Social Anthropologies of the Welsh

Social Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present

I was delighted to take part in this symposium on the Anthropologies of the Welsh held at Cardiff University from 1st to 2nd May 2019, organised by Professor John Morgan, and supported jointly by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Learned Society of Wales, WISERD and the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. The link has a bilingual programme for Day 2, on which I gave a talk on social anthropology and religion in Wales. The symposium opened with a plenary lecture delivered by Dame Marilyn Strathern on the nature of comparison. It was a wonderful line-up of speakers and attendees covering many decades of Welsh academia.

Click on the links to access the programme and powerpoint.





Anthropological Perspectives on Religion in Wales

A Spirituality of Unity - Ysbrydolrwydd Undod

Caerdydd, 10.7.18

A talk by Fiona Bowie given (in Welsh) on the Focolare Movement, at the invitation of Peredur Griffiths (centre) at the National Eisteddfod of Wales on 10th July 2018 in Cardiff. The Welsh version was delivered by Oliver Davies.

The Cytun (Churches Together in Wales) tent at the
National Eisteddfod. Gethin Rhys and Peredur Griffiths (Cytun) with Myra Crilly (Focolare)

English Version

A Spirituality of Unity

http://www.focolare.org/gb/spirituality/spirituality-of-unity/

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something about the Focolare Movement, a spirituality of unity which I count myself fortunate to have known for almost fifty years. 

A collective spirituality

Members of the Focolare live a collective spirituality of unity based on Jesus’ prayer to the Father ‘that they may be one as we are one’ (Jn. 17:12), ‘That all may be one’ (Jn. 17:21). The unity that members of the Focolare aim for isn’t just with fellow Christians, or among friends and family, although this can be challenging enough, but with all people, everywhere. Even the most desperate situations, and the most difficult people, are included in Jesus’s prayer, and are therefore are ‘candidates for unity’. 

This choice to recognise everyone as brothers and sisters to be loved, whatever their race, religion, background, views or lifestyle was one of the things that first attracted me to the Focolare, and today it seems more important than ever. Unity is not merely being kind or nice to people but is based on Jesus’ promise ‘where two are more are gathered together in my name, I am in the Midst of you’ (Matthew 18:20). When we love as Jesus loved, ready to give our lives for one another, it is Jesus himself who is here among us. It is Jesus who changes people’s hearts, who comforts those who are suffering, who brings hope, peace and joy. The warmth of this love gave the Focolare its name, the ‘hearth’ or ‘fireside’ in Italian. 

We may not always reach unity but we can strive for it. The ‘key to unity’ is not our own efforts or will power but love for Jesus, finding Him in a special way in suffering. The founder of the Focolare Movement, Chiara Lubich, expressed it like this: 

‘We came to know that the greatest suffering of Jesus and, therefore, his greatest act of love, was when on the cross he experienced the abandonment by the Father: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ This touched us to the depths. And our young age, our enthusiasm, but especially the grace of God, urged us to choose only him in his abandonment, as the means to realize our ideal of love.’

There are many moments in our lives when we are stuck and don’t know how to go ahead, how to love. It is enough to recollect ourselves and say ‘Yes, Jesus, I love you here, now, like this; in this darkness, in this mistake, in this fear or embarrassment, in my failure or that of others. In what seems like a hopeless situation with no solution, You are here. The experience of members of the Movement, and my own experience, is that this choice of Jesus, forsaken, brings peace and transforms situations both big and small. In part it is we who are changed, but also there are what seem like miracles of resurrection. 

History

The Focolare Movement was born amid the destruction of the Second World War. A young woman from the town of Trent in the Italian Dolomites called Silvia Lubich felt called to follow God and to give her life to him, but wasn’t sure how. Silvia became a third order Franciscan and took the name Chiara (Clare). On a student retreat to the shrine of Loretto, where legend has it that the holy house of Nazareth was transported, Chiara had an intimation that this had something to do with her future her vocation. She wasn’t called to be a nun or to get married, but to live as an ordinary lay person, together with others, with Jesus among them. She didn’t know how this would happen, it was a new type of vocation in the church. 

