Peace Walk (Part V): Scottish Messages & Human Truths

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Sorry folks, here's another re-published article.

We’re moving through The Glen. Ferns carpet the soils, sprouting from the beds of moss where thick shadows linger throughout the whole of the day. There is silence between the chattering of birds, and my eyes wander among the tree trunks. I see Merlin peering from behind a bough. He wears a tall, speckled hat. His eyes are sallow and white folds of hair dangle from about the face. Features are long, veiled in wizardry, and his robes blend into the glen’s mystique. He winks and disappears.

The Peace Walk crosses the land, from Scottish countryside into the villages, towns and cities, and back out across the fields where livestock graze. A wind blows and carries a deep scent of manure. It stings our nostrils, causing us to breathe shallowly from our mouths. Incessant, like a constant maritime fog—relief doesn’t reach us until we pass under the shelter of the forest. Upon the Scottish agrarian lifestyle, these woods are a network of patches. Within, the fresh scents of dirt, wood, leaves and spring water spark an imagination of mine, which catches the flutters of the faeries’ wings and the waddling strides of scurrying hobbits.

‘Tis the shire-land for now, but we head south for the Dundrennan firing range near Kirkcudbright. There, instead of glimpsing into a fantasyland of gnomes, druids and dragons, we keep watch for empty shells leaking depleted uranium.

A Mere Word

Known universally as “DU”, depleted uranium is a mystery throughout the communities along the Solway Firth of southwestern Scotland and northwestern England. In the scientific world, uranium itself is a heavy metal, gray and dense, making it radioactive and most suitable as a fuel for nuclear energy. But once the fissile isotope uranium-235 is separated from its counterpart, uranium-238, the metal now takes two distinct paths: The u-235 goes into further enrichment for use in nuclear reactors, while the u-238 now becomes “depleted” uranium, coining the term DU.

But the “depleted” uranium is hardly “depleted” at all. In fact, when molded into the form of ammunition shells and casings for military usage throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere, the DU bullets are anti-armor shots, piercing metal and exploding on impact. Shrapnel is the result and is scattered like the spray of an aerosol can. Within these fragments lay radioactive toxins, ones that infuse the flesh wound, as well as fall within the soils, blow within the winds, spray within the seas, and are hence breathed into the lungs. It cannot be denied that this waste product of the nuclear industry is not waste at all, but a certain byproduct that goes into enhanced manufacturing for the usage in weapons of indiscriminate murder.

As a whole, this radioactive metal is highly toxic because of its ability to attract natural gamma rays, which in turn reproduces them as photoelectrons. According to Richard Bramhall of the Low Level Radiation Campaign, this is true for all heavy metals, “but it is particularly important when thinking about uranium, because uranium (depleted or undepleted) binds strongly to DNA.” Put together, uranium in either state is able to “concentrate the effects of natural radiation right onto the DNA and thus… cause mutations.” Bramhall, in a letter to our group, goes on to conclude: “DNA is the critical target for radiation to damage people’s health.”

With this information of scientific research, largely ignored by the government and military officials, our heads turn to the locals. For the last years, dating all the way back to the Second World War, the rate of leukemia in children has become two-times higher of those living near the Solway Firth. This caught the attention of Kirkcudbright local, Dan Kenny.

It was not yesterday, but twenty-odd years ago when Dan was working in the Sahara and began hearing of his boyhood friends die of cancer. With diligent research and investigation, Mr. Kenny has now revealed to the public the effects of Chernobyl as the winds blew westward across Scotland that day, as well as the UK’s very own nuclear catastrophe when Windscale (now called Sellafield) caught aflame in 1957. This nuclear event sent plumes of radiated smoke into the skies and hot waste into the seas. Soon, Dan’s eyes turned even closer, four miles down the road to the Dundrennan firing range.

