Anti-Trident rally was no walk for dinosaurs

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/29/anti-trident-rally-was-no-walk-for-dinosaurs

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Zoe Williams (The real dinosaurs? Those still lobbying to keep Trident, 29 February) remarks on a change that needs to be recognised, while the rest of the media are intent on ignoring it. It’s true, there is a growing change; I was at Saturday’s rally in London, and at another 55 years ago, and there was a difference. There were 10 excellent female speakers (a majority), including a brave and eloquent Israeli, and many good points were made. And it was a huge gathering, full of determined and respectful people – no loutishness in sight. One thing Zoe didn’t emphasise was that many of the new and younger people came because they were inspired by Jeremy Corbyn and concerned about a broad range of issues like austerity, housing, the NHS. Also, the presence of four political leaders established a potential anti-Trident consensus, especially if Labour officially comes out against it. Hopeful times indeed.Mora McIntyreHove

• Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday in the Stop Trident protest, the biggest CND event for decades. Zero coverage in Monday’s “National” pages. Yet plenty of space for a photo and coverage of a Disney-fevered fashion catwalk in Milan. Karin KollerLeicester

• Your online report about “Britain’s biggest anti-nuclear march in a generation” (27 February) was a source of great inspiration. This public uprising against Trident comes at a time when the majority of the world’s nations are engaged in diplomatic talks to negotiate a new legal instrument outlawing nuclear weapons. Britain, like other nuclear-armed nations, has chosen to boycott this UN-mandated process.

More than six decades have passed since Britain’s first nuclear test, at the Montebello Islands off west Australia. It went on to explode several more bombs atmospherically and carry out “minor trials” at Maralinga and Emu Field in the desert outback until 1963. These experiments in mass destruction have had a profound impact on the health and welfare of Aboriginal communities living close to the test sites. Large swaths of their precious land remain radioactive and uninhabitable to this day.

I commend the Guardian for its longstanding commitment to reporting on efforts to rid the world of the nuclear menace. But I do hope that, in future, you will refrain from referring to Britain’s nuclear weapons as its “deterrent”. By using this loaded term, you reinforce government rhetoric intended to disguise the horrible human impact of these weapons. They are not abstract instruments of political power, but instruments capable of inflicting great harm – something Indigenous Australians know all too well.Tim WrightMelbourne, Australia

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