Manchester Peace Festival preview

Article published: Monday, September 13th 2010

On 18 September Manchester sees the start of its first ever peace festival. Sarah Irving takes a look at some of the events that will be taking place.

Summer in Manchester now seems to be a never-ending procession of festivals devoted to literature, international culture, food, film, music…

So in 2009 a small collective decided that, as the secretariat city for Nuclear-Free Local Authorities and a self-proclaimed ‘City of Peace,’ it was about time Manchester had a proper celebration of International Week of Peace.

“It was simple, as most new ideas often are,” explains Greater Manchester & District CND chair Rae Street. “A group of people who had been working in a wide range of peace and justice movements in Manchester. One mentioned how a recent event, an evening of music and poetry, had moved the audience.  Then why not have a series of events with music, poetry, writing, art exhibitions?  Why not a whole week?”

As ideas gelled, Street says, a wider concept of the issues the committee wanted to cover grew up. They wanted, she says, “to celebrate our history, the strength of women who fought for equality, steadfast commitment to campaigning against weapons of mass destruction or involvement in supporting welfare not warfare.”

After almost a year of work, the almost entirely voluntary, unfunded and completely non-partisan organisers have managed to put together a packed week of events. Public performances include:

– an opening night concert featuring veteran protest singer Leon Rosselson, who started his career on the 60s satirical show That Was The Week That Was and went on to write The World Turned Upside Down, a song based on the Digger communities of the 17th century which became the anthem of the 1990s road protest movement. Rosselson will be supported by three local political folk singers, Claire Mooney, Aidan Jolly and Al Baker

– a rare north-of-England performance of anti-Zionist Jewish comedian Ivor Dembina’s one-man show This Is Not Subject for Comedy, which as the Independent put it, tells “the story of how Dembina, 58, had his own unconditional support for the Jewish state challenged when he visited Israel and the West Bank between 2003 and 2005, and the hostility he faced from friends and family for his views.”

– two women-only events; a ‘rehearsed reading’ recounting the life and civil rights work of Nina Simone, and a talk on the Manchester Peace Crusade of 1917, a women’s movement which called for the end of World War One.

– A concert by the Manchester Consort youth orchestra, also featuring poetry performances by Shamshad Khan and a talk by Tony Benn on the challenge of arguing for peace in warlike times.

– and in association with the Workers Film Association, the northern premier of ‘Beating the Bomb,’ a history of the anti-nuclear movement in Britain, and the global premier of ‘When the Dust Settles’, a new animation by the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons.

Several exhibitions will also be running throughout the festival, including a photograph display at the 8th Day of years of protests in Manchester by Richard Searle, and a historical exhibition at the Working Class Movement Library documenting the life of politician and anti-nuclear campaigner Michael Foot.

More information about these events and other happening as part of the festival can be found at http://manchesterpeacefestival.wordpress.com/whats-on-at-the-peace-festival/

Sarah Irving

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Comments

1. The peace festival itself is following in a fine tradition. In the mid 1990s there was a Manchester Peace Festival every year. Rae McGrath then head of Mines Advisory Group came to speak at one (most probably leading to MAG moving to Manchester from Cockermouth in Cumbria) and the UK branch of the Chernobyl Children’s Project was started because Adi Roche came to speak at the Manchester Peace Festival inspiring then GM&DCND worker Linda Walker.

   Comment by Clare Frisby on September 27, 2010 at 3:07 pm

2. […] more: Manchester Peace Festival preview — MULE […]

   Pingback by Manchester Peace Festival preview — MULE | my Manchester News on June 11, 2011 at 3:40 am

3. This festival wasnt the first ever, the first one was in 1994. I still ahve the posters and it was massive.

   Comment by F Khan on July 24, 2011 at 11:58 am

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