RIP Brian Haw

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign Sun Jun 19, 2011 18:51

I met the indefatigable and inspiring Brian a number of times during his long hard years in Parliament Square manning the peace line opposite the Houses of Parliament, particularly during the 2006 criminal trial of the Pitstop Ploughshares where his solidarity for them was unstinting and enthusiastic - in a comment to the subsequent Indymedia article Damian Moran remarked: Ciaron and I met Brian Haw in April 2004 after we had completed the 80 kilometre peace walk from Trafalgar Square to the the nuke research facility at Aldermaston. Brian was a great inspiration and rightly received an affirmative rap during Mark Thomas's recent show in Dublin, hosted by Afri. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77355

Then five years into his round the clock protest, Brian was constantly the target for abuse usually hurled from passing cars but sometimes assaults from drunks during the weekend under the blind eye of the watching coppers and surveillance cameras, he smoked constantly then and his nerves were fraught from the harrassment and the equivalence of living in a goldfish bowl but his committment was rock solid to hang in there and not be broken. The Guardian reports that fellow activists of his peace campaign said on his website: "Brian showed the same courage and determination in his battle with cancer. He was keenly aware of and deeply concerned that so many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine did not have access to the same treatments that were made available to him. Parliament, the police, and courts should forever be ashamed of their disgraceful behaviour towards Brian."

That was Brian, dying, he thought only of others in a worst plight than himself, I salute him.

by indignant Sun Jun 19, 2011 18:59

and include the New Statesman (amongst others)

its interesting that there is diversity there and that now people are calling for a state funeral, cannot imagine
Blair and his paranoid bunch of uber-lackeys commanding such respect in diversity, save that which they
can buy through their mealy-mouthed and substanceless words (mostly put together by ghost-writers and
PR types)

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/06/...bliar

by Ciaron - Giuseepe Conlon House, London Catholic Worker Sun Jun 19, 2011 23:21

Brian encapsulated best Dan Berrigan's advice during the Vietnam War
"Don't just do something, stand there!"
As mass movements, and 2 million Iraqi dead (genocidal sanctions/ direct bombardment/ et.al)., came and went ....Brian spoke truth to power from close proximity.

You were in the right place at the right time for a long time, Brian.
A place where the lies (now exposed) were invented and told
and the orders to kill sprung from
...it will be impossible to walk past that place without thinking of you and the witness you gave for life against death.

Over these long years of war without end, publica apathy, it was nourishing and challenging to have someone there for so long saying the emperors have no clothes, no credibility, no integrity.
Today, they stand butt naked surrouded by the corpses they have generated.
See you on the other side Brian

by expatriate Mon Jun 20, 2011 06:01

I live in Singapore and heard about Brian Haw's amazing ten-year vigil outside the Commons on the BBC World Service news this morning. He had stamina and spoke truth to power. The BBC added that Haw had a strong Christian motivation for his action. R.I.P.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon Jun 20, 2011 12:28

To the man, and condolences to his family and friends.

Might I point out however that Bush/Cheyney and the posse of Pentagonal neo-cons voiced '.. a strong Christian motivation..' for THEIR actions.

A little less theological selectivity might aid clarity of thinkiing. No bad thing in these propagandistic times, I hope SOMEONE agrees.

by Shanley Tue Jun 21, 2011 10:17

Well Opus, it is precisely because Cheyney and Bush and other US hawks ascribed their prowar motivation to christianity that it is important that individuals like the late Brian Haw have challenged the moral credentials of warmongers. There were christian white racist reactionaries in the deep south of America during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Such people quoted selected verses, mostly OT, to 'justify' their antihuman stance. Martin Luther King and other civil rights campaigners, like William Wilberforce and other 18th century antislavery campaigners before them, roundly answered the perverse abusers of scripture to claim an equal place for all ethnic groups at the banquet table of humanity.

by - Tue Jun 21, 2011 11:04

Someone opened a Brian Haw tributes page here : http://www.facebook.com/pages/RIP-Brian-Haw/227082917321872

with a youtube link here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6DpxRRGj8w

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Jun 21, 2011 12:06

You make my point for me.

The silence of the christian churches, indeed their recidivist blessings of the instruments of war and their refusal to excommunicate soldiers and politicians who glorify these sick activities, including their solemnising of the 'heros' returning in their flag-draped caskets shows precisely the inhumanity of religious indoctrination. Quite literally, in that it supresses our human obligation to solidarity across not just ethnic divisions, but artificial designations such as christian/non-christian(its actually more Pauline than related to the claimed Nazerean rabbi founder, given its doctrinal foundations were laid by the soldier Saul of Tarsus), a reduction of humanity into opposed sectarian camps. And the real horror, most of these churchmen, personally would not hurt a fly.

It angers me to see anti-war activists, whom I believe sincere, signing up to allegiance to such institutions of anti-human barabarity. This failure to THINK stems from the surender to religious FEELINGS of loyalty bred in childhood and invested with years of identity-formation, which generates fear of the work necessary ro revise these false and inhuman, or pre-human, 'selves'.

The same 'religious' indoctrination into unthinking obedience and loyalty uber alles fuels the patriotic pre-human identifications of nationalism, which have their place, but when applied without reflection and thought degenerate into fascistic wars. As soon as you adopt a religious affiliation, you reduce your general human identity. You select your EXCLUSIVE sect, and reduce the opposing religions to secondary status. This results in the common phenomenon of double-think, so well illustrated by such writers as Dean Swift, in his satirical expositions, Orwell, Bierce and others.

My thesis? Religion is the very devil of a Magnum Opus . Its leaves the rest of us heretical and atheistic pagans in the minor place.

Question for ya. Which caused more horrors down the ages, the idea of god, or the idea of satan?Answers, on the back of an abused child, to your nearest bishop-prick.

by Barry McColgan Tue Jun 21, 2011 15:42

RIP Brian Haw. I met the Anti War Activist at his site of protest in Parliament Square in London in 2007. He was camped there for 6 years at that time. A dedicated man who passionatedly acted on his beliefs.