Soon other young women, and then men, families, priests, nuns and people from all walks of life were attracted by Chiara’s love for God and began to meet together. When the air raid sirens sounded they would run to the air raid shelters, taking a copy of the gospels with them. As they read the words of Jesus they became alive: 

‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’ (Luke 6:31), 

‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Matt. 22:37), 

‘Give and it will be given unto you’ (Luke 6:38), 

‘Whatever you did for the least of one of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matt. 25:40), 

‘You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it’ (John 14:13). 

They didn’t know how long they had to live and started to put these words into practice. They visited the sick and poor and shared out their belongings with them, experiencing the hundredfold of God’s love and generosity. When someone was in need they asked God for that need and the goods arrived. One by one the words of the gospels came alive and they understood that it was not a book to be read but something to be lived. Living the ‘Word of Life’ and sharing the experiences of it  became and remains a key aspect of the life of those who live the spirituality of unity. 

After the war when travel became possible again Chiara and her companions started to move to other parts of Italy, taking this life of the gospel with them. They met Lutherans from Germany, Calvinists in Switzerland, Anglicans from the UK, Orthodox Christians in Turkey, all of whom found in this lived, gospel-based Christianity a way of living that appealed to them as well. 

I was brought up in the Anglican Church in England and was first introduced to the spirituality of the Focolare when I was 11 years old. I had just been prepared for confirmation, and I was deeply attracted by their message of mutual love. It seemed so simple and obvious. It was a way of being Christian that anyone could live. In my confirmation classes no one had taught me that the first and most important thing is to love. I tried to put this simple but  radical message into practice. I became more patient with my sisters, more helpful towards my parents, more courageous with my friends. It was like finding the precious pearl for which one is ready to leave everything, hidden but in plain sight. 

So it was in the 1950s and 1960s that the ecumenical dimension of the Focolare was born. It was followed in the 1970s by deeper relationships with people from other religions. The Focolare had already been invited to Cameroon, West Africa, during the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. They opened a mission station with a school, hospital and workshops at Fontem in Lebialem  Division among the Bangwa people. There they got to know and respect many of the Bangwa traditional cultural and religious practices.  The message of love and unity also appeals to Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists – to peoples of all faiths and none. As the first commandment is not to convert but to love, no one is excluded. 

In the many Focolare communities that have grown up around the world, and at the temporary holiday gatherings, both of which are known as a ‘Mariapolis’ or ‘City of Mary’, the only law is to love one another. Although there are many social projects carried out by members of the Focolare Movement, businesses run on communitarian principles, large and small meetings for people of different ages, occupations and backgrounds, the message remains the same. That we are all one family and that all of humanity is called to be united – not the same – but to live in mutual respect and dialogue in a society based on love.

Early on in her journey Chiara stated that she and her first companions wished to be buried in a common grave with the words, ‘We have believed in love’. For me, and for all those who try to live the spirituality of unity, this is the daily promise and challenge, to believe in love.

Thank you!

Oliver Davies at the Millennium Centre, Cardiff

 Fersiwn Cymraeg

Ysbrydolrwydd Undod

http://www.focolare.org/gb/spirituality/spirituality-of-unity/

Diolch am roi’r cyfle i mi ddweud rhywbeth am y Mudiad Focolare, ysbrydolrwydd undod yr ystyriaf fy hun yn ffodus o fod wedi ei adnabod ers bron hanner can mlynedd. 

Ysbrydolrwydd casgliadol

Mae aelodau’r Focolare yn byw ysbrydolrwydd undod casgliadol yn seiliedig ar weddi’r Iesu i’r Tad ‘er mwyn iddynt fod yn un fel yr ydym ni yn un’ (Jn. 17:12). Mae’r undod mae aelodau’r Focolare yn anelu ato nid gyda chyd-Gristnogion yn unig, nac ymhlith ffrindiau a theulu, er y gall hyn fod yn ddigon heriol, ond gyda’r holl bobl, ym mhob man. 

