Four Strong Women
A song by Maurie Mulheron ©Maurie Mulheron 1996
Chorus:
It took a hammer, an act of love
To turn that jet Hawk into a dove
It took some courage, it took some strength
To stop that fighter from dealing death
Into the hangar, into the plane
Now use your hammer to stop the pain
There's steady breathing as your work starts
Four strong women, four beating hearts
You sang of justice, you rang the bell
You drove your hammer through Timor's hell
You won your freedom but you won more
You stopped a death plane from making war
Four strong women with hammers high
Beating ploughshares for a peaceful sky
They know the struggle, they know the cause
Whoever profits keeps making wars
Coda: Four strong women, four beating hearts
Notes
Many thanks to Maurie Mulheron for permission to add this song to the Union Songs site.
Maurie writes:
This song celebrates the actions of four British women, Andrea Needham,
Joanna Wilson, Lotta Kronlid and Angie Zeltner, who are members of the
peace group, Ploughshares. In January 1996, they broke into the high
security hangar owned by British Aerospace in Lancashire. Their purpose
was to disarm one of the newly built Hawk jets. These jets were due for
delivery to the Indonesian Government who use the jet Hawk against the
villagers of East Timor.
The four women had researched the plane well, learning its control panel
layout and serial number. Months were spent monitoring the security and
general operations of the British aerospace site at Warton until they
were sure that they had located the exact plane destined for Indonesia.
Once they had made a positive identification, Jet ZH 955, they made
their last minute preparations. They quit their flats, said their
farewells, bought some tools - bolt-cutters, crowbars and small hammers,
and made their way to the airfield.
After an agonising period waiting for the right moment, the four women
broke into the hangar and set about destroying the war machine. They
developed a steady rhythm, once they realised that the security was not
coming. Over a period of about an hour the women methodically destroyed
the plane's weapons system with their hammers. As Andrea Needham
explains, "I have to admit I thought it might be a kind of religious
experience but it felt like work - a job. It was like, here is a weapon
that will hurt people, so this is what we have to do to stop it."
When they finished, they placed banners and streamers over the plane,
sang songs of peace and dropped small seeds (of hope) everywhere. As
well, they placed a video in the cockpit of John Pilger's documentary on
East Timor which has footage of eyewitness accounts of the planes in
action.
Eventually they were arrested and charged. They faced heavy prison
sentences. At their trial they argued from a difficult position: that
their crime was justified because its intent was to prevent a larger
crime, genocide, from occurring.
As the John Pilger documentary had been found at the scene of the crime,
the women were able to show the video to the jury. On the sixth day of
the trial, the jury turned in a majority verdict of not guilty. Their
defence had been accepted.
British Aerospace were stunned. On the steps of the courthouse, crowded
with supporters, journalists and photographers, a company representative
stepped forward to serve an injunction ordering the women not to
trespass on the company's property. Angie Zeltner took the papers and,
grinning broadly, promptly tore them up. Four strong women!
For more information, see the article "If I Had a Hammer" by Jane
Wheatley in HQ magazine, (September/October 1996) and pages 313-322 of
John Pilger's "Hidden Agendas" (Vintage, 1998).
Ploughshares has a web site: http://www.gn.apc.org/tp2000/
email:mailto:reforest@gn.apc.org
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