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This Ban Will Not Stop Us
Parliament might want to forget about Iraq, but we will march on Monday to remind them
Our leaders would undoubtedly be happy if we "moved on" from Iraq. They don't want to talk about it any more: it was a dreadful blunder, and reflects little credit on any of them. Presumably this is why the question has hardly been debated in parliament. Although the majority of the public were always against the war, this was not reflected by their elected representatives. The government behaved in a way that was transparently undemocratic but the Conservatives won't call them on it, for without their almost unanimous support the whole project couldn't have happened.
But to conveniently forget Iraq now is to forfeit the only possible benefit the war might have: the chance to rethink the dysfunctional political system that got us into this hole. If we don't, we risk digging a series of ever deeper holes. The Iraq adventure was justified as the planting of a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Not only did it utterly fail at that, it also undermined our democracy. Appealing to our paranoia more than our vision, George Bush and Tony Blair obtained restrictions on freedoms that had taken centuries to evolve. They said these were necessary to ensure our security - a device used by authoritarian leaders since time immemorial.
Civil liberties never seem important until you need them. But by definition, that is the very time you won't be able to get them, so they have to be in place in advance, like an insurance policy. In his book Defying Hitler, the historian Sebastian Hafner describes how Germany slid into nazism. At first people laughed at Hitler and played along with what seemed trivial changes in the law. For most Germans it was all rather abstract, and they were expecting things to return to normal when Hitler faded back into obscurity. Only he didn't, and civil liberties were so compromised there was no way to stop him.
If we don't stand up about Iraq then we tacitly sanction the next steps in this deadly experiment of democratic evangelism. Those will likely include an attack on Iran, a permanent force of occupation in Iraq (probably always the intention), the complete militarisation of the Middle East, and a revived nuclear future.
Stop the War Coalition planned a march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square on Monday - the day parliament resumes - to draw attention to the fact that a lot of us are still thinking about Iraq and to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops. Using an archaic law (the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act), that demonstration has now been banned. Now why would that be? Stop the War Coalition has organised dozens of such demonstrations, and as far as I know not one person has been hurt. So it can't be public safety that's at stake.
No, it's the elephant in the room. This government wants to show itself as clean and new, and doesn't want attention drawn to the elephant and the mess it has left on the carpet. So it invokes an old law, to shave a little more off the arrangements by which citizens communicate their feelings to government (a process, by the way, called democracy).
It would take courage for Gordon Brown to say: "This war was a catastrophe." It would take even greater courage to admit that the seeds of the catastrophe were in its conception: it wasn't a good idea badly done (the neocons' last refuge - "Blame it all on Rumsfeld"), but a bad idea badly done. And it would take perhaps superhuman courage to say: "And now we should withdraw and pay reparations to this poor country."
I don't see it happening. But the demonstration will, legal or not: on Monday Tony Benn will lead us as we exercise our right to remind our representatives that, even if Iraq has slipped off their agenda, it's still on ours. Please join us.
Brian Eno is a musician. See Stopwar.org.uk for more information about the protest.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllWhoa! Not only is Eno a great musician, he is also an intelligent and articulate writer. Bravo!
Now if only Joe American had the guts and courage (which they sorely lack, preferring to hide behind guns and technology) of the Brits, the world might stop it's downward slide into the new world order.
good for them.......tony benn is a great man.......he has always been ready to criticize and speak out on 'hairbrain' ideas like this and the decision for the u.k. to join the common market (as it was known many years ago.) good luck all of you, i hope something positive comes out of it.
Good luck! Thank you for your courage.
The whole world is needed to stop the maniacs with the nukes. The UK must not march off to war, death and destruction AGAIN in lock-step with the United States of Everything.
Good luck from me too y'all!
Tony Benn is one of my all-time heroes. If only there were more like him - some of 'em here in the USA!
feet on the street. millions of them. week after week. city after city.
that is definitely the cure what ails us.
WTF, WTF..."Now if only Joe American had the guts and courage (which they sorely lack)"
-- Americans have more guts in their posteriors than you have in your whole collective self.