Nid bod yn garedig neu’n ddymunol at bobl yn unig yw undod ond mae’n seiliedig ar addewid yr Iesu ‘lle y mae dau neu dri wedi dod ynghyd yn fy enw i, yr wyf yno yn eich Canol’ (Matthew 18:20). Pan rydym yn caru fel y carodd Iesu, yn barod i roi ein bywydau i’n gilydd, Iesu ei hun sydd yma yn ein plith. Yr Iesu sy’n newid calonnau pobl, sy’n cysuro’r rhai sy’n dioddef, sy’n dod â gobaith, heddwch a llawenydd. Rhoddodd cynhesrwydd ei gariad ei enw i’r Focolare, yr ‘aelwyd’ neu ‘bentan’ yn Eidaleg. 

Yr ‘allwedd i undod’ yw nid ein hymdrechion ein hunain neu ewyllys ond cariad at Iesu, ei ddarganfod Ef mewn ffordd arbennig mewn dioddefaint. Mynegodd sylfaenydd Mudiad Focolare, Chiara Lubich, y peth fel hyn: 

‘Daethom i wybod mai dioddefaint mwyaf Iesu a, felly, ei weithred fwyaf o gariad, oedd pan y profodd ymollyngiad gan y Tad ar y groes: ‘Fy Nuw, fy Nuw, pam yr wyt wedi fy ngadael?’. Cyffyrddodd hyn â ni i’r dyfnderoedd. A chymhellodd ein hoedran ifanc, ein brwdfrydedd, ond yn enwedig gras Duw ni i’w ddewis ef yn unig yn ei ymollyngiad, fel y modd i wireddu ein delfryd o gariad.’

Mae sawl ennyd yn ein bywydau pan rydym yn ein hunfan a heb wybod sut i symud ymlaen, sut i garu. Gallwn ddewis dweud ‘Ie, Iesu, rwy’n dy garu yma, nawr, fel hyn; yn y tywyllwch hwn, yn y camgymeriad hwn, yn yr ofn neu annifyrrwch hwn, yn fy methiant neu un eraill. Yn yr hyn sy’n ymddangos yn sefyllfa anobeithiol heb unrhyw ateb, rwyt Ti yma.’ Profiad aelodau’r Mudiad, a fy mhrofiad i, yw bod y dewis hwn o Iesu wedi ei adael, yn dod â heddwch ac yn trawsffurfio sefyllfaoedd mawr yn ogystal â bach. Yn rhannol ni sydd wedi ein newid, ond hefyd y mae beth sy’n ymddangos fel gwyrthiau atgyfodiad. 

Hanes

Cafodd Mudiad Focolare ei eni yng nghanol dinistr yr Ail Ryfel Byd. Teimlodd menyw ifanc o dref Trent yng ngogledd yr Eidal o’r enw Chiara Lubich alwad i ddilyn Duw.

Pan seiniai’r seirenau cyrchoedd awyr byddai hi a’i ffrindiau’n rhedeg i’r llochesau, gan fynd â chopi o’r efengylau gyda hwy. Nid oeddent yn gwybod faint o amser oedd ganddynt i fyw a dechreuon nhw weithredu’r geiriau hyn. Ymwelsant â’r rhai sâl a thlawd a rhannu eu meddiannau gyda hwy, gan brofi cariad a haelioni Duw gan gwaith. Pan roedd rhywun mewn angen gofynnon nhw i Dduw am yr angen hwnnw a chyrhaeddodd y nwyddau. Fesul un daeth geiriau’r efengyl yn fyw a deallon nhw nad llyfr i’w ddarllen yn unig ydoedd ond rhywbeth i’w fyw. Daeth byw ‘Gair y Bywyd’ a rhannu’r profiadau ohono yn agwedd allweddol ar y bywyd ac mae’n dal i fod i’r rheiny sy’n byw ysbrydolrwydd undod. 

Ar ôl y rhyfel lledaenodd y ffordd hon o fyw i rannau eraill o’r Eidal a thu hwnt -  i Liwtheriaid o’r Almaen, Calfiniaid yn y Swistir, Anglicaniaid o’r DU, Cristnogion Uniongred yn Nhwrci, pob un ohonynt wedi darganfod yn y Gristnogaeth hon wedi ei byw yn seiliedig ar efengyl ffordd o fyw oedd yn apelio atynt hefyd. 

