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TechnoratiFive years ago this week most readers of this newspaper were making plans to go on a demonstration. More surprisingly, just as many Daily Telegraph readers were getting ready for the same event. For most of those who marched against the Iraq war on February 15 2003 it was the first time they had ever demonstrated for or against anything in their lives. It was a protest such as Britain had never seen before, all-embracing in its diversity and imposing in its unity of purpose.
While there are always arguments over the size of demonstrations (the 2 million-or-so figure we claim is supported by considerable polling and photographic evidence), there is no dispute that this was not merely the country's biggest political protest, but the biggest by a substantial order of magnitude.
Two things are obvious about the demonstration to "stop the war". First, the millions on the march were right. Not just right on balance, but right on every single aspect of the question. There were no weapons of mass destruction, Iraq did turn into a bloodbath, the invasion did not help resolve the crisis in the Middle East, and it did damage the cohesion of our own society and imperil our civil liberties while not making us one whit safer from terrorism. So the people were smarter than the politicians.
Second the demonstration did not stop the war. Our hope had been that mass protest could drive the British government out of its aggressive alliance with Bush and that the latter, isolated internationally as a result, would come under intensified domestic pressure. We came very close, as Donald Rumsfeld made clear. In the wake of February 15, Washington told Blair he could stand down our army if he wanted to.
The prime minister ignored that offer and the people he represents alike. However, failing is not the same thing as making no difference. February 15 has cast a long shadow over British politics since, and contributed to Blair's departure from office under circumstances - in public odium and with an exasperated party - scarcely of his choosing. What war have we stopped? The next one, perhaps.
The demonstration was the apex of a broader movement which touched almost every part of society in 2003. This included the greatest-ever engagement of British Muslims in active politics, thousands of school student walkouts, peaceful civil disruption in towns across the country, local authorities coming out against the war, and train drivers declining to move munitions for the invasion.
It was a movement entirely outside the established structures which normally mediate the relationship between people and power. It was organised by the Stop the War Coalition (with CND and the Muslim Association of Britain as our partners), a campaign not 18 months old and run on a shoestring.
Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists joined the demonstration, while the TUC - its eyes on its ministerial connections, not its members - maintained a frigid indifference. Labour and Tory party members protested against their leaders, while Liberal Democrats dragged their hierarchy to the demonstration behind them. Marching at the head of the demonstration, I missed what may have been the most telling sight of the day - Piccadilly blocked by people without a single banner among them. This was the march of the unmobilised.
It was also a march against Murdoch and his mendacious press, exploding the myth of his political omnipotence. Rupert said war, the people said no. All Alastair Campbell's strategy of controlling opinion through appeasing the Sun in vain!
The demonstration, and the movement around it, exploded the notion that society is slumped in a consumer-sodden apathy, and incapable of political engagement. The country's biggest mass movement followed a general election with the lowest turnout in modern times, and preceded one in which participation was scarcely improved. The problem is the system, not the people.
So perhaps the biggest lesson of February 15 is that it embodied the failure of representative democracy. It highlighted a gap between the electorate and the elected, a gap several hundred thousand lives have slipped down as a result.
The anti-war movement has lived under the shadow of that immense mobilisation too. But it was followed the next month by the biggest demonstration against a war British troops were actually fighting, by the biggest-ever weekday march (against the Bush visit to London later in 2003), by an unprecedented movement of military families against the war, and by a dozen further marches - including one which will mark the fifth anniversary of the war itself, on March 15. Opposition to empire has been put at the heart of politics as never before.
Emily Churchill, a Birmingham school student at the time, described the experience as "trying to steer the course of our country with our own hands". Of course in 2003 other, American, hands were on the wheel. But the lesson of February 15 is that we can and we will.
Andrew Murray has been chair of the Stop the War Coalition since 2001; office@stopwar.org.uk
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
22 Comments so far
Show All" The IRAQIS have fought the United States to a standstill and made it impossible for any more imperial adventures."
Pfft. You wish. I wish. It is not impossible. The US is really good at war. At least the invading/combat part. We can invade using a smaller force then any other nation. Occupation - not so good. Even if the military rebels against invading yet another country, it still supported the invasion of Somalia. It was a masterful stroke too - by having Somalia's enemy ally with the UN government (because they were 'saving' the UN government, a deal they couldn't refuse) that government is probably throughly discredited in Somalia. This is a good thing to Bushies who hate the UN. Ethiopia's leader said before the invasion that he wanted to keep Somalia in chaos forever.
I would not be surprised to see President McCain continue invasion by proxy. al Qaida and the neocons need one another. al Qaida thrives on chaos and neocons thrive on fear that al Qaida's existence provides.
That we're at a "standstill" is not a testament so much to the awesome fighting skills of Iraqis as much as the stupidity of the leaders who tasked the US military with an impossible job and withheld the resources to carry it out. (Or the brilliance, depending on how you view conspiracy theories). The worst enemy the US has is itself.
I would bet money on there will be no changes made in fact it will escalate. Plus, who is to say Obama will win? The only person running who came right out for change got attacked by the media. That was Ron Paul. The media in the US has tailored the person for the public they want to be so called leader of the USA. That so called leader will do as they are told. Peace isn't a very profitable business. Again to think this all started with 2 office buildings
Any ideas why my comment is awaiting moderation?
Going by all that one has been seeing in the MSM , it seems millions of Obama's supporters passionately believe that he will not only end the Iraq war , but will do everything possible to stop the US ever being embroiled in any future wars.
Here in the US, the anti-war movement is made irrelevant because they have no political representation in Congress. Democrats have fallen all over themselves for the past 8 years to support the war agenda of the Bush administration.
There is NO anti-war party in congress.
