Our Visit to Faslane

Sandra Webster, SSP Spokesperson, inspired by our visit to Faslane Peace Camp, wrote this blog...

I live in Renfrewshire the other side of Faslane right across the Erskine Bridge. I knew about the Peace camp having honked my car horn whenever I passed it but despite living so nearby I am ashamed to admit, I had never visited it. Iwas delighted when one of my comrades Neil from the Campsie Branch of the SSP organised a visit. Along with my daughter Linz we visited the camp yesterday and met one of the activists Leonna.

Passing the camp on the road toy can see a patchwork quilt of colourful caravans. Inside the campers have created a beautiful and spiritual face right in the shadows of trident submarines and their nuclear cargo. Enough to wipe the whole of Scotland off the map. Leonna arranged a worshop for us with the history of trident and an introduction to the politics of non aggressive direct action.

Read on HERE

Video and article to follow...

Our signed letter SSP Campsie Organiser, Neil Scott passed on to workers on the base...

Visit to Faslane

We are visiting Faslane base tomorrow. This is the letter we intend to deliver. If anyone else would like their name associated with it, let me know here or email me at plottracer@googlemail.com

To the workers in Faslane Base.

Dear Worker

We have come to the base today to protest at the presence of nuclear weapons in Scotland.

We won’t patronise you with information on the dangers of these weapons, and we are sure you know that the money spent on these weapons of mass destruction would be better spent on ensuring our children are educated and our sick and old people are taken care of.

We understand, though, that the worry for any worker is that they will be made unemployed. We want to assure you that in an Independent Scotland, we as socialists will fight to ensure that you are redeployed and retrained in jobs that are socially valuable with no loss of pay. We will also fight to ensure that communities such as the local economies around Gare Loch are earmarked for special funding that results from the savings the country will make when these weapons and military establishments are dismantled.


Most of us on this protest are from East Dunbartonshire, a Scottish Local Authority that prides itself with the term, “Nuclear Free.” Of course if there was an accident at Faslane that meant a leakage, or worse, this claim would mean nothing. We have a special interest in ensuring these weapons are removed ie, the future of our children (and anyone else’s child who potentially could be on the receiving end of one of these weapons).

For a Nuclear Free Scotland

Campsie Socialists
www.campsiesocialists.com

We'll be publishing an article about our visit and also an article by one of the women on the camp in the coming days...

Identity Politics and welfare not warfare - views from two Campsie members...

Persepolis –A discussion on Identity Politics.

Campsie branch recently showed the film "Persepolis" in Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre (we meet there on the Second Saturday morning of the month at 10.30am.)

Pamela Page reviews:

Persepolis is an angry, yet simultaneously joyous and inspirational, animated film based on Majane Sartapi’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name.

I highly recommend the film! It is funny, quirky and great entertainment on many levels - but rather than give a review I am going to discuss it in terms of how I think it can help Socialists understand the importance of Identity politics.

The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution.

Socialists can certainly identify with a lot of Marji’s rebelliousness - especially at the start when we see the mass protests against the Shah. Even after the Islamic fundamentalist’s take over and her Communist uncle is jailed - her spirit is not crushed. Marji refuses to stay out of trouble whether it’s secretly buying Western heavy metal music, wearing unorthodox clothing or openly rebutting a teacher’s lies about the abuses of the government.

As the film goes on we start to see how women are doubly oppressed by the regime.
There are many obvious examples in the film. One recurring theme however, whether in Islamic fundamentalist Iran or in West, is the very real threat of sexual violence, rape as a weapon of war and sexual slurs as common parlance.

In one scene Marji’s mum has a mild altercation with a guard of the revolution in a supermarket car park. He shouts at her contemptuously “Women like you I bang like whores and throw in the trash!”

In another scene she warns her young daughter not to speak out against the regime in class. It is illegal to kill a virgin she tells her daughter so they will ‘have to’ rape her first!

Fearing her arrest for her outspokenness Marji’s parents send her to a school in Vienna, Austria.

Sexual slurs are echoed over and over again when she is in the West. ‘Slut’, ‘Whore’ and ‘prostitute’ are commonly, and casually, used.

Marji feels intolerably isolated in a foreign land surrounded by people who take their freedom and peace for granted while making her feel ashamed of being Iranian.

Marji becomes enraged when her ‘politically aware’ friends dismiss politics as meaningless because it is not an abstract academic enterprise for her. In her experience these issues are life and death. Her country is at war!

Highlighting how some people face multiple oppressions - whilst others are entirely unaware of their own privilege.

As socialists we need to be careful not to dismiss people’s experiences in this way and seek to understand the converging oppressions that people face. Unless we believe that class alone shapes someone’s identity.

I am particularly interested in a feminist analysis of the film because as a woman – I can’t but know that Patriarchy exists – it is part of my day to day experience. Therefore Marji’s anger struck a chord with me when her experience is dismissed by those in a privileged position.

In this regard I believe that socialists have to be vigilant against lazily accepting sexist rhetoric against women politicians - Sarah Palin being the most recent example - just because we disagree with their politics.

