I have written an article for the New Internationalist, criticising David Cameron’s proposals on internet access and pornography.
The article went online yesterday and you can read it by clicking here. Your thoughts are welcome!
Category Archives: media
Not the G8 – digital activism in Leeds
I am on a train that’s just pulled out of Leeds, following a great day at ‘Not the G8’, a conference run by the World Development Movement (WDM).
I was there because WDM invited me to speak at a session on digital activism. But I’m really glad they did, because the whole event was very good and I learnt a lot.
The day included a really helpful talk about food sovereignty by the writer Raj Patel. I have realised recently that WDM are very good at drawing the links between different issues – poverty, the environment, banking. In particular, they make clear that environmentalism is not simply a lifestyle choice for the middle class in the West but is an urgent concern for anyone who wants to tackle poverty.
I was asked to give a talk based partly on my new book, Digital Revolutions: Activism in the internet age. As usual, I Iearnt at least as much from the participants as they did from me.
At these sort of events, I fear that the attenders will expect me to be some sort of technological whizzkid, with answers to all sorts of questions about computer use. Anyone who’s watched me struggle to get my DVD player working will know that I am not that person. My book is not a book about technology; it’s a book about activism. It looks at the ways in which the internet has been used for activism in recent years.
I am not a net utopian – technology won’t save the world. Nor am I someone who dismisses the usefulness of the internet. Digital activism is an important part of many campaigns. It can also draw people into other forms of resistance. But digital activism is almost never sufficient on its own. When talking today, I focussed on examples of campaigns that have effectively combined online and offline activism. Examples include:
- Tax justice campaigners who petitioned Olympic sponsors online to give up their tax exemptions at the Olympic Park. Several companies quickly agreed, probably because they feared physical occupations – which had greeted many tax-dodging stores the previous year.
- Boycott Workfare, who have persuaded dozens of companies and charities in the UK to withdraw from workfare schemes. Some withdrew after physical protests and economic pressure. Others withdrew when bombarded with tweets and faced with humiliation online.
- Disabled activists in York, who found a provision that required the City Council to debate any petition with over 1,000 signatures from York residents. Their petition and the council debate meant that cuts to local disability services became the lead news item on BBC Radio York – making many more people aware of them.
- Lovers of peace in Israel and Iran, who set up “Israel Loves Iran” and “Iran Loves Israel”, two Facebook pages that built understanding across the divide and allowed Israeli and Iranian citizens to tell both their governments that they were “not ready to die in your war”.
- Minority language activists as far apart as Wales, east Africa, Australia and south Asia, who use web-based resources to promote linguistic diversity and the rights of their communities.
- The paradox of the Occupy movement, which combined the modern image of web-based communication with the old-fashioned image of debates in public squares. Both of them, at their best, are far more inclusive than mainstream political processes.
I was delighted that so many people got stuck into discussion about these issues. As my book has not long been published, this was on the second time that I’ve given a talk based around it. I will be doing so again at the Greenbelt festival in August. However, I’m very open to speaking with other groups. If you’re interested you’re welcome to email me at symonhill@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!
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My book, Digital Revolutions: Activism in the internet age, can be bought from the publisher, New Internationalist, by clicking here. It costs £9.99 (0r $16.95 in the US).
Living activism (ten years after the Iraq march)
Ten years ago today, I joined millions of other people around the world in marching against the planned invasion of Iraq. This morning, I was effectively banned from my local branch of Costcutter. It’s been a strange decade.
My conflict with Costcutter began when the manager told me I should not pick up and look at the newspapers before choosing which one to buy. I nearly always buy one (and sometimes more than one) and always put the others back neatly. But I often look at them before making my decision.
The manager told me this is not allowed. I politely asked for the reason, and he was unable to give one. He resorted to repeating that it was not allowed without explaining why. I find legalism like this particularly frustrating. At one point, he suggested that all newspapers basically carry the same news – an alarmingly inaccurate statement.
The discussion went on for some time. He told me I was not welcome to buy newspapers there. I told him I would not be buying anything else there either.
Of course, resisting unreasonable rules in local shops is a very trivial issue compared to resisting the invasion of Iraq. The invasion led to at least 200,000 deaths (by conservative estimates). Ten years later, international NGOs rate Iraq towards the bottom of the world’s league tables when it comes to political freedom and other human rights. The worst fears of those of us who campaigned against the invasion have come to pass.