..."(preferring to hide behind guns and technology)"
-- Hide behind guns? If it were up to the likes of you we'd all be disarmed by now. And you gotsta to be kidding. You, WTF, are hiding behind American technology right now. The intarweb is an American invention..and whaddya know? You are bitching about Americans and their technology while you hide behind your puter monitor.
Like I said, WTF?
Eno is a good man, I know people who have worked for him and who speak highly of him as a man of integrity, -shame the same can't be said of Brian Ferry (also ex-Roxy Music) and Ferry's very obnoxious 'toff' son.
As to Tony Benn, yes, another good soul, who has been TRULY committed to progressive left-wing concepts for over fifty years as a Labour MP, and now more than ever before.
++++++++++++++++++++
As to, "Americans have more guts in their posteriors..."
-what a remarkable anatomy! ;)
yes, heh, funny ain't it?
Tut, tut, tut Daniel Shays, there's that old American fury again, bristling with the thought that they have been insulted. I don't think much of the internet because it only serves the new world order hegemony by keeping us separated and not meeting in city squares around the world to voice our common dissent.
As for courage, the Brits have long demonstrated at military bases, but that never happens in the USA. Feel disgusted with Blackwater? Show us how brave you are by demonstrating outside their training camp in South Carolina.
Sorry cousin, I did not mean to ruffle your feathers, but you have to admit, the spirit of dissent is very weak in the USA. Your best leaders of protest are women (and mostly elderly at that). Unions are powerless (the auto union staged their first strike in 30 years, and then it lasted 2 days only after compromising their demands). OK, maybe Americans are courageous, but the only way then to describe your inactivity is maybe laziness. The eagle grows fat and lies down.
WTF, that's okay. Apology accepted. We do have huge demonstrations here..against the Iraq war, against the WTO, and against the Bush boys.
I really do think that many of us are just feeling depressed and defeated about now.
And you can't trust anything they do. they have the elections rigged now with the Diebold machines, etc.
However we can't give up. I never give up. From what I understand Britain is in a worse surveillance state than the US is now. I'm glad to hear you're not giving up.
Keep on truckin'
Daniel
And WTF, the eagle is not lazy and is growing thinner daily. At least this one is.
Could a clean energy powered economy compete with a fossil fuel fired one?
Most Americans are still distracted by the daily pressures of American life. They skim their news and get what others want them to hear. They still aren't getting the seriousness of the mess they're in.
Again, that's most Americans.
Folks like us here at Commondreams are still dismissed as rabid radical lefties.
Sure, lots more Americans are answering the poll questions more to our liking. But they're waiting for the system to right itself when the system has been badly wronged from within.
Only conscription will set all Americans afire. Those busy dismantling our democracy know this well.
There will always be wars as long as there are damn fools who will put on a uniform, wave a flag, and race off to kill and be killed. They are stupid, you don't see any of the leaders or rich people killing and being killed.
My experence is from 51" to 55"
ezeflyer - The answer is yes. A clean green economy could indeed compete with a fossil fuel fired one. In fact that's already beginning to happen in its own small and local way. Friday night on NOW Bill Moyers covered several grid-free houses - they use smallish individual windmills, solar panels on the roofs, geo-thermal energy, and whatever else the local environment supplies. The owners use "green" cars, also bikes and - get this - WALKING when that's feasible. They also sell power to the grid, a refreshing change I'm sure. Moyers said there are already 300,000 grid-free houses in the US and more being built all the time. So that's good.
So - we will need to convert our old rusting factories to make all these windmills and solar panels and green cars -and train people to know how to install them. We will also need builders who know how to build clean green buildings. This will employ a lot of people who are out of work now. This is a whole new economy being born right now, and I think it can compete very well with our present fossil fuel based economy, because people today want it. And as the technology improves, the costs will drop and the systems will become even more efficient than they are now.
BUT - the key to this is to keep it all local as much as possible, and if a grid is needed in the cities, let it be a local cooperative, not a money-making stock-issuing corporation.
