Reflections
Before this weekend, I had been to Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston and seen only a place built entirely for death and destruction. The razor wire and high fences only served to reinforce the idea that this was a place of danger and fear, a place that anyone in their right mind ought to avoid. AWE Aldermaston was, to me, a place to protest loudly about, a place about which to constantly remind others of the terrible weapons which were being dreamt up, designed and built there, and to ask for this activity to end.
I believed strongly in AWE Aldermaston as being a place of great evil. I believed that it was a great dirty nuclear stain in the midst of beautiful countryside. I believed that it needed to be shut down, for the weapons building to cease, for the gates to be locked and the keys thrown away.
However, I remember from a Kevin Smith film, Dogma, an idea that ‘beliefs’ are a dangerous, poisonous thing, as they can be immutable. It is surely far better to have ‘ideas’ instead, which have the capacity to change as time passes. It was with this thought in my mind that I approached AWE Aldermaston this weekend.
This weekend has given me a new idea about AWE Aldermaston. Whereas before I believed AWE Aldermaston to be a terrible place, I have now formed a new vision for the future and about the place. Where once I saw only death, destruction and decay, I now have new ideas for AWE Aldermaston. There is so much potential for that site; potential for growth, hope and enlightenment. There is space there which could be used so much better than for building Weapons of Mass Destruction. A local boy suggested to us he would like to see it turned into a leisure park where he and his friends could go boxing. Parts of it could be turned into wildlife reserves, parks, campsites, centres for learning about and researching renewable energy, sustainable living, and permaculture. Rather than a place for building instruments of death, it could instead become a place for building instruments of learning and growth.
It was with this vision in mind that I visited AWE Aldermaston to spy out the land and hopefully bring back a good report of its potential. By seeing AWE Aldermaston as what it could become, of what I hoped it would become, rather than how it was, suddenly the razor wire and the high fences appeared smaller and much more insignificant. It was as though rather than being barriers to keep people out of a dangerous place, they had begun to represent the obstacles that existed to the vision I had in my mind, obstacles which were not, after all, so insurmountable as they first appeared.
Fifty years of protest at AWE Aldermaston is not, for me, something to be celebrated. Before this weekend, I had viewed this half century of protest not simply as a failure, but also as a terrible signifier for the future. We had protested outside the base for fifty years, and what was to prevent the next fifty years from being the same? However, I now feel as though my perceptions of the future at AWE Aldermaston to have changed. In fifty years time, I hope to be able to visit Aldermaston again and to see wildflowers spreading across that land, along with grape vines and fig trees, and to see that the razor wire and the high fences have been pulled down as the Berlin Wall was in 1989. In nuclear weapons, we have no future. The world has no future. But by including hope in our visions of AWE Aldermaston, and practical action to help achieve that change, there is no reason why we cannot shape the future for the benefit of all.
Before this weekend, I had been to Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston and seen only a place built entirely for death and destruction. The razor wire and high fences only served to reinforce the idea that this was a place of danger and fear, a place that anyone in their right mind ought to avoid. AWE Aldermaston was, to me, a place to protest loudly about, a place about which to constantly remind others of the terrible weapons which were being dreamt up, designed and built there, and to ask for this activity to end.
I believed strongly in AWE Aldermaston as being a place of great evil. I believed that it was a great dirty nuclear stain in the midst of beautiful countryside. I believed that it needed to be shut down, for the weapons building to cease, for the gates to be locked and the keys thrown away.
However, I remember from a Kevin Smith film, Dogma, an idea that ‘beliefs’ are a dangerous, poisonous thing, as they can be immutable. It is surely far better to have ‘ideas’ instead, which have the capacity to change as time passes. It was with this thought in my mind that I approached AWE Aldermaston this weekend.
This weekend has given me a new idea about AWE Aldermaston. Whereas before I believed AWE Aldermaston to be a terrible place, I have now formed a new vision for the future and about the place. Where once I saw only death, destruction and decay, I now have new ideas for AWE Aldermaston. There is so much potential for that site; potential for growth, hope and enlightenment. There is space there which could be used so much better than for building Weapons of Mass Destruction. A local boy suggested to us he would like to see it turned into a leisure park where he and his friends could go boxing. Parts of it could be turned into wildlife reserves, parks, campsites, centres for learning about and researching renewable energy, sustainable living, and permaculture. Rather than a place for building instruments of death, it could instead become a place for building instruments of learning and growth.
It was with this vision in mind that I visited AWE Aldermaston to spy out the land and hopefully bring back a good report of its potential. By seeing AWE Aldermaston as what it could become, of what I hoped it would become, rather than how it was, suddenly the razor wire and the high fences appeared smaller and much more insignificant. It was as though rather than being barriers to keep people out of a dangerous place, they had begun to represent the obstacles that existed to the vision I had in my mind, obstacles which were not, after all, so insurmountable as they first appeared.
Fifty years of protest at AWE Aldermaston is not, for me, something to be celebrated. Before this weekend, I had viewed this half century of protest not simply as a failure, but also as a terrible signifier for the future. We had protested outside the base for fifty years, and what was to prevent the next fifty years from being the same? However, I now feel as though my perceptions of the future at AWE Aldermaston to have changed. In fifty years time, I hope to be able to visit Aldermaston again and to see wildflowers spreading across that land, along with grape vines and fig trees, and to see that the razor wire and the high fences have been pulled down as the Berlin Wall was in 1989. In nuclear weapons, we have no future. The world has no future. But by including hope in our visions of AWE Aldermaston, and practical action to help achieve that change, there is no reason why we cannot shape the future for the benefit of all.