Helen Steven
The photograph is a close-up portrait of Helen Steven. Helen is wearing glasses and smiling into the camera. You can't see much of the background as the photo is a close up of her face, but she appears to be in a sunny, green field.
Born(1942-10-19)19 October 1942
Died12 April 2016(2016-04-12) (aged 73)
Known forPeace activism, nonviolent protest, and opposition to nuclear weapons
AwardsGandhi International Peace Award

Helen Steven (19 October 1942 – 12 April 2016) was a Scottish Quaker peace activist and one of the founders of the Scottish Centre for Nonviolence.[1] Her opposition to the nuclear submarine base in Scotland was recognised with the Gandhi International Peace Award in 2004.

Life

Steven was educated at Laurel Bank School and at the University of Glasgow, and worked for several years as a history teacher.[2] She volunteered with the Peace Corps in Vietnam in the early 1970s, and traced her commitment to pacifism to her experiences in Vietnam.[2]

During the early 1970s she became Ellen Moxley's life partner.[3]

From 1979 to 1985, she was justice and peace worker for the Iona Community.[2]

With her partner Ellen Moxley, she founded Peace House near Dunblane in 1985, providing training in peace, justice and nonviolent direct action.[4] More than ten thousand people attended the course over a twelve-year period.[1] During that time, Steven and Moxley chose to live below the tax threshold, so they would not have to contribute to funding the British nuclear arsenal.[5] Steven later helped to establish the Scottish Centre for Nonviolence in 1999.[4] The Centre closed in 2007, but during that time Steven was able to develop a non-violence module for a masters degree that was accredited by the Open University.[6]

In 1984, after being arrested for taking part in a nonviolent demonstration at the Faslane nuclear base, Steven said in her defence statement: "If I see that base at Faslane as morally wrong and against my deepest convictions – as wrong as the gas chambers of Auschwitz, as wrong as the deliberate starvation of children – then by keeping silent, I condone what goes on there".[7] She refused to pay the fine and was imprisoned.[4]

In the 2000 book, No Alternative? Nonviolent Responses to Repressive Regimes, edited by John Lampen, Steven argued that there was meaning in each and every act of resistance, no matter how small.[8] One of the examples she highlighted was opposition to the Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile, which finally fell after 20 years of solidarity concerts, Amnesty International letters, speaking tours by Chilean refugees, and countless symbolic acts of protest.[8]

In 2002 she and Moxley retired to Raffin in Assynt in northern Scotland.[3] They received the Gandhi International Peace Award in 2004 for their nonviolent campaigning against weapons of mass destruction.[3]

Steven delivered the annual Swarthmore Lecture to British Quakers in 2005, on the topic No Extraordinary Power: Prayer, Stillness and Activism.[9]

Steven died in 2016 and she was survived by her civil partner Ellen Moxley for three years.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Obituary: Helen Steven, peace activist". The Scotsman. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Helen Steven, 1942–2016". Dangerous Women Project. 21 June 2016. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d "Obituary: Ellen Moxley: 12 March 1935 – 8 July 2019 | Peace News". peacenews.info. Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  4. ^ a b c "Helen Steven". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  5. ^ Close, Ajay (30 October 1999). "The Trident Three". The Scotsman. Retrieved 2 March 2022 – via GALE.
  6. ^ "Farewell to peace centre | Peace News". peacenews.info. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  7. ^ "Practical expressions of our peace testimony | Quaker faith & practice". qfp.quaker.org.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
  8. ^ a b Coy, Patrick G. (September 2002). "The Toughest Nut to Crack: Nonviolent Alternatives to Political Violence". Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. 8 (3): 285–287. doi:10.1207/S15327949PAC0803_13.
  9. ^ "No Extraordinary Power: Prayer, Stillness, and Activism (Swarthmore Lecture) – Pendle Hill Quaker Books & Pamphlets". Pendle Hill. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
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