Dear all,
Please read and circulate the following open letter from the current four residents of the Faslane Peace Camp. We are issuing this in the hope that it will initiate an inclusive discussion on the future of the camp and, if it is to continue, spur the wider anti-nuclear movement into creating a more tangible support network for any future inhabitants. Sadly, the current residents have reached the end of our ability to be here, having surpassed our capacity to cope with living here whilst actively campaigning (in our current numbers and with the current felt lack of practical support).
We hope to have a frank discussion on where and how the Peace Camp features in the wider context of the anti-nuclear movement and whether a need is felt for a push to continue this (and how as continuing the current situation is, as we see it, impossible).
We are hosting an open meeting to discuss this on Saturday 13th April in the kinning Park centre Glasgow, as part of the Scrap Trident weekend of action. We welcome any feedback and input at this meeting or via email to faslane30@gmail.com.
We feel that even the symbollism of taking the camp away at this point will have implications for the anti-nuclear movement as a whole. We are aware that many people may be unable to attend this meeting so, if you have any input (practical, positive, critical or otherwise), do get in touch via email.
In peace,
Leonna
Open letter on the future of Faslane Peace Camp
For the last two years, there has been a small group of us rebuilding Faslane Peace Camp as a community of anti-nuclear action. We came together with a shared vision that if we maintain the camp as a safe, alcohol and drug free space with regular actions and campaigning, we could create a strong, autonomous community active in the fight against Trident and the militarisation of the West coast of Scotland.
Part of our vision has been achieved in making the camp a safe and welcoming space with facilities to support anti-nuclear action, low impact living and skill sharing. We have worked really hard to sustain resistance to nuclear weapons as central to this space and our collective reason for being here through our own direct action campaigns and active involvement in wider Scottish anti-nuclear and anti-military movements. However, our main hope that this community would grow, in terms of strength and numbers, has not been achieved. Maintaining this space whilst having an active campaign with so few of us has put us under such pressure, personally and as a collective, that we simply cannot continue.
In releasing this letter, we are issuing a notice of this current situation, identifying potential outcomes for the camp, highlighting our own limits in achieving these outcomes, and hopefully initiating an inclusive discussion on the future of Faslane Peace Camp; a future that does not see the four current residents assuming this responsibility.
Our proposal
We feel, as a group, our limit on being here is 12th June 2013, the 31st anniversary of the Camp. If the responsibility on deciding and enacting the future of the camp is to be ours,(i.e. if this notice does not provoke wider constructive discussion on the future of the camp) then we will enact the following proposal:
we will start taking the camp down on 12th May to create a garden space (to be finished by 12th June) that will both celebrate the 31years of resistance here and act as a site facility to support future action camps.
We use the word "proposal" as we do not feel the responsibility of this decision is ours, nor do we want it to be. However, if not presented with viable and positive alternatives, then we will regrettably undertake this action.
We feel that leaving the camp empty and open to chance is not an option because we have seen it having “fallen into the wrong hands” and feel that this is much more detrimental to the peace movement and activism in general than the camp not being here.
The camp's potential, capacity and support and the potential for continuing
We feel that the camp's capacity to support a self-sufficient community of resistance should not go understated. Despite ups and downs, for the last thirty years the camp has been an active challenge to the stationing of nuclear weapons on the Clyde. Many of the people who have passed through here have learned and continued to practise so many skills in active resistance and low impact living. Those of us here have grown and learned so much, from a personal level to a more acute understanding of the nature of the state sponsored terrorism of nuclear weapons and the banality of the everyday running of this evil. This is a space to learn, grow and challenge a very fundamental human willingness to tolerate societal corruption (in this case, that of nuclear weapons) as well as maintaining a degree of living “outside the system” whilst we make attempts to challenge it.
The facilities here are indicative of the ingenuity of thirty years of creative and resourceful individuals who have simply found ways to live without electricity, much or any money, and create alternative ways of organisation, which challenge so many of the negative learned behaviour in society.
Ideally, we would love to see this continue, not least because so many have worked so hard to continue it but also because the symbolism of dismantling the camp at this potentially crucial time in the struggle for nuclear disarmament (with Scottish independence and Trident replacement debates ongoing) would be in the context of the worst possible timing.
We believe that maintaining supportive community living here, as well as active campaigning, can only be sustainably achieved with a significant increase in numbers, possibly eight residents. The potential and capacity of the camp is also severely limited by the lack of wider input and practical support for its inhabitants. Throughout our time here we have increasingly felt like caretakers of a souvenir. We have felt a strong and increasing sense of moral support for what we are doing but with this has come mounting pressure of responsibility and expectation coupled with inadequate and dwindling practical support.
In short, we feel that the camp can only have a future if a larger group of people decide they wish to be based here and the wider peace movement assumes a degree of collective responsibility to support these people, emotionally and practically and take active measures to ensure their welfare. The current residents, who although unable to continue full time, would be committed to providing long term support to any group or individuals that wish to continue the Camp.
What happens next?
So many people have given so much of their lives and energy to the Peace Camp and anti-nuclear movement so we expect our proposal and thoughts contained here to have mixed responses. We have therefore decided to call an open meeting on Saturday 14th April at 4pm in the Kinning Park Complex, Glasgow as part of the Scrap Trident weekend and welcome any constructive input on this day or via email from this point onward (faslane30@gmail.com).
Whatever the decision on the future of the camp, we will continue with campaigning and an active presence at Faslane, but for us we feel our personal energies are better spent not struggling to maintain this continuous occupation. Nevertheless, we want to avoid the symbolism of taking the camp away at this crucial and hopeful time for disarmament and will actively support any viable alternative to this.
Exciting times are afoot: on 13-15th April, there will be an unprecedented demonstration in Glasgow and mass blockade of Faslane with Scrap Trident (www.scraptrident.org) and we expect this to be the beginning of a new wave of anti-nuclear and anti-militarist action. The future is disarmament!
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