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6 days ago
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It would have been my late mother’s birthday last Monday, and because I am either astronomically stupid or fathomlessly wise, I elected to spend it at a public meeting about nuclear disarmament. I’d call it a blast from the past, except I feel superstitious about introducing explode-y words too near the nuclear topic.
I spent my entire childhood worrying about nuclear war, partly because it was the 80s, and everyone did, and partly because we spent our lives demonstrating against it. We had “Protest and Survive” stickers everywhere, in droll parody of the public information booklet “Protect and Survive”, along with “Nuclear Power? No Thanks”. We were also early adopters of climate change anxiety, while fiercely against the closure of coalmines. If you’re wondering where we expected to get our power from, well, obviously we didn’t need central heating: the combination of political fervour and long johns was very warming. When I say we, of course I mean “my mother”; my sister and I had very little agency in this quest for peace.
We did go to Greenham Common, site of the women’s peace camp, but never stayed over, and that’s not the bit that stayed in my mind. I remember endless marches through central London, ending with some speakers – they all seemed to be vicars, except one, who was always Tony Benn. They would describe in exquisite detail all the things a hydrogen bomb would do to your flesh, and the flesh of your loved ones and pets, and then what would happen to the teeth and gums of anyone whose flesh had mysteriously been spared. It strikes me now as a bit medieval – godly men getting excited about mortification. But back then all I thought was: I am bored and terrified at the same time, how is that possible?
The anti-nuclear argument has moved on, changed beyond all recognition, although the personnel hasn’t. Prof Mary Kaldor was a giant in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), then its Europe-wide arm, END. She spoke last week, having authored a report which says that the nuclear deterrence paradigm is basically bust. It was an answer to yesterday’s problems – and actually, the cold war began three-quarters of a century ago, so it’s very much the day before yesterday – and today’s threats are different. Our enemies will come at us with hybrid warfare, designed to destroy democracy from within by sowing chaos, disorder and polarisation. Russia could use a drone or a bot farm or a misinformation campaign or £30,000 in the pocket of the now former leader of the Reform party in Wales, but in none of those scenarios would threatening to annihilate a quarter of a million of their civilians be very helpful.
It would be better – and cheaper – Kaldor suggested at the meeting, to build democratic resilience from within. Someone else said later that land armies hate nuclear weapons, because they scorch the territory, make it un-takeable; and the only people who liked nukes were the navy. Then an ex-Marine said: “Are you kidding? The navy hates them too, because they’re so expensive, and there’s no money left for the fun stuff.” I guess he meant boats? Anyway, it was fascinating, but it was also bittersweet, as I could imagine my mum hopping up and down, saying: “But … tell them about the incinerated flesh! This is nothing like scary enough!”
Then the nuclear physicist Patricia Lewis made the elegant argument that no population, given the choice, would ever use a nuclear weapon, and all autocracies knew that: the only way these weapons could work as a real threat is if democracies stopped listening to their people, which is to say, became less democratic. So the real thing nuclear weapons deter is democracy itself. My mother would have loved that, though she definitely would have stood up at the end, saying: “This is more of a statement than a question: why, oh why is nobody talking about radiation sickness?”
Anyway, I marked her birthday equal parts missing her and freshly committed to opposing nuclear obliteration – which is pretty much what she would have wanted.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