Cefais fy magu yn yr Eglwys Anglicanaidd yn Lloegr a chefais fy nghyflwyno yn gyntaf i ysbrydolrwydd Focolare pan oeddwn i’n 11 oed. Roeddwn i newydd gael fy mharatoi ar gyfer conffyrmasiwn, ac roeddwn i’n cael fy nenu’n ddwfn gan eu neges o gariad at ein gilydd. Ymddangosai mor syml ac amlwg. Roedd yn ffordd o fod yn Gristion y gallai unrhyw un fyw. Yn fy nosbarthiadau conffyrmasiwn nid oedd neb wedi fy nysgu mai’r peth cyntaf a phwysicaf yw i garu. Ceisiais droi’r neges syml ond radicalaidd hon yn weithred. Deuthum yn fwy amyneddgar gyda fy chwiorydd, yn fwy cynorthwyol at fy rhieni, yn ddewrach gyda fy ffrindiau. Roedd fel dod o hyd i’r perl gwerthfawr y mae rhywun yn barod i adael popeth amdani, yn gudd ond yn glir i’w gweld. 

Yn y 1950au a’r 1960au cafodd dimensiwn eciwmenaidd y Focolare ei eni. Cafodd hyn ei ddilyn yn y 1970au gan berthnasau dyfnach gyda phobl o grefyddau eraill. Roedd y Focolare wedi cael eu gwahodd yn barod i’r Camerŵn, Gorllewin Affrica, yn ystod Ail Gyngor y Fatican yn y 1960au. Agoron nhw orsaf genhadaeth gydag ysgol, ysbyty a gweithdai yn Fontem yn Lebialem.  Yno daethon nhw i adnabod a pharchu llawer o arferion diwylliannol a chrefyddol traddodiadol Bangwa. Mae’r neges o gariad ac undod hefyd yn apelio at Hindwiaid, Moslemiaid, Bwdhyddion – at bobl o bob ffydd a heb ffydd. Gan mai’r gorchymyn cyntaf yw nid i droi ond i garu, nid oes neb yn cael eu heithrio. 

Yn y cymunedau Focolare niferus sydd wedi tyfu o gwmpas y byd, ac yn yr ymgynulliadau gwyliau dros dro, a’r ddau yn cael eu hadnabod fel ‘Mariapolis’ neu ‘Ddinas Mair’, yr unig gyfraith yw i garu ein gilydd. Er bod llawer o brosiectau cymdeithasol yn cael eu gweithredu gan aelodau’r Mudiad Focolare – mae busnesau yn rhedeg ar egwyddorion cymunedol, cyfarfodydd mawr a bach i bobl o wahanol oedrannau, galwedigaethau a chefndiroedd – mae’r neges yn dal yr un peth: ein bod oll yn un teulu a bod dynoliaeth gyfan wedi cael ei galw i fod yn unedig – nid i fod yr un peth, yn ddiwahaniaeth – ond i fyw mewn parch at ein gilydd a deialog mewn cymdeithas yn seiliedig ar gariad.

I mi, a phawb sy’n ceisio byw ysbrydolrwydd undod, yr addewid a’r her ddyddiol yw i gredu mewn cariad.

Diolch yn fawr!

Slave States by Yasin Kakande

An important looking new book by Yasin Kakande, a Ugandan who worked for more than a decade as a journalist in the Gulf. The text is taken from the John Hunt publishing press release. Even if you don't read the book, the description of it below gives a taste of what Kakande uncovered about the mistreatment of migrant workers.

New book by former Middle East journalist exposes widespread abuses of the Kafala migrant worker sponsorship program in the Gulf Arab region

A new book by a Ugandan native who has been a Middle East journalist for more than a decade documents numerous shocking abuses of the Kafala sponsorship system in the Gulf Arab region that the author says constitute ‘pure slavery’ for millions of migrant workers who sustain the vital infrastructure in some of the world’s most celebrated and wealthiest economies.