And yet, many people who marched against the war feel that they made no difference. For first-time activists, it was particularly disheartening. At the time, I had little doubt that Bush and Blair would push ahead with their vicious plans regardless of our action, although I believe that we may have made them more cautious about starting more wars immediately afterwards.
Unfortunately, after that march, the anti-war movement effectively tried to replicate it with more central London marches characterised by long dreary walks and endless repetitive speeches (OK, some were better than others). I made this point when interviewed by Ian Sinclair, author of a new book, The March That Shook Blair. I’m about to go to the book launch.
A few years later, activism took a different turn. Groups such as the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) combined direct action with media activism and court cases. The coalition’s cuts agenda was greeted by a rise in nonviolent direct action greater than I dared to hope for. Imaginative actions by UK Uncut and their allies saw tax-dodging shoot up the political agenda.
Marches are sometimes important, but they are rarely, if ever, enough in themselves. We need more diverse tactics, more effective tactics and a greater understanding of active nonviolence. More importantly, we need to root activism in our daily lives.
I’m not suggesting that alternative lifestyles are a substitute for explicit political campaigning. Rather, I believe we should seek to resist injustice in everyday actions and choices. As Jesus of Nazareth put it, they who are faithful in small ways will be faithful in big ways.
Challenging Costcutter’s unfair rule about newspapers is of course a minor example, but I’m glad I did it. There are many (greater) injustices around me that I fail to challenge. And of course, we are all complicit in the unjust systems that we live under and sometimes benefit from.
But I believe we can aim to live out our values in such a way that our very existence is an act of rebellion. It is something to which I aspire. I have a long way to go.
No (tax) credit for Iain Duncan Smith
It’s New Year’s Eve, newsrooms are quiet and casual comments by ministers are enough to make top headlines. Today, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, has made the news with some vaguely worded attacks on the system of tax credits.
Duncan Smith says that tax credits (government payouts to people on low incomes) are “not fit for purpose”.
Now, there’s very little about which I agree with Iain Duncan Smith. However, I agree that tax credits are not fit for purpose. I suspect that he and I have different reasons for thinking this.
Many tax credits are paid to people who are working in very low paid jobs. In other words, they are a taxpayer-funded subsidy for poverty pay. Employers can get away with paying people unreasonable wages because the taxpayer will foot the bill through tax credits. They are thus not a subsidy for the poor but for the rich (I accept that not all employers are rich, but most major employers certainly are).
However, other people receive tax credits because they can work only part-time, for example because of disability or childcare responsibilities.
Duncan Smith’s planned “universal credit” is likely to be far worse for many of these people than the existing tax credit system.
If Duncan Smith really wants to cut the tax credit bill – as he should – he needs not to introduce new systems that will penalise the poorest but to look to the real reason for such a high bill.
A considerable increase in the minimum wage would make many tax credits unnecessary. Of course, some will argue that this would lead to mass sackings from employers who claim they can’t afford it. This prediction was made when the minimum wage was introduced in 1998. It didn’t happen.
We can reduce the welfare bill, like so many other bills, in ways that cause inconvenience to the rich rather than suffering to the poor.
Homophobia is alive and well
It’s been a good Christmas for opponents of marriage equality. They managed to make headlines on both Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
First, there was the news of comments made by Vincent Nichols, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, who said that proposals for legal recognition of same-sex marriage are “undemocratic”. His remarks achieved greater prominence because of inaccurate reports that he had made them in his Christmas sermon, whereas most of them were in an interview with the BBC at around the same time.
Second, Paul Coleridge, a High Court judge, said that same-sex marriage is a “minority issue” that affected only “0.1% of the population”. It is not clear where this figure has come from, nor why Coleridge thinks that the rights of a minority should be less important than the rights of others.
Although Colerdige’s comments were less well-reported than Nichols’, they are considerably more confused and offensive. At one point, he used the bizarre term “same-sex people”. I’m guessing this refers to people in same-sex relationships, or possibly to gay and bisexual people generally, but it’s not clear.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Salisbury, Mark Davies, made comments that were even worse, but less reported. He said that fascism and communism had been threats to “Christian civilisation” and that now it is threatened by same-sex marriage. Comparing marriage equality to fascism is all the more repugnant given the number of gay and bisexual people murdered by the Nazis. Not only did Davies make these comments in a Christmas sermon; he appears to have publicised them to the media in advance.
