Here We Stand: Women, Peace and Activism

05 November 2015

The David Davies Memorial Institute (DDMI) was delighted to collaborate with HonnoPress in hosting a book presentation of Here We Stand: Women Changing the World, which was followed by an engaging discussion among two distinguished contributors, Ann Pettitt and Angie Zelter, and led by the book’s editors, Helena Earnshaw and Anghaarad Penrhyn Jones.  Published in 2014 by Honno Welsh Women’s Press, award-winner Here We Stand: Women Changing the World is a selection of (interviewed) accounts by women activists, who dedicated their lives to political activism, in the hope of change. Among its most notable contributors one finds names such as Franny Armstrong, Zoe Broughton, Skye Chirape, Eileen Chubb, Liz Crow, Kate Evans, Zita Holbourne, Shauneen Lambe, Sharyn Lock, Emma Must, Jasvinder Sanghera, Mary Sharkey, Helen Steel, Angharad Tomos, Anuradha Vittachi, Jo Wilding, and of course Ann Pettitt and Angie Zelter.

Ann Pettitt

Author of Walking to Greenham: How the Peace Camp Began and the Cold War Ended and several other articles, Ann Pettitt is one of four founders of the ‘Women for Life on Earth’ movement, established in 1981. Angered by the ‘stupidity’ and existential threat of the Cold War arms race, Ann Pettitt, then a teacher and mother of two, and her fellow founders set their activism in motion on August 27th of the same year, by leading a 120-mile march from Cardiff to Greenham Common airbase in Berkshire, in protest of missile cruises which were to be stored there. Peaking to 70,000 active members at its height, the protest was to last 19 years, and is thus now considered longest-lasting grassroots movement of the UK. Unto today, Pettitt continues to be active in political activism, where recent engagements have included her establishment of a charity entitled ‘Safer Birth in Chad’, in 2005.

Angie Zelter

Like Ann Pettitt, Angie Zelter is a name well-known to non-violent political activism throughout the UK. Continuously concerned with what might be called militarily-motivated politics, Angie Zelter began her career in political activism as the founder of the ‘Snowball Campaign’ in the 1980s. Since, her most famous activities include her participation in the disarming of a Jet, which was to be used in an attack against East Timor, in 1996, as well as her anti-nuclear activities as a member of the Trident Three, for which she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, in 2001, and the Hrant Dink Award, in 2014.

 

Recounting some of the most memorable experiences of their political activism, the discussion following the book presentation revolved around several engaging questions. These highlighted Ann Pettitt and Angie Zelter’s experience in a (political) women’s-only environment, and the way in which their multi-ethnic/cultural upbringing may have shaped both their interest- and activism in politics, where Zelter claims that the mere circumstances of her biography taught her the importance of transcending national loyalties to loyalties targeted at a global community.

Both regard their personal contributions to the end of the cold war in form of anti-nuclear protests as one of their greatest successes of their political activism, where Ann Pettitt remembers Gorbachev’s first speech as Russia’s leader in which he claimed that he was strongly influenced by the European peace movements, especially Greenham Commons: “we made Gorbachev think.”

A good illustration of their understanding of political activism as inclusionary communication, this was brought out by their responses to a series of interesting audience-led questions, which included the (instable) future of Trident, the current disintegration of (globally targeted) political activism, and the possibility of cross-section activism through the arts. As such, the greatest wish of these “legends of the peace movement”, to borrow from Ken Booth’s introductory remarks, may be summarized in their urge for all to participate in political discourse, or, to phrase it differently: to “talk to people!” The talk was ended by an excerpt, taken from Rebecca Solnit’s 'Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities', by Ken Booth. 

 

Above: Professor Ken Booth, Ann Pettitt, Anghaarad Penrhyn Jones, Helena Earnshaw and Angie Zelter

 

Above: Anghaarad Penrhyn Jones and Angie Zelter

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