Michael Bentley's Blog (5)

This was the third year running that Angie and I turned up on the steps of Eastbourne Town Hall, to join a group of fellow peace activists. Our supportive mayor, Greg Szanto, joined us for the annual New Year's Day vigil. Each year we hold up big letters to spell a slogan, which this time I'd have liked to be something like 'SAVE GAZA'; instead, it was the message below, which seemed fine. Our poor sweet world needs hope as much as… Continue

Sent to our local press today:



Four Eastbourne peace campaigners laid a white poppy wreath at Beachy Head on Sunday, as an alternative Remembrance Day vigil.



Angie Roche, Tania Long, Jean Farebrother and Michael Bentley carried the wreath along the UN Peace Path, before laying it at the foot of the Eastbourne United Nations Association/Eastbourne for Peace and Liberty peace plaque, installed last May at a small… Continue

Supporters of the Peace Pledge Union make an undertaking saying that:



“I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.”



The following was written (mostly) by a friend of mine for our local peace group, as a statement to our MP when we present him with white poppies signed by members of his constituency. I thought I’d… Continue

Remembrance Day is always a bit of an ambivalent occasion for me. On the one hand, I’m awe-struck by the courage of the thousands and thousands of soldiers who have voluntarily suffered terror, injury and death in the wars of the past hundred years, sometimes - as in World War Two - in defence of the liberty of us all. As someone with an intense fear of hardship and pain, I’m not sure I could be brave enough to do that under any circumstances,… Continue

I've written a lot of articles and reports over the past few years, mainly for the newsletter of my local peace group. So as it's a year since Stop the War Coalition's 'Not One More Death' demonstration against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and since there are quite a few photos of the event on my iPeace page, I thought I'd include what I wrote then as my first blog entry.



Somewhat to my own surprise, I made it to Stop the War’s march on Monday 8 October. Tony Benn’s… Continue