After all this came some good news. On Thursday – the day after Boxing Day – the latest ICM poll showed public backing for equal marriage by two to one (62% in favour, 31% against, 7% don’t know).
This undermines Nichols’ claim that the proposal is “undemocratic”. However, Nichols, like many other opponents of marriage equality, keeps pointing out that most people who responded to the government’s consultation on same-sex marriage are opposed to it. This is partly due to the efforts of anti-equality campaigners to mobilise sections of Christian opinion against the idea (in some cases, by whipping up fear about churches being forced to host same-sex marriage, a policy that nobody is calling for). However, it does seem that supporters of equality have a majority when the public are asked about it, but opponents may have a majority amongst those who feel strongly enough about it to speak up pro-actively.
This is a problem. This week’s headlines are a reminder that the anti-equality camp are prepared to make themselves heard as loudly as possible. This ranges from the relatively mild (but nonetheless discriminatory) arguments of Vincent Nichols to the extreme comments of Mark Davies.
In contrast, it seems quite a lot of supporters of equal marriage are becoming complacent. I know a number of pro-equality campaigners who seem to assume that the battle is already won. A member of one of the faith groups that backs same-sex marriage said a few weeks ago that they had “achieved all that we set out to do” – missing the point that the bill has not yet been debated in the Commons, let alone become law.
Of course, there are some people – both religious and secular – who are working as hard as ever for marriage equality, and who know that even this is only one small part of a wider struggle. Sadly, there are also campaigners who appear naive about the chance of the bill being watered down or thrown out by the Lords, and seem to have unrealistic faith in David Cameron’s support.
I often hear people talk about homophobia as if it were dying out, as if it is simply a matter of waiting for it to expire completely. They seem unaware of the dedicated work of homophobic lobby groups, the growth in “therapy” to “heal” gay, lesbian and bisexual people and the successes that some campaigners have already achieved against equality laws.
This week’s comments by the likes of Paul Coleridge and Mark Davies are a reminder that opposition to civil rights is alive and well. If we are not prepared to speak up as loudly and clearly as the homophobes, I fear that the battle for marriage equality will be lost.
Miller’s marriage mess-up reveals ministers’ ignorance and contempt
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would be tempted to believe that the government’s current proposals for same-sex marriage have been designed with the intention of scuppering the whole idea. But this government seems far too disorganised for a decent conspiracy.
In the space of less than 24 hours, ministers have revealed the UK government to be clueless about religion, contemptuous of civil rights and bizarrely ignorant about the history, culture and politics of Wales.
To recap: the government conducted a consultation on same-sex marriage in England and Wales. Cameron’s ministers had been expected to propose only civil ceremonies for same-sex marriage, a sham equality that would have maintained discrimination against religious same-sex couples. Last week, Cameron said he had changed his mind. He backed the right of faith groups to hold religious same-sex weddings if they choose to do so. This followed years of hard work by Unitarians, Quakers, the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and other pro-equality groups.
But after the two steps forward came one step back. “Gay marriage to be illegal in Church of England” roared yesterday’s headlines. The headline was basically true, but the situation is more complicated – and far worse – than it suggests.
Appeasing prejudice
Ever since marriage equality was proposed, its opponents have argued that churches will be forced to host same-sex weddings against their will. This claim has no basis in reality. These scaremongers are unable to name a single organisation that wants to make it compulsory to host same-sex marriage ceremonies. Most churches have no legal obligation to marry anyone at all. Of all the countries that have legalised same-sex marriages, none has witnessed the courts forcing them onto churches. A religious marriage is an act of worship and nobody should be forced to participate in an act of worship in which they do not believe. This is a scare story spread by a combination of the ignorant, the prejudiced and the deceitful.
Miller suggests a “quadruple lock” to prevent same-sex marriages being forced on unwilling churches. Two of these concern the right of churches not to host marriages they don’t believe in. The other two reveal a worrying ignorance about British churches.