Scheduled for release next month, Slave States: The Practice of Kafala in the Gulf Arab Region (Zero Books, John Hunt Publishing) by Yasin Kakande includes many individual stories that connect and lead to an understanding of just how the Kafala system became institutionalized as a societal mechanism of exploitation on an unprecedented breadth and depth of scope in Dubai, Qatar and other member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

“To many in and, most certainly, outside of the region, the system is unfamiliar, especially where the media – operating precariously and frequently compromising the fundamental ethical tenets of journalistic obligations – always hesitate and often refuse to give voice or visibility to the extent of abuse that has come to frame Kafala sponsorship in one of the world’s most progressive and economically developed nations,” Kakande says.“There are many delicate, fragile, and intricate mechanisms to preserve a status quo in Qatar, for example, where few would ever dare to entertain the idea of acknowledging the system’s most insidious flaws and injustices.”

Kakande was expelled from Dubai after his first book The Ambitious Struggle: An African Journalist's Journey of Hope and Identity in a Land of Migrants(Florida Academic Press, 2013) was published, which received considerable international attention from groups such as Reporters Without Borders, Radio France International, and international migrant rights organizations. 

He returned to Qatar to work as a journalist shortly afterward where he worked on this newest book. He left Qatar voluntarily and returned to Uganda without incident after he completed the manuscript for Slave States.

Kakande says the impetus for his second book became more urgent after Qatar won The Fédération Internationale de Football Association bid to host the 2022 World Cup and Dubai earned the honors to host the global Expo 2020. Even among journalists who are expected to be fair and balanced in their work, it is considered politically risky and professionally insensitive to criticize the underpinnings by which Qatar and Dubai had come to their good fortune, he recalls. And, another GCC nation, Saudi Arabia plays host regularly to the largest religious ritual gathering in the world (Hajj) but, as Kakande explains,“its appalling mistreatment of poor foreign workers has never abated and the Kafala system remains securely in place. With the sonorous texts of Islam calling for justice and equality of all human beings, regardless of their race or country of origin, the continued implementation of Kafala in the holy lands is the gravest insult to Islam.”

The book offers a brief history of Kafala and the power of the sponsors’ lobby which has worked aggressively to sustain the system even as serious moral challenges to its continuing existence are raised, while adding the parallels describing the perils immigrants face as they seek work in Qatar and neighboring GCC countries and those who remain in the shadows because of their undocumented status. Focusing on the second-class status of immigrants under Kafala sponsorship, Kakande documents societal discrimination that borders on humiliation and indecency and how societal exclusion is enforced through punitive threats and strict controls that prevent migrant workers from traveling freely and safely at their own will.  These include instances of employment fraud, wage theft, limited means for resolving contract disputes, frustrating bureaucracy, and, more broadly, institutional racism fortified by hate propaganda, stigmatization and subjugation that are rarely challenged with any rigor or clarity by the local or national media.He reports that even cases involving violence and murder are persistently framed in a way that demonizes immigrants, especially when the evidence would suggest that employers and sponsors were irresponsible about their own legal obligations.

However, the abuses do not end there, according to Kakande. The book includes accounts about how the most basic emotional, sexual, and personal rights of immigrants are controlled and ignored. And, he reports on prostitution and human trafficking that occur with alarming frequency that should upend the most popularly conceived notions about moral decency and strictness in the Gulf Arab region. Kakande ends the book with his own experience as an immigrant employee (journalist) and how rigorously sustained press censorship thwarts even the capacity to ask simple questions about the propriety of a sponsorship system that has undermined the most basic principles and tenets of a faith and culture that has defined the long history of the Gulf Arab region.

"Kakande's expose of the seamy side of life in the Gulf is an important counterweight to the free pass the GCC gets in the Western press. Oil corrupts, and the oil alliance that the West has with primitive tribal 'emirates' and the Saudi kingdom has poisoned world politics for long enough. Time for a new world order, where the practice of kafala plays no part,” said Eric Walberg, author of the Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games.

