A timeline of insanity

Reflections, concerns - and a glimmer of hope - from Erik Cramb, retired Industrial Chaplain in Dundee

I was born in the early days of World War II. I started school in the 1940s.

Twenty years later, when I was a university student in the 1960s, the Vietnam war was raging.  The infamous photo of the12 year old Vietnamese child Kim Phuc, her body badly burned by a napalm burst running naked from falling bombs was on the front page of every newspaper. 

Students at universities and many other young people in Britain and America were protesting and organising aid for the innocent victims of the barbaric conflict.  The utter madness of war was evident, but seemed far off on the other side of the world.

Another 20 years on … In 1981, I was a spectator at a wheelchair basketball match between the Jamaican national paraplegic team and a team from Florida.  I had never realised previously what a violent game wheelchair basketball can be.  These guys really got stuck into each other.  Exciting spectacle though the game was, it is the make-up of the two teams that remains imprinted on my mind 45 years later.

The Jamaican team comprised largely of young men crippled by diseases like polio, or victims of motor-bike accidents or by urban violence.  The American team was made up entirely by young men, soldiers crippled by the loss of limbs during the war in Vietnam.  I had the opportunity of talking with some of these guys after the match.  The madness of war was evident, but for me, no longer far off.  It was there, up close and personal, on first name terms as we enjoyed spicey jerk pork Jamaican delicacies.

Fast forward a further decade … In 1991 Henry McCubbin was our local MEP and arranged a meeting for the team of Industrial Chaplains to visit Brussels and meet Jacques De Lors, the head of the Commission.  We were met by a guide who told us that since we were from the United Kingdom the normal introduction to the Commission had to be prefaced by a reminder that the primary purpose of the Treaty of Rome was Peace in Europe.  The vision was that never again would guns bark and armies march across our continent.  You British, she told us, in particular, must be reminded that you are the only nation not to have been invaded by hostile armies - you alone have no living memory of occupation.

In 1993 in my further engagement with industrial mission and local justice and peace groups across Europe, I visited Avelino Prison, high in the mountains above Naples in Italy.  The prison housed a number of long-term prisoners who were mainly members of the Chamorra (the local Mafia based in Naples) or were political prisoners, deemed Red Brigade terrorists.

Although a high security prison, it had an experimental regime which allowed prison sentences to be ‘personalised’ - that is, the sentences were allowed to take account of the prisoners’ attitudes and other circumstances. It was perceived to be helpful in most cases for prisoners to be allowed home visits for important family matters.

Bepe, the spokesperson for the prisoners, was later to address us, which he did in near fluent English.  Bepe had already served 19 years of a life sentence. “We were all part of the ‘terrorist’ experience.  We were part of the Red Brigade, not out of any political ideology, but simply in a search to find a better way of life for ourselves, our mothers and brothers and sisters and neighbours.  We are still looking for a better way of life although we have now given up the armed struggle.  It was a mistake.  It is no longer appropriate.  Further imprisonment for us is superfluous”.  Then describing the most imaginative project which the prisoners operated together with their wives and families, Bepe concluded by saying that if they had had the same opportunities and conditions in their home lives, they would never had joined the armed struggle in the first place.

Although the regime at Avelino was seen by many to be a fig leaf on Italy’s harsh prison system, it was a response to a critical moment in the lives of these young Red Brigade recruits, to do something positive rather than regressive.

Twenty-five years into the 21st Century, the insanity of the resort to arms continues as war threatens, and the immediate response of the British (and other) governments has been to immediately demand huge increases in ‘defence spending’. A government which all too recently was facing, it claimed, such a deep financial crisis that they had to cut the winter fuel allowance to the majority of pensioners suddenly finds that it has available grotesque amounts of money for obscene armaments.  “A government’s first duty is to protect its citizens.” goes the mantra from Westminster.  They even have the gall to present this spending as an opportunity for industrial growth and increased employment.

An alternative mantra can be heard in Dundee.  A small voice, a whisper of something positive … A campaign led by young people in the city under the banner ‘Food not Bombs’ offering a progressive, a flickering candle of sanity amidst the darkness of looming war clouds.

Blessed are the peacemakers: the ancient mantra is still being kept alive.

Published 17 June 2025