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Aldermaston: the UK’s nuclear legacy
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/2013329103023397664.html
Aldermaston: the UK’s nuclear legacy
As the British government looks to cut its spending, little sense exists in developing a new Nuclear weapons program.
Last Modified: 30 Mar 2013 11:48
Kate Hudson
Dr Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a leading anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner.
The village of Aldermaston in Berkshire (United Kingdom) is forever linked, in history and the public imagination, with nuclear weapons – and with protest against them. It has given its name to the Atomic Weapons Establishment, where Britain’s nuclear warheads are produced. And it has given its name to the marches which launched the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament onto the British and world stage in the late 1950s. Those early marches – and CND itself – were inextricably linked to the social radicalisation of the time.
They articulated both widespread popular dissent and the social rebellion of the youth of that era. In many respects it was through the early mobilsations of the anti-nuclear movement that the radical politics of what were to become the new social movements were first expressed. Early sociological studies showed that many of CND’s early supporters had no formal faith or politics, and were more concerned about ‘working for a more humane society than in finding themselves a good job’. In particular, surveys found that there was an immediacy to campaigners’ concerns: ‘They believed that the bomb immediately threatened the future of civilization, that it had to be banned very quickly or Armageddon would come first.’
As anti-nuclear campaigners prepare to return to Aldermaston for a CND protest this Easter Monday, how much have things changed in the intervening 55 years? Two things strike me in particular. Firstly, the extent to which the political context has changed. 1958 was the height of the Cold War and the sense of the immediacy and overwhelming nature of the nuclear threat permeated the consciousness of very many people. The associated dangers and health risks of the many atmospheric nuclear weapons tests taking place at that time, very much contributed to popular fear and were central to the founding of CND in early 1958.
It was that sense of imminent disaster, resurfacing again in the early 1980s in response to the siting of cruise and Pershing missiles in western Europe, that led to the mass expansion of CND and the radicalisation of a whole new generation – myself included.
<snip>
Aldermaston: the UK’s nuclear legacy
As the British government looks to cut its spending, little sense exists in developing a new Nuclear weapons program.
Last Modified: 30 Mar 2013 11:48
Kate Hudson
Dr Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a leading anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner.
The village of Aldermaston in Berkshire (United Kingdom) is forever linked, in history and the public imagination, with nuclear weapons – and with protest against them. It has given its name to the Atomic Weapons Establishment, where Britain’s nuclear warheads are produced. And it has given its name to the marches which launched the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament onto the British and world stage in the late 1950s. Those early marches – and CND itself – were inextricably linked to the social radicalisation of the time.
They articulated both widespread popular dissent and the social rebellion of the youth of that era. In many respects it was through the early mobilsations of the anti-nuclear movement that the radical politics of what were to become the new social movements were first expressed. Early sociological studies showed that many of CND’s early supporters had no formal faith or politics, and were more concerned about ‘working for a more humane society than in finding themselves a good job’. In particular, surveys found that there was an immediacy to campaigners’ concerns: ‘They believed that the bomb immediately threatened the future of civilization, that it had to be banned very quickly or Armageddon would come first.’
As anti-nuclear campaigners prepare to return to Aldermaston for a CND protest this Easter Monday, how much have things changed in the intervening 55 years? Two things strike me in particular. Firstly, the extent to which the political context has changed. 1958 was the height of the Cold War and the sense of the immediacy and overwhelming nature of the nuclear threat permeated the consciousness of very many people. The associated dangers and health risks of the many atmospheric nuclear weapons tests taking place at that time, very much contributed to popular fear and were central to the founding of CND in early 1958.
It was that sense of imminent disaster, resurfacing again in the early 1980s in response to the siting of cruise and Pershing missiles in western Europe, that led to the mass expansion of CND and the radicalisation of a whole new generation – myself included.
<snip>