Peace rally

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 14

Peace rally

Sir,—l took my young daughters, at their request, to see the Royal couple. More than 20,000 people thronged the Square on a dismal day, expressing their love and joy. Yesterday, which was sunny, I took my daughters to the Square to participate in the Women’s Day for Peace rally, to express my abhorrence at the reality of nuclear destruction, my protest against violence, to ask that “the toys be taken away from the boys” ... I went to express my love for life,' and my children’s future. Barely 1000 were there. I am in despair for us all. Where are we? Ironically, my 10-year-old son yesterday told me that he wanted to be a soldier or a fighter pilot. I said that I did not nurture him so that he could learn how to kill. Women can no longer condone violence. We must work for peace within ourselves, and in our homes, radiating this to all around us. — Yours, etc., CHRISTINE D. ROWLANDS. May 25, 1983.

Sir,—l attended a peace rally in the Square on May 24. Although I support both the peace movement and the women’s movement, I object to an attempt to combine the two concepts. To say (as was said at the rally) that “women are for peace while men are for war” is surely as bad as saying “women should be housewives while men go out and work.” The women’s movement objects to the way we are forced into roles in society and yet their approach to peace seems to be doing just this. Surely the issue is not whether women are more peaceful than men but whether the mass of the people, both male and female, have the power to stand up and say no to war. Oddly enough the speakers at the rally also stressed the need for unity, in the fight for peace. Surely in mixing the peace movement with the women’s movement they are destroying that unity and reducing the voice of peace to half its volume. — Yours, etc., LUCY O’HAGAN. May 24, 1983.