The Ages of Innocence

Our night before the Dundrennan range rested at Kirkcudbright. There, we held a public meeting at the local church of Reverend Douglas Irving. Within a sanctuary to fill over two hundred, approximately twenty seats were filled, yet the interest was keen and the desire among this small collective intense. Afterwards, there was one man who approached me. His name was Ronald, and with a thick slurry of words accented in a Highlander’s Scottish tone, I could barely make out his story:

Ronald worked at a childcare center. A few years ago, a young boy was admitted with leukemia. His illness was rather quick, something all-too common within the region, and as his hour neared, he whispered to Ronald a last wish: “I want to see the sunrise again.” As Ronald held him that evening, the morning would not rise quick enough to fulfill the boy’s wish. In his arms, the child slipped away, his family at his side.

At the end of relating his experience, the man before me shrugged his shoulders as we stood out in the fading light. I was cold from my meager attire of shorts and t-shirt, and grew even colder as we both stood there speechless. Bedtime was nearing.

This was one out of many experiences with death in direct relation to the nuclear industry, yet this is not mentioned to belittle Ronald’s experience or the lad’s death. In 1992, Alix Spurling of Kirkcudbright died from a rare tumor within her spine. She was five years into her life, and according to doctors Alix “may have ingested a particle of plutonium or uranium.” In the Sunday Mail back on June 27th, 1993, Alix’s mother spoke out: “This area is full of radiation hazards and I think the authorities are putting the children at risk.”

In the same article, it is reported that 40 tons of depleted uranium were left behind on the battlefields of the Gulf War, which could cause an estimated 500,000 possible deaths relating to such radiation. The paper informed readers that “aid agencies in the Gulf have reported a huge increase in child leukemia.”

Clearing the Facts

The morning was eerie, blanketed in a cold, dank fog that left a stickiness to our heated pace. We left Kirkcudbright and headed south into the Dundrennan firing range. All along, the green hills disappeared into an evaporated mist, leaving the silhouettes of cattle and sheep to their knolls. Moist grasses brushed our pants as nettles hung heavily beneath their weight. Up a rippling landscape, we summited the final hill and stood before the range.

Dan Kenny and Range Commandant Nigel Davies met us: one a protester opposing the range’s purpose, the other the le chef of the base. For the first time, the two met and shook hands. What prevailed was an exchange between one another, both maîtres of their opposite viewpoints. Dan believes DU test firing continues on the range to this day, while Nigel assured us that all testing was completed at the end of the Gulf War. Yet, whosever perspective reigns supreme, the facts are the facts. Reported by The Galloway Coalition for Justice & Peace, over 7000 depleted uranium shells have been fired at Dundrennan, which remain on the land and at the bottom of the Solway Firth. The question now prevails: When will the clean up process begin? Afterwards, waste with a half-life of 4.5 billion years remains, poisoning the rest of human life, as well as the Earth long after we’re extinct.

Among us all, depleted uranium is a poison today. When DU ammunition is fired, it heats to 3000 degrees centigrade, becoming a “ceramic uranium aerosol of microscopic radioactive particles.” Once the particles are inhaled, digested, or impacted and lodged within the flesh, the depleted uranium stays inside the body for x amount of years, producing radiation types such as alpha, beta and gamma. As mentioned before, the DU specifically binds to DNA, which can cause a panoply of mutations from cancer to Down syndrome.

Eventually, Footprints for Peace took to the Tank Road within the firing range and with a speed demoting us to that of an amble (considering we were inside a zone of radiation), we entered the gates and strolled through. Nothing spectacular or revealing was discovered, neither did our skin begin to glow or our hair stand on end. We simply walked (or ambled), and then we left, each with our stories, facts and opinions in line.

Haste Ye Back With Peace

The days loll into one long pilgrimage. We pass the four-week mark since the start of our walk back in Dublin and arrive at the southern edges of Scotland.

