Press release
Ploughshares action in Sweden
With blacksmith hammers, Ulla Røder and Per Herngren disarmed a military radar and parts of the Test Range at SAAB Microwaves in Sweden, Thursday 26 June, 2008.
The Ploughshares group calling themselves, SAAB Microwave Becoming2 Ploughshares were arrested inside SAAB Microwave after half an hour. Beside the disarmament they also planted figs and talked with workers and guards.
“The word of the 
See the side bar for the words of Micah.
“ We do have the ability of direct intervention”, Ulla Røder believes. “It becomes a duty when there are violence and suffering in the world. We use nonviolence. Contrary to my friend Per, I do not believe that we are practicing civil disobedience, but rather upholding international law. It is SAAB Microwave which breaks the law delivering the missile firing system used during the war in Iraq.”
”Becoming2” (like a mathematical 'becoming-squared') in the middle of our name might look strange,” says Per Herngren. “During the ploughshares action, we worked together with Deleuze philosophers from Gothenburg University in Sweden. We were during one day plugged into each other. Together we examined how resistance and Deleuze’s philosophy will intensify each other.
Beating swords into ploughshares
“they will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they train for war. Each of them will sit under his vine And under his fig tree, With no one to make them afraid,” Micah 4:3-4
This quote is found in text tradition from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism.
Ulla Røder
Ulla Røder, 53, from Denmark, disarmed a test laboratory for the nuclear submarine Trident system at Loch Goil, Scotland in 1999 together with the Trident Three Ploughshares group. They won the trial. In the week before the war on Iraq in 2003 Ulla Røder disarmed a Tornado jet going to be used for the attack in Iraq. Ulla has spent more than a year in jail for these actions and other non-violent direct actions.
Per Herngren
Per Herngren served 15 months of a eight year sentence in the US having in 1984, together with seven others in Pershing Plowshares, disarmed a Pershing II nuclear missile. During the first war on Iraq 1991, he and Gunfactory Plowshares disarmed two Carl Gustaf bazookas at FFV, Eskilstuna in Sweden. Together with people from Sweden and Germany Per Herngren initiated the Ploughshares movement in Europe in the mid eighties. He is 46 years old and lives in Fig Tree – a Jona House resistance community in Hammarkullen, Sweden. His books have been published in Swedish, Polish, and English.
The Ploughshares Movement
The Ploughshares have since 1980, disarmed hundreds of weapons, airplanes, helicopters, nuclear weapons, trident submarines. According to the estimated, and not scientific account of Per Herngren, the ploughshares movement has with blacksmith hammers disarmed more explosive powers than what have been used during all wars from the stone age until today.
Contact and information
Web site for SAAB Microwave Becoming2 Ploughshares
Ulla Røder: bur200854 (at) hotmail.com
Per Herngren: perherngren (at) post.utfors.se
Path of Resistance (the whole book on internet)
Post protest (article)
Posts
2 comments:
I find these actions very inspiring, but wonder a lot about how much they influence the future of military policy.
Parke! Thanks for your support!
I don't think either protest or civil disobedience influence the military or military policy. But I hope resistance inspire new resistance, and that different people can use our innovations and methods as tools for their work.
If power is the same as obedience, then we need disobedience to undermine it.
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