One states that a faith group can carry out same-sex marriages only if its governing body has applied for permission. This is problematic for denominations such as the United Reformed Church, who may resolve to leave the decision to each congregation. In the Baptist Union, there are calls for individual churches and ministers to be allowed to celebrate same-sex weddings if they choose. A positive response to such calls is less likely if the Baptist Union as a whole has to apply to the government for permission, thus appearing to be endorsing same-sex marriage.
Insulting Wales
The worst provision concerns the Church of England and the (Anglican) Church in Wales. Miller proposes that it should be illegal for them to host same-sex weddings, although the leaders of both have already said that they do not wish to do so.
The London-based media noticed the English provision first, but it is the inclusion of the Church in Wales that is more shocking. The Church of England is the established church and its rules are governed by law. Yesterday, Maria Miller spoke of the Church in Wales as an established church. She is 92 years too late. There has been no established church in Wales since 1920.
It says a great deal that Miller and her civil servants appear to be so ignorant about an important political, cultural and religious difference between the two countries to whom their law will apply. I applaud the Church in Wales for responding to the news by saying that they don’t want to be treated differently to other churches.
When it comes to the Church of England, it can be argued that the church’s laws are the state’s laws. Also, the Church of England is the only church that has a legal obligation to marry certain people. This is a consequence of the absurdity of establishment. Many Anglican leaders seem to want the benefits of establishment without the obligations. We will see them enjoying those benefits when certain bishops rise from their unelected seats in the House of Lords to argue that other churches should be denied the same freedom that they demand for themselves – the freedom to choose who to marry.
Freeing ourselves
We do not need “quadruple locks”, designed to appease scaremongers and homophobes who will never be satisfied with any provision that extends gay and bisexual people’s rights. We do not need special provisions to privilege certain religious groups over others. We need a law that states that marriage is open to all regardless of gender and that no faith group (established or otherwise) is obliged to perform a wedding in which they do not believe.
We could also do with an investigation into the unfairness of marriage law more widely, including the fact that some faith groups have far more rights than others to solemnise marriages.
We stand at a crucial juncture in the struggle for gay and bisexual people’s civil rights in the UK. We have come so far – it’s only 45 years since sexual relations between men were legalised on the British mainland. But a long journey is no reason to give up while inequality still remains. Complacency would be grossly immoral when homophobic violence is rife and gay and bisexual teenagers are far more likely to kill themselves than their straight counterparts. Unequal treatment in law sends out the message that unequal treatment in society is morally acceptable.
Miller’s bill risks being laughed through the Commons and bogged down in the Lords. Certain Tory politicians and right-wing lobby groups are determined to fight it all the way. Cameron and colleagues, offering the bill as a sop to the LibDems, may have little incentive to fight for it. The defeat of marriage equality remains a very real possibility.
I do not want future history books to write that civil rights campaigners failed to act at a crucial moment, that we complacently thought that victory was in the bag, that pro-equality Christians were too concerned with passive unity to stand up for active justice. The future of marriage equality is not up to ignorant ministers, duplicitous Tories or celebrity “role models”. It is up to you and me.
UKIP: The respectable face of the far right
Members of the United Kingdom Independence Party must be rubbing their hands with glee today. They’re the subject of the day’s leading news story. The Education Secretary has described them as “a mainstream party”. The Leader of the Opposition has effectively defended them. They’re being portrayed as victims of discrimination, despite their own discriminatory policies.
According to the story that broke this morning, foster carers in Rotherham had non-British children removed from their care because they are members of UKIP. This is the claim of the couple concerned. Rotherham Council’s statements seem less clear, suggesting that membership of UKIP influenced the decision, but implying it was not the only factor. They have spoken of the children’s cultural needs not being respected.
Our primary concern in all this must be the needs of the children. I do not know whether Rotherham Council were right to remove the children. I have not been involved in the case. I do not know the children; I do not know the foster carers; I do not know about all the issues involved. Nor, of course, do the many people who have rushed to condemn the council’s decision. These include Michael Gove, who has already described it as “the wrong decision”.
It is utterly inappropriate and unprofessional for the Education Secretary to comment on the rightness or wrongness of a fostering decision on the basis of media reports, without thoroughly investigating the details. It is comparable to the Home Secretary commenting on the guilt or innocence of someone who is in the middle of a criminal trial. Gove’s behaviour is the real scandal in this story.
