Ploughshare movement

The ploughshare movement is an international movement of peace activists.

This emerged from a group of Catholic priests and nuns who are committed to peace politics, including Philip Berrigan , Daniel Berrigan , Anne Montgomery , Helen Woodson , Jean Gump , Daniel Sicken and Carl Kabat .

The actions are acts of civil disobedience , in which people symbolically but real weapons disarm. The aim is to draw attention to the immorality and danger of war preparations and to initiate a public discussion in order to come to global disarmament.

The organization's first action took place on September 9, 1980 , when the eight activists broke into a General Electric nuclear weapons factory and destroyed two warhead shells with hammers. They then poured their own blood over construction drawings and waited in prayer until they were arrested. The act of sabotage at British Aerospace on January 29, 1996 was the first ploughshare to result in an acquittal for the activists.

Further activists of the plowshare movement: Wolfgang Sternstein (Germany), Martin Newell (England), Susan van der Hijden (Netherlands), Annika Spalde (Sweden), Per Herngren (Sweden), Stellan Vinthagen , Ann-Britt Sternfeldt , Angie Zelter (England)

See also

• Trident Plowshares
• Catholic Worker
• Satyagraha

literature

• Wilhelm Bittorf: Poison gas went, injustice remains . In: Der Spiegel . No. 44 , 1990, pp. 75 ( online ).
• Wolfgang Sternstein (ed.): Disarmament from below. The Ploughshare Movement in the United States and Europe. With a foreword by Philip Berrigan. Self-published
• Wolfgang Sternstein: My way between violence and non-violence. Autobiography. Foreword: Horst-Eberhard Richter . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2005, ISBN 3-8334-2226-2 . 488 pages, 50 photos. 28 €.
• Ulrich Philipp: Politics from below - Dr. Wolfgang Sternstein - Experiences of a grassroots politician and action researcher. Nora-Verlag, Berlin May 2006, ISBN 3-86557-085-2 .

Web links

• The Ploughshare Movement in the United States and Europe

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Institute for Environmental Science and Rights to Life e. V. (UWI e.V.) ( Memento of the original dated October 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and co-initiator of the EUCOMmunity