Ash Wednesday NVDA Kicks Off Anti-War Lent....

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Friday February 08, 2008 04:40

by Ciaron - London Catholic Worker

Dalston, London, England

...Consider Joining Us An Hour Week in Public Vigil Against the War!

We are into our 4th. week of our Thursday anti-war vigil at Dalston Kingsland station/London.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85865

In initiating our weekly gig, we have joined vigils that have preceeded us. Today, the London Guantanamo Campaign celebrates a year of weekly presence outside the U.S. Embassy
www.guantanamo.org.uk

and Sr. Susan from the Oxford Catholic Worker who maintains an anti-war vigil solo on the Cowley Rd. for an hour a week.

The Catholic Workers in Washington D.C. are at the Pentagon once a week for the last 20+years and friends in Brisbane maintain a weekly presence outside Enoggera's Gallipoli Barracks
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/51198

From this week, we are being joined by Niall, who visited us recently, kickstarting a weekly vigil on UCD campus in Dublin.

The makeup of our vigil yesterday was multi-faith and multicutltural - Anglican, Menonite, Roman Catholic, Shia, Sunni, Algerian, Australian, Canadian, English and Iranian. The scene around Dalston Kingsland station is very Afro Carribean, with a strong presence of Rasta and Muslim. After two hours of reflective silence, chatty analysis, friendly interaction & hositle reception, we retired to the nearby Irish Jamacain bar "The Railway Tavern" for a pint and to watch the conclusion of Cameroon knocking Ghana out of the African Cup. So it's Cameroon V Egypt (who hammered Ivory Coast 4-1 later in the evening) in the Final!.

We are back next Thursday, every Thursday, from 4pm-6pm in vigil against the war outside Dalston Kingsland station.

It has been a vigilant week. On Tuesday some of us got into town to join in a presence outside of a meeting between BP/Shell and the Iraqi Oil ministry discussing the finishing touches to a major asset stripping of occupied Iraq.
http://www.waronwant.org/Demonstrators%20in%20%91stop%2...4.twl

It was Ash Wednesday this week. So we headed into the Ministry of Defence for a Stations of the Cross and a service of repentance against Britain's nuclear weapons. Fr. Martin Newell (London CW), Sr. Susan Clarkson (Oxford CW), Chris Cole (F.O.R.) and Pat Gafney (Pax Christi) were all briefly detained by the police as they made attempts to mark the M.O.D. with ash as 50+ people moved around celebrating the service. This Ash Wednesday nonviolent direct action has been going for 25 years. Here's photos of last year's effort to give you an idea.
http://www.paxchristi.org.uk/Photo%20Galleries/AshWed/A....html

Meanwhile Catholic Worker friends in Washington DC were processing on the White House in a sprit of repentance and nonviolent resistance to war....
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs....html

U.S. forces are preparing to reduce much of Mosul/Iraq to ash in a new wave of aerial bombardment
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390894.html

While we were at the M.O.D., Condi Rice was across the road at the Home Office. Condi appears increasingly desperate and dateless trying to get other NATO countries to contribute more cannon fodder to the combat in Southern Afghanistan
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/390845.html

Today, this week on the streets concludes by joing the London Guantanamo Campaign in their 52nd. week of vigilance outside the U.S. embassy calling for the closure of Gitmo.
www.guantanamo.org.uk

Consider joining us in public vigil, one hour a week, in this Season of Lent as our nation's wars escalate on Iraq, Afghanistan & the poor.