by John Page
A meeting of Scottish CND members on Arran was held on Saturday 26th May in Lamlash Church Hall.
Three main areas were discussed: proposals for a Hiroshima Commemoration event in Lamlash on 5th August, attendance at the major demonstration planned for 22 September at Faslane and the success of the on-going book group meeting periodically in the Glenisle to discuss Timmon Milne Wallis’ The Case Against Trident.
Lamlash Church Hall has been booked for the Sunday afternoon proceeding Hiroshima Day on Monday 6th August. Janet Fenton of SCND/ICAN and David Mackenzie of NukeWatch can come to Arran and Patricia Gibson MP will also come subject to her holiday commitments (as part of the Parliament Recess). David Newbigging the Director of the crowdfunded docudrama Benchmark 6 about a nuclear incident off Ardrossan has agreed to the showing of this work in progress. Interesting discussions about how this Commemoration can have maximum impact took place and,in particular, the idea of having a Peace Tree was explored.
It was agreed that a bus should be arranged on 22 September to take CND supporters to the event at Faslane which is planned to be the biggest protest in a generation given the 2017 United Nations Nuclear Ban Treaty.
Finally, Cheryl Burgess gave an update on the small group who had met twice to discuss the Wallis 2016 book on Trident. She had found the book to be really informative and well written and, moreover, felt that the group discussions on it were very helpful in building confidence to re-butt glib assertions about “deterrence” and the myth that nuclear weapons create jobs. It was agreed that the group would continue and it was hoped that other informal groups could be set up.