I am not arguing that UKIP members should be barred from fostering children. I am not even arguing that UKIP members should be barred from fostering children who are not British. I am not arguing that Rotherham Council made the right decision. But I do believe that it is legitimate to take foster carers’ beliefs into account when considering the needs of children. For example, it would be inappropriate to place children from a Muslim family with foster carers who were prejudiced against Muslims.
UKIP are using this case to portray themselves as a reasonable, credible, non-racist party. The reality is that they are a far-right party. On many issues, their policies are comparable to the British National Party. It is true that they do not share the BNP’s focus on skin colour, but their policies are similar on issues including immigration, education, criminal justice and climate change. On economics, they are way to the right of the BNP, calling for all sorts of policies that would benefit the richt at the expense of the rest.
I do not make these claims lightly. Two years ago, I analysed the polices of both UKIP and the BNP. I had expected some similarities but I was genuinely shocked by the extent of them. The article I wrote as a result can be read here.
UKIP want to end all permanent immigration for five years, and severely restrict if after that. In their own words, they oppose multiculturalism. They would abolish the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the UN Convention on Refugees. Their education policy includes the teaching of a pro-imperial view of British history. They want to increase military spending by 40%, reduce taxes for the rich at the expense of the rest of us and force all unemployed people to work without pay in order to receive benefits. They are keen to double the number of people in prison. Unlike almost every other party in Britain, they want to discriminate against gay and bisexual people by denying marriage rights to same-sex couples. Until 2010, they wanted to make laws about what people were allowed to wear in public, by banning the niqab. Their attitude to the environment seems to be pure fantasy, based on the claim that climate change is not caused by humans.
I have come across many people who have voted UKIP because they oppose the European Union, but who are unaware of the rest of their policies. I have no doubt that some UKIP members are decent individuals. Indeed, I dare say that some of them would make good foster carers. I have no interest in encouraging personal hostility. But UKIP as a party is a far-right grouping with a twisted image of Britain, a strong stream of prejudice and policies that would benefit only the super-rich. I’m appalled that Michael Gove and Ed Miliband seem to be trying to claim otherwise.
Who can now say the monarchy is not political?
The important point about today’s “Queengate” scandal is not whether Elizabeth Windsor was right to be worried about Abu Hamza. It is not the question of whether the BBC’s leadership will one day develop a backbone. It is that Britain’s supposedly “apolitical” monarch has been found to be lobbying ministers and seeking to exercise political influence.
I don’t blame Elizabeth Windsor for having political opinions. Like the rest of us, she is quite entitled to them. She does not have a right to unduly influence ministers because of a position gained through an accident of birth.
This incident gives the lie to the notion that the monarchy is above politics. This has always been a bizarre argument. Nobody can be “above politics”, because politics affects us all. Talk of being “above politics” implies that politics is something inherently dirty and that it’s best to be above it. But there’s more to politics than parties and elections. Politics is about all of us, about our lives together, about how we run our society and economy.
Of course, there are many other reasons for opposing monarchy. The idea of one person bowing before another and addressing her or him as “your majesty” or “my lord” is morally repugnant. It is an affront to human dignity and equality. The existence of hereditary privilege sends out a negative message about the values our society holds dear.
The BBC’s continued subservience to the Windsor family – despite its relative independence on many other issues – is another sign of the undemocratic nature of the monarchy.
Elizabeth has generally thought to be restrained in terms of political interference. Charles Windsor seems to have expressed opinions on any subject that occurs to him. If even Elizabeth is lobbying from the throne, how much more can we expect Charles to do so? Today’s revelations are another reason for holding a referendum on whether to continue with monarchy once the current postholder dies.
Please click here to read a longer article that I wrote recently for Third Way magazine, criticising monarchy from a Christian point of view.
Sex, money and church attacks on governments
This week, several UK churches have been objecting to government attempts to redefine things.
On Tuesday, the Church of England attacked government plans to “redefine” marriage – i.e. to allow same-sex couples some of the same rights as mixed-sex couples.
On Thursday, the Baptist Union, Methodist Church and United Reformed Church (URC) made a joint statement criticising government plans to redefine poverty. David Cameron wants to measure poverty differently. Even the least cynical person in Britain must surely suspect that this is likely to result in statistics showing a lower level of poverty.