Eckart Woertz, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and author of /Oil for Food/ also commented on Slave States saying, “In this moving and inconvenient account Yasin Kakande makes a compelling case for labor rights, press freedom and a reform of the kafala-sponsorship system."

About the author

A native of Uganda, Yasin Kakande has been a Middle East journalist for more than a decade. He has worked for the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper as the correspondent for the northern Emirates. He also has worked as a news producer for City 7 TV in Dubai, a features writer for the Khaleej Times, and as a reporter and assistant editor for the Bahrain Tribune. He currently works as a translator for The Peninsular newspaper in Doha, Qatar and has done several freelance assignments for international distribution.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda and a master of business administration degree in marketing from the United Arab Emirates branch of the U.S.-based Preston University. He is fluent in English, Arabic and Swahili.

Uncomfortable Neighbours: Nuclear Power on the River Severn, Gloucestershire (UK)

I was asked to write a piece on our local nuclear power stations for the Parish Newsletter. Although some councillors liked the piece and thought that local residents should be informed, others deemed it too (party) political, and unsuitable for a parish newsletter that might be seen to carry the endorsement of councillors. The decision was not to include it. The information is taken largely from research done by John French of STAND (Severnside Campaign Against Radiation), who circulated a document to local councils, much of which is reproduced here almost word for word. Other sections are taken from an email response addressed to me by Karen Rushworth, District Emergency Planning Liaison Officer at the Forest of Dean District Council. Additional comments were made by Green Party District Councillor, Chris McFarling. STAND is not a party political organisation, but both the Green Party and STAND are opposed to nuclear power (and weapons), as I am, for some of the reasons outlined in the article.

Berkeley Nuclear Power Station

The history of the power stations

Residents of Tidenham Parish, particularly those who live along the River Severn, will be well aware of our two nuclear power neighbours on the East bank of the river.  Berkeley is six miles and Oldbury three miles from Tidenham. Berkeley, the first Nuclear Power Station in the UK, operated between 1962 and 1989, and Oldbury, with a lot of time out for repair, from 1967 until 2011. During this time both power stations routinely emitted radiation into the atmosphere and river as part of their day-to-day function. There were some ‘incidents’ associated with both stations, and there are clusters of leukaemia that could be associated with the radiation from the power stations on both sides of the Severn. In the 1980s it was disclosed that six children under the age of seven living in and around Lydney had leukaemia. These were shown by epidemiologists to be beyond the possibility of chance, with the assumption that there must be some environmental factor. The levels of radiation at Berkeley power station as measured at the perimeter fence, were consistently the highest of any nuclear plant in the UK.[i]  The intermediate-level waste from the decommissioning process at Oldbury over the next few years will be stored at Berkeley.[ii] The four reactor buildings of Oldbury and Berkeley will remain there for at least 100 years while they are being dismantled, an unwelcome legacy for our children’s children and their grandchildren.[iii]

The work of the power stations

Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories were opened in the early 1960s and are still in operation. Much work has been carried out there including extending the life of fuel rods and the extraction of plutonium from Magnox materials for export to the US for nuclear warheads. In 2014 an intermediate-level nuclear waste store was opened at the Berkeley site. This takes Nuclear waste from five other power stations, including Oldbury. The waste is being transported there by lorry from Oldbury, and by train from the other nuclear power stations.