In my view Socialists have to strive to understand identity politics if we are to be taken seriously in wider society about ending oppression. Rather than mimicking those oppressive attitudes ourselves.

We need to recognise that if we were to have a socialist revolution tomorrow – without an analysis of identity politics – we would still have sexism, racism, homophobia, islamophobia, western elitism and many other prejudices.

That is not the world that I am fighting for.

Marji’s granny advises her as she goes into exile ‘Be true to yourself and never forget who you are!’ Wise words.

Welfare, Not Warfare

Ron Mackay has been a socialist all of his life. A retired teacher, he has been arrested for his principles of non-violence and anti-nuclear weapons. He can be found playing sax at most anti-war and pro-socialist demonstrations.

Photo originally appeared here: www.roystpierre.com

The old socialists used to say " you can't have guns and butter". You can't have warfare and welfare. The 3 main parties at Westminster are infact a variation of one - the party of warfare. Every aspect of welfare, health, education,the social services and the arts face cuts while expenditure on wars and preparation for wars is soaring. Trident at present costs millions and renewed trident will cost even more. Developments at Aldermaston and elsewhere, where our nuclear,chemical and biological research is carried out, adds to the emormous drain on our resources.
In the Glenrothes election the (3 in 1) war party will struggle against the S.N.P. The media,essentially exclusively capitalist, will hype up the sham battle between the different strands of the war party. The S.N.P. , tho' more progressive than the main war party, only serves to distract from the socialist policies which give the only real answer to the present crisis.

Lincoln got it wrong - you can fool an awful lot of people for a very long time but we must struggle against the forces dedicated to warfare. The alternative is to sleepwalk towards W.W.3. Socialism is trhe only hope for humanity. Our goal is not easy but essential.

Faslane protest - continued

More photos from the SSP contingient at the "Arms Around the Base" demo last Saturday- page down for more. more photos here:

Campsie Branch join SSP members in the CND Peace Chain around Faslane

Campsie Branch SSP joined the CND PEACE CHAIN around Faslane Nuclear Submarine Base today. This Chain signified four aniversaries (five if you include comrade Morag Balfour's birthday! - Make birthday cake not war is slogan of the day...).

These anniversaries were -

• One year ago, 14 June 2007, the Scottish Parliament voted against the UK Government’s plan for a new nuclear weapon system.
• The day of the Peace Chain also sees the celebration of the 26 th birthday of Faslane Peace Camp.
• 40 years ago, 14 June 1968, the first British nuclear patrol – HMS Resolution – sailed from Faslane.
• This year is also the 50 th birthday of CND and its struggle against nuclear weapons.

The Scottish Socialist Party support and actively campaign for the scrapping of Nuclear weaponry in Scotland and beyond. From our manifesto:

The UK followed the US into a war on a sovereign state because, allegedly, it had Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Neither of the aggressors appeared to see the irony of waging war over WMD while having, between them, the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world.
One of the supreme ironies of the Iraq war is that more and more countries now believe it is imperative they invest in a nuclear capability - or risk invasion by the world's only superpower.
Despite this, we believe the policy of nuclear deterrent is a failed policy. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, that the number of wars has not declined but escalated.
As a result, entire national economies are skewed towards accumulating weaponry, particularly nuclear missiles, in an arms race that only the richest nation on earth can win.
Furthermore, we are not convinced that nuclear war is an impossibility. If George W Bush gets his way, and the US successfully launches the National Missile Defence system, aka Star Wars, then a limited nuclear war, with Europe, Asia or Africa as its theatre, is a possibility as the American mainland will be shielded.
We, alas, won't be. Against the will of the people of Scotland, we have been forced to live with a devastatingly destructive nuclear arsenal just 30 minutes drive from the centre of Glasgow.
The Faslane nuclear base contains four Trident submarines, each bearing 16 missiles. This in turn amounts to 48 Trident nuclear warheads. Each of these warheads has a nuclear capability seven times that of the warhead dropped on Hiroshima.
This makes Scotland, in particular the dense conurbations in the West, a target for a direct nuclear or terrorist strike Trident is also hugely expensive, at a cost of £1 billion a year.
The SSP has consistently opposed the presence of nuclear warheads on our soil, with members and MSPs alike risking arrest to attend the Big Blockade every year at Faslane nuclear base.
We will continue to work shoulder-to-shoulder with organisations such as Scottish CND and Trident Ploughshares to campaign for immediate, unilateral nuclear disarmament.

The SSP stands for:
* The closure of the Faslane nuclear base and the scrapping of Trident with all jobs guaranteed via a diversification programme.
* Support for non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to disrupt the functioning of nuclear bases.
* Support for those arrested and imprisoned for resisting nuclear weapons.
* Outright condemnation of nuclear testing by other nations, such as France, India and Pakistan, which causes radiation-induced cancers.
* A united campaign across the UK and Europe to halt plans to establish nuclear weapons bases at Fylingdales and Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.
* A ban on the use of weaponry tipped with Depleted Uranium (DU). These have been used on Iraq since 1991, and in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo during the 1990s and are known to cause fatal cancers and birth defects.
* A ban on testing DU-tipped missiles including at the at the MoD's Dundrennan firing range, near the Solway Firth.