None of these churches are wholly united behind these statements. The Church of England statement triggered protests from its own members, especially given the scaremongering warnings about the danger to church-state relations. Some individual Methodists, Baptists and URC members object to their churches’ recent tendency to issue left-wing statements on economics.
The difference here is not only between one denomination and another. It’s also between comments on marriage and comments on economics, and between reactionary statements and progressive ones.
Which of those distinctions affected the media response is open to debate. The Church of England was making headline news on Tuesday. It was a rare case of a religious story being on the front page of at least three national newspapers. In contrast the statement on poverty doesn’t seem to have led to even the smallest article in any national paper.
Much of the public – especially this week – have understandably got the impression that Christian Churches are fall of reactionaries obsessed by sex. If we want people to notice the radical political and economic views that many British Christians now hold, we have to speak about them more loudly, and more effectively. The media also need to be more aware of what’s really going on in British Christianity. They need to notice Christians saying surprising things – about money as well as sex.
Fantasy and reality at BAE’s AGM
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the BAE Systems Annual General Meeting. Shareholders were today welcomed into the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, to be greeted by plush carpets, free coffee and glamorous posters featuring BAE staff saying how great it is to work for one of the world’s largest arms dealers (they don’t quite put it quite like that).
Afterwards, the AGM itself was underway, with presentations and displays about “total performance” and “a culture of responsible behaviour”. A brief film attempted to demonstrate the diversity of BAE’s staff (not reflected on the board of directors), with gender, age and ethnicity very varied. None of them mentioned what BAE really does. The worker on the film with a visible mobility impairment did not mention how much cheaper mobility equipment would be if those who produce it were to receive the same subsidies that go to arms companies.
After the AGM is over, a free lunch was provided, including a vegetarian option (for all those vegetarian arms dealers).
I attended the AGM today, as I do every year, as a BAE shareholder. Before you get worried about my buying shares in arms companies, I own only one share. Like many others, I own it so that I can turn up and hold the company to account for its arms sales, its corruption and its damage to Britain’s democracy and economy.
The BAE AGM seeks to give an image of the company that has nothing in common with reality. It is far removed from the streets of Bahrain, where peaceful demonstrators have been killed by a regime armed by BAE. It is very distant from Tanzania, where corruption led the government to buy BAE weapons they didn’t need, reducing funding to tackle poverty and provide healthcare. And it’s also several hundred miles south of Brough, where around 900 of BAE’s workers are facing redundancy as the company continues to find it more convenient to employ people overseas.
At least, it would be removed from all those things if the BAE bosses had their way. I have never seen BAE chair Dick Olver more flustered than he was today. He essentially lost control of the meeting, which broke down into heckling as he patronised workers from Brough, said he was “proud” to sell jets to Bahrain and refused to rule out arming the Saudi regime even if they used BAE’s weapons to suppress a peaceful uprising. He would not even make an apology to the Tanzanian people.
When it was suggested that arms dealers might have difficulty sleeping, he insisted “all members of BAE’s board sleep very well”.
What’s the point, I sometimes think? What’s the point of going along like this, year after year? It’s not as if we’re likely to change his mind. But there are two good practical reasons for doing so. Firstly, our questions often get reported in the media, which makes more people aware of the nature of BAE. Secondly, board members often say things that can be quoted in future debates and campaigns by those of us seeking to draw attention to the reality of their business.
Today, there was another good reason. The AGM was full of workers from Brough, facing redundancy. Dick Olver made some attempt to set the anti-arms activists and the Brough workers against each other. He suggested that Brough might have remained open had the company received more orders from Saudi Arabia – after the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) had attacked sales to the Saudi regime.
But this strategy didn’t work. The Brough workers and the anti-arms activists were soon cheering and applauding each other’s comments, particularly those about diversifying to work on renewable energy to move away from arms and keep jobs at Brough. Today, we were able to tell the workers at Brough that we’re on their side. Serious government investment in renewable energy – a far more stable prospect for the future than arms – would make use of engineering skills in Britain and could save lives in Bahrain.
This is the one day in the year when some of the most powerful arms dealers in the world have to listen to the voices of anyone who wants to challenge them. On the other 364 days, they can hide behind their bank accounts, security staff and PR departments. Not today. Today, they were confronted with reality.
For a detailed report on today’s BAE AGM, please see http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/16612.
Symon Hill 