramatic years for those resisting the post war scene. Opposition to nuclear weapons gained ground rapidly both in the conventional CND and more militant Committee of 100. Subsequently the building was used by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, numerous defence bodies in political trials over Official Secrets and suchlike; the Gay Liberation Front, McLibel Two, London Greenpeace, and many others
too numerous to mention. More recently No Sweat, and the Campaign Against Climate Change are based here, and PN and WRI continue still. It has been central to many dissenting groups .

The bookshop itself has survived while virtually all others, both commercial and political, have closed. As a centre of radical publishing/selling for miscellaneous small-run and minority publications, the shop has an unrivalled stock and reputation. It carries a large number of newspapers, magazines, journals, posters, quarterlies and miscellaneous small goods. No bookshop can carry enough books to satisfy everyone but there exists a wide choice of publication ranging from children's books, items from most of the left and progressive movements, to specialist subjects like music, the environment, and London. The main sections are of course on the peace movement and various socialist and libertarian themes. Customers can expect a rapid service for their orders. A new venture, On Line Books, hopes to establish a base in this growing field of new technology. Every year the Peace Diary, with a world peace directory, appears and sells successfully in this country and overseas.

Reading:
Geoffrey Ostergaard, Resisting the National State:  the pacifist and anarchist traditions. [1982, 34 pp.]
Devi Prasad, War is a Crime Against Humanity:  the story of the War Resisters International [2005, 560 pp].
Peace News,  annually: Diary, with World Peace Directory.