Risks and emergency planning

Nirex, the Government’s nuclear watchdog, reported in 2005 that due to the risk of inundation or flood, storm surges and risk of coastal erosion, ‘a managed retreat from the Oldbury and Berkeley sites over 100 years is possibly inevitable’.[iv]  Since the 2005 report was published there is increasing evidence that sea levels are rising much faster than was predicted ten years ago.[v] Safety planning is the responsibility of Magnox and Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire County Councils. Local Authorities are required to have an ‘Offsite Emergency Plan’ to provide a framework for coordinating a multi-agency response to an offsite nuclear emergency. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, nuclear facilities are also required to carry out ‘Stress Tests’. These were completed for Berkeley and Oldbury in 2014[vi]. An EU Stress Test Report on Berkeley power station in October 2011 stated that: ‘It was recognised (prior to the Fukushima event) that the ILW [Intermediate Level Waste] stored in underground concrete vaults… would be at significant risk from site-wide flooding from the adjacent river’. At parish level we have been asked to appoint flood wardens, but nuclear emergency planning does not seem to have filtered down to form part of the parish level strategy. In fact there is no evacuation plan, at Parish, District or County level, for Bristol, Chepstow and the Forest of Dean, in the event of a serious incident at Oldbury or Berkeley.[vii] After the Fukushima accident an area up to 30km away from the plant was evacuated for some years, and an area of 15km radius still remains a wasteland.[viii] After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine, ground contamination in much of upland Britain, thousands of miles from the site of the accident, meant that sheep were prevented from entering the human food chain for decades.[ix] We know that as a result of human error, poor design and natural disasters, accidents WILL happen - just not precisely where or when. Meanwhile there are proposals by Hitachi and Horizon to build a new reactor on the Oldbury site of a relatively new, complex and untested design. The two existing reactors in Japan of this type have had numerous problems with more than 50% downtime. Terrorist attack and the theft or sale of fissible nuclear material that could be used to make a ‘dirty bomb’ is another risk that cannot be dismissed. There is no way of ultimately preventing weapons grade uranium reaching the ‘wrong hands’, making our world an even more dangerous and unstable place in which to live.

Why nuclear?

With problems relating to the long-term storage and safety of nuclear fuel unresolved one might well ask why new nuclear power stations are being developed, at considerable public expense? Uranium mining is, after all, dangerous for miners and those living around the mines and environmentally catastrophic.[x] I don’t have an answer to this question, but it may have something to do with the Government’s desire to please the City and large energy companies happy by keeping fuel prices high.[xi] It could be an effort to reduce our reliance on polluting fossil fuels, but support for shale gas extraction and reduction of the feed-in tariff for renewable energy suggests otherwise. It is perhaps regarded as militarily necessary for the production of weapon’s grade uranium?[xii] It is certainly not necessary in order to ‘keep the lights on’. The subsidies given to both fossil fuels and nuclear energy far outweigh the cost of supporting renewable energy,[xiii] which has the potential to provide all our energy needs. An estimated 140 per cent of the energy requirements of the Forest of Dean and over 100 per cent of the energy needs of Gloucestershire as a whole could come from renewable sources.[xiv] According to Friends of the Earth, in the first quarter of 2015 nearly 23% of the total UK energy needs were met from renewable sources, and there remains a huge untapped potential, with the prospect of substantial job creation.

What can we do?

The spent uranium from Berkeley and Oldbury power stations will remain active and dangerous for many generations to come. The threat it poses is something that we need to be aware of and deal with today. Concerned residents of Tidenham Parish might wish their Parish Council to consider what they should do to ensure adequate radiation emergency plans are in place by addressing the following questions:

·      How will we know if there is a radiation emergency?

·      Who keeps the iodine tablets and who will distribute them?

·      If we have to stay indoors, how long would it be for? How will we know?

·      What will happen to the children in schools and patients in hospital?

·      What will happen to the horses, cows, sheep, to our pets and other livestock?

·      If we have to evacuate, which roads will we use so that there is not complete gridlock, and where will we go?

·      Who will collect the people who have no cars?

There is a ‘Site Stakeholder Group’ (SSG) for Berkeley and Oldbury Sites (this has recently become a combined group), which gives residents an opportunity to raise any queries and concerns with Magnox. Councillor Helen Molyneux attends the group to represent Forest of Dean District Council and Tidenham Parish Council, so any queries can be raised via her, or at the meetings, which are open to members of the public. The next meeting is on 28^th October 2015, 1.00pm at the Gables Hotel, Bristol Road, Falfield, GL12 8DL.[xv]

---

References

[i] Evidence to Hinkley C enquiry 1987 by SCAR (Severnside Campaign Against Radiation) now STAND (Severnside Together Against Nuclear Development).

[ii] The Gloucestershire Gazette, ‘Berkeley Waste’, 24 April 2014.