One evening, nestled in the Cummertrees’ Village Hall, the heat is crankin’ and our bellies are full. It was Thai-style soup (with a coconut base) and crusty bread for supper, aromatizing the hall and our palates. Sitting on the wood floors, they creak beneath us, giving our pruned toes and raisened soles rest as we slowly begin to dry after a day of wet walking. By a long shot, it was the wettest of all, where a crisp northern wind blew at a bite. But indoors—changed, warmed and satiated—smiles of laughter and songs of forgotten hymns echo throughout the building.

Books and journals scatter about our luggage, and from time-to-time they fold in our laps as memories, thoughts and emotions are recorded. The air is calm between the passing trains, which run directly through the backyard, and Yu-chan’s reflective fingering on the mbira further enchants the silence. Its vibrations offer the turbulent weather a peaceful meditation; a fire-shadowed camp—dry and sheltered, yet moist with warmth. Beside me as she plays, my mind enters the glen and finds Merlin once more:

By the brook, I hear whispers in the current. Trout swim. Insects and birds chirp in the lilies below and the boughs above. A soft breeze slithers down the waters and suddenly Merlin is gone. I feel something in my hand.

Around me are the beings of the shire, small and delicate, yet magical in their fantasies. I look down at my hand. It’s in a fist at my side, and as I bring it to my chest, I open it. Inside is a small globule that sits in my palm. It is blue and green, glowing in its energy, translucent with its gleam. With closer inspection I discover it to be a miniature globe, a marble-sized Mother Earth.

Warm and humming in my palm, I look inward through this planet’s surface and see humanity; the joys and pains, the triumphs and losses, the freedoms and oppressions. I see it as Life, and as the electricity within my palm intensifies throughout my body, I see it as Love. My world slips away and I disappear beside Merlin, the faeries and hobbits, the fantasylands and the imaginations of the shire, and a home created as The Garden of Eden. I feel the choice we all have to make. It is a choice to create and live within our heart and soul.

Next, I open my eyes. Yu-chan’s playing her mbira. Dan’s plucking at his. KA & Marcus, Jamie, Bernie and Liana—we all circle in solidarity and walk for Peace.

As the pilgrimage leaves Scotland and enters England on June 17th, we carry the messages of Life, and those of Love and Peace. Whether in Kirkcudbright, and throughout Scotland and Ireland, or across the oceans into America and beyond, each story is no longer personalized, but globalized. We are One people. We are connected, making Alix’s death, our death; making her mother’s loss, our own loss.

From the radiation of Dundrennan, to the effects of Faslane and Coulport, and over to the shores of eastern Ireland; from family and friends back near Trident submarine base at Bangor (15 miles west of Seattle) and their battles with cancers, to the men, women and children of Iraq (where a staggering 66% increase of leukemia cripples the statistics prior to the war); from the upcoming Sellafield to the aboriginals within Australia near Roxby Downs and the Native Americans within the States; and to Japan with their 54 nuclear reactors to France and their 60-plus nuclear plants—our problems are equally theirs, and their problems equally ours.

We are all connected, and in order to relieve the suffering of humanity experienced in every corner, we must come together and think, speak and act as one voice. Me must call for an end to the nuclear industry as an alternative to power, as a means of weaponry and war. We make the choice to end discrimination and hatred, as well as the equally disastrous affects throughout our human family when we don’t love ourselves in order to love others.

With belief, we can heal this planet and ourselves. We can create a world of Love and Peace; one filled with Joy, one absent of war, disease and hatred. All it takes is a step toward your heart—our heart.

The last Scottish sign is passed. It calls out metaphorically from the depths of our being. Along the road leaving Gretna in southwestern Scotland, the metal board reads: Haste Ye Back. Something inside us is calling. Something is urging to be heard and listened to. As its soul purpose, it seeks to be expressed. Haste ye back to the love of your heart and soul.

Five-weeks have gone by, and we cross the border into England with Sellafield in the near distance.

To be continued...

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Photos

The Days Aren't Over
Campaigner, Dan Kenny of Kirkcudbright

Comments

[belinda]

pic
'scotland's for peace' is a great great photo!