US Citizens are dissenting in great numbers. I think the media doesn't report it very well, though, and thus you don't see much of it from the vantage point of the U.K.
Good for the Brits! Tell the governing scum to stuff their 1839 law (boy the politicians really had to digg for that one!)
Hope you guys never get tangled up in our Profit wars again!
If we could just get our numbskulls off the couch and away from the boob tube.... and to crack a history book maybe they'd get the courage to protest.....
But even that might not work, I'm not sure that most neocons know how to read.
sigh
If the US wanted democracy for Iraq, why then did it build permanent "enduring" military bases there? Miserable, lying, hypocritical murderers. That's all of you: Congress, Administration, church, media, and military.
Congress cannot claim innocence by reason of ignorance: We didn't know, faulty intelligence fooled us all. Oh, yah? What the hell are you doing now that you know the truth? Ordering to demolish the bases, bringing the troops back home, or approving another $2,000,000,000.00 to continue your slaughter of innocent Iraqis and the destruction of their homes?
The world judges you by your actions and sees you as the scum of the animal world: blood sucking insects, vermin, worms, lice, and weasels. Are you going to live on this planet with that sort of credential, or will you be moving to another planet called HELL?
as i look out my window this morning, i am in love with my new england fall--colors bursting forth in all thier spendor...i love this country and can't imagine leaving it behind when it is being beaten up, kicked in the head, bleeding out its goodness at the hand of the neocon religious right power/money hungry war machines (republicans and democrats)...no, i will stay and speak up, stepping over ignorant apathetic neighbors as they tune out, hang their flags and disregard the 'freedom' they have to speak out.....americans are known around the world to mimic the three monkeys--see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil...and then there are people like us who think enough of our country to take to the streets--too few in number--write letters, make phone calls, where t-shirts, place bumper stickers, stay out of big box stores, think and act green, engage in civil disobedience...until the greater populatiion joins us, we will forever be at war and watch from sidelines as the middle class disappears...
if you really care, SPEAK UP, ACT OUT, BE HEARD AND CHALLENGE THE FLAG WAVERS (with facts)!!!!!
Mr. Shays evidently subscribes to the position, usually associated with right wing Republicans, that the United States and its citizens are by definition supreme in every admirable trait: our soldiers are the best and bravest, our industry the most productive, our inventors the most innovative, etc. Unfortunately this contention doesn't bear scrutiny. Currently we are far from the most productive nation in the world, thanks largely to the expatriation of factories and jobs to other countries by our loyal American corporations. It's silly to claim that our citizens or soldiers are braver than their English counterparts, considering that country's resistance to Germany and the exploits of their RAF during the blitz, while Americans twiddled their thumbs about entering the war. And finally, it's well known (except perhaps to you) that the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, an English physicist, who donated this phenomenally profitable technology to the world without charge. I'm all for patriotism, but mindless jingoism is repulsive and stupid.
Regarding protests, as a veteran of the sixties, I can attest that today's Americans are a bunch of patsies. The Bush administration has run roughshod over the rule of law and the Bill of Rights without a peep from the public at large. Even Democratic congressmen know they can roll over for Bush and his criminal cabal without fearing anything from their constituents.
Kudos to Brian Eno and the people who march with him. Maybe they'll do more than influence their own government. Maybe they'll remind spineless Americans of what it means to stand up for what's right.
I can only be saddened that the bold marchers that do defy this old revived Law and ban, will not get the public support, that they and all active protesters deserve.
We moan in our blogs and stay at home safe in the knowlege that for now at least the state just can't be bothered knocking on our front door.
Protest can never be a spectator sport.
Don't just sit there, hit the streets!!!
Bravo all activists!!!
I just wish this sentence from the second paragraph were more clearly written so I could understand if the author himself supports (or supported) the officially stated justification. I strongly expect not though.
"The Iraq adventure was justified as the planting of a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. "
- If affairs are proceeding as we're expecting, soon enough the weak spots will show.
All these wars give the military abundant opportunity to listen to "Music for Airports."