[iii] World Nuclear News (official organ of the nuclear industry), Magnox Decommissioning Manoeuvres, paragraph 8, 18 March 2013.

[iv] NIREX official government report published 2005, The effect of rising sea levels on nuclear installations in the UK.

The Guardian, ‘Floods: A disaster waiting to happen?’ 27 June 2013

[v] National Geographic, 2015. ‘Sea Level Rise. Ocean Levels Are Getting Higher – Can We Do Anything About It?’ “Core samples, tide gauge readings, and, most recently, satellite measurements tell us that over the past century, the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). However, the annual rate of rise over the past 20 years has been 0.13 inches (3.2 millimeters) a year, roughly twice the average speed of the preceding 80 years”.

[vi] Magnox Ltd responded to some of my questions to the FOD District Council via Karen Rushworth, District Emergency Planning Liaison Officer, by directing me to the following reports available online.  One report provides information on the lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in 2011, and the response by Magnox across its sites. The other reports are a response to ‘Stress Tests’ that every nuclear power operating country in Europe agreed to carry out following Fukushima. The tests involved a targeted reassessment of each nuclear site’s safety margins in light of extreme events such as an earthquake and tsunami. These are the links to the reports for Berkeley and Oldbury.

[vii] BBC TV Inside Out West, ‘Has Bristol an Evacuation Plan?’ 17 December 2012.

Scientific American, ‘It's Not Just Fukushima: Mass Disaster Evacuations Challenge Planners’, 2 March 2012.

Daily Telegraph, ‘Fukushima meltdown is warning to the world, says nuclear plant operator’, 19 November 2013.

[viii] Fukushima on the Globe, ‘Evacuation Orders and Restricted Areas’, 5 September 2015.

The Guardian, ’Fukushima nuclear disaster: Three years on 120,000 evacuees remain uprooted’, 10 September 2014.

[ix] The Guardian, 12 May 2009, ‘Britain's farmers still restricted by Chernobyl nuclear fallout’, Terry Macalister and Helen Carter. Over four million sheep were affected on nearly ten thousand farms. Movement of animals on upland farms was restricted from 1986 until the Food Standards Agency revoked the order in November 2012.

[x] Health Effects of Uranium Mining. Fact Sheet 4, Preconference of the IPPNW World Congress, University of Basel, 26.8.2010.

Health Dangers of Uranium Mining and Jurisdictional Questions. The British Columbia Medical Association, August 1980. 

Nuclear Fuel’s Dirty Beginnings: Environmental Damage and Public Health Risks from Uranium Mining in the American West. Geoffrey H. Fettus and Matthew G. McKinzie, Natural Resources Defence Council, March 2012.

[xi]  ‘Renewable energy sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit’. Oliver Tickell, The Ecologist, 22^nd July 2015.

[xii] The military argument is suggested by the outdated design of the proposed Hinkley C nuclear reactor in Somerset, which will use uranium (instead of thorium) which feeds the nuclear weapons industry. Hinkley A was, after all, adapted to produce weapons-grade plutonium for the US market. Nils Pratley, The Guardian, 21.9.15. ‘Hinkley Point fails on cost and reliability, but the show must go on’.See also Paul Dorfman, Energy Institute, UCL, and Stop Hinkley press release, 15.10.14.

[xiii] Juliette Jowitt, The Guardian, ‘Growth at all costs: climate change, fossil fuel subsidies and the Treasury’, 24.5.2015.

“The IMF’s latest analysis estimates that the UK will spend about US$41 billion (£26 billion), equivalent to 1.37 per cent of its GDP, on subsidies for fossil fuels this year”. Bob Ward, London School of Economics, British Politics and Policy Blog, 18.8.2015.

See also Oliver Tickell in The Ecologist, 23.9.15.

[xiv] The Power to Transform the South West. A report commissioned by Molly Scott Cato MEP. Andrew Clarke, The Resilience Centre, September 2015.

[xv] With thanks to John and Barbara French of STAND, Chris McFarling, Forest of Dean Green Party District Councillor, and Karen Rushworth, District Emergency Planning Liaison Officer at the Forest of Dean District Council for much of this information.