So what now? You have lost your democracy ( Diebold) ,trillions $$$ in the hole, no jobs, no clean air, water, and can't walk down the street without 50 pictures being taken of you picking your nose. I guess who ever knocked over those buildings had the USA people pegged. Followers riding the coat tales of a few. Remove that illusion of a nation that can't be touched ( be it an outside or inside job, I don't care which) and you all fall into place. Chearing from the side lines but never getting on the field to make change. All I see in this web site and almost everyone is talk talk talk.
To actually think that "we" stopped the invasion of Iran is so ridiculous it boggles the mind. The IRAQIS have fought the United States to a standstill and made it impossible for any more imperial adventures.
ChrisHorton:"We can count on our imperial government - whether Bush's, McCain's, Clinton's or Obama's - to eventually (or sooner) do something so outrageous that an angry and alienated public will turn out again for mass rallies."
Quite so. This is a scenario that will continue to be repeated time after time . The awesome power of the State ( that exists solely to serve its vested interests ) will keep bearing down. Cavalierly brushing off all protest ( however massive it be) - like the proverbial elephant swatting those pesky gnats.
Until the next time around ..when the newly minted Messiah emerges to mesmerize the multitudes ..promising them the earth - and the skies ,to boot.
Then they always have the trump cards and that is Diebold and a controlled swift boat media even if a party leader wants change it won't happen. The USA is finished and will be at war in some part of the world like it has since WW2. Oil, water or racism and mostly profits are the main reasons. Well the last time there was a huge change in this country it wasn't peaceful at all.
PS: 2008 is heading toward a record in world sales of military weapons, sorry just a fact.
Chris Horton,
i might quibble with some of your interpretations of "what went wrong" with particular efforts since the 1970s - (for one, it is important to include the repressive violence and other tools used by the state when analyzing why particular efforts "fail" to end war, fascism, empire etc, otherwise we make it seem like each effort only failed because of its own mistakes, as if it were "easy" to stop the abuses of concentrated power in human societies) - but i agree with your general outline of the need to think far beyond imagining ourselves as a "movement" that only organizes reactive mass rallies.
i know i keep repeating myself, but many of the posts on Common Dreams are calls to elect the right leader or party. When other efforts are mentioned, rarely is there any sustained discussion of efforts other than "protest".
If we are going to unbuild the massive war machine or prevent its continued use - (let alone address related problems of population, agriculture, resource use, ecological destabilization, climate change, persistent toxic and radioactive waste etc) - we need to be a movement that makes ongoing creative efforts beyond electoral and protest politics.
It is very difficult to do so unless we are talking with each other, in our homes and workplaces and bars and internet forums, about what kinds of efforts are possible.
i think one useful way to begin such conversations, is to invite your neighbors over for an evening discussion about neighborhood disaster preparation. Everyone has seen on live television that when disasters strike cities, there is likely to be no one coming to help. Starting to think and talk together about how neighborhoods and communities can prepare to take care of themselves, is a good way to build relationships and open important topics.
Watching the video recommended by Papercut, about the power of nonviolent movements for social change, is another excellent way to begin thinking and talking about plans we might make and steps we might take together.
How can you sit down with friends and neighbors and begin talking seriously about how we the people can work together to impede and dismantle the war machine, and replace it with systems that take care of people and the Earth?
Think of ways to get people together, talking.
And a la Chris Horton's plea, if you are already an organizer, think about what creative steps might follow on the next spark of popular anger at our political "leaders", and prepare to try something different than a series of mass rallies. Something that might spark the popular imagination that there are actual alternatives to the depressing hegemony of the status quo, that we might actually have a chance to stop war.
I marched agsinst the Iraq War in Canada...and it worked!!!
I hope the "next" war is the one where the citizens of the USA finally stand up to their criminal government. A new revolution is long overdue.
Look who is running for Prez and their voting/support of GB policy. There will be no change no matter who you vote for. To think this whole total control of America started with 2 office buildings falling over. Cities were not levelled, millions were not killed, no nukes were used just careful planning and a population so very much controlled by the media. In a way I am so surprised the US of A public let them get away with it. As they say ball is in your court now.
As said above, Cheney is not behind bars. The problem is not that Cheney is a criminal, there are lots of criminals, it is that he is above the law. The people allow this and often approve. The people fail to see that the shallowness of their perception will leave them mired in circumstances down the road. Shallowness of mind is the way of the US, its people and its rulers. Religiosity produces a shallowness of the mind. U S A
The next war may be delayed but not stopped yet. It would be stopped the day the entire machinery of war industry is broken down and smashed into smithereens and annihilated along with warmongers. The savage dogs of war, Cheney and his likes, are not behind bars yet.
PAPERCUT - Thanks for the reminder about "A Force More Powerful". I will find the DVD. I saw it on PBS a few years ago, and was blown away.
By definition we cannot stop the "next" war. If there is a "next" war, then we wouldn't have stopped it. If we stopped it, there would be no further wars.
You all have to stop, or, I should say, you all should stop speaking in terms of "the next war" because there is only this war and it will decide which system regulates the societies of the world. The corporate governments understand where they are at and that is why they cast away all pretensions of equality and law. This is now the time of "do or die" and the capitalists have not got one single chance of succeeding in the long term. They have no real power. All they have, and all they've ever had, was intimidation bolstered by arms. That perspective has always been regional and not enforceable on a global scale by the imperialist society whose foundations are, and always have been, the most evil and worthless members of society.
ChrisHorton: I agree with your analyis, although I was just a wee tot during the times you talk about. I think that what failed in all the attmepts you mention is they were built on separation and identity-based politics. I think the way forward is for people to seek connection with other people from other cultural and even ideological groups...... for example, I, a secular, spiritual-but-not-religious, politically left-wing type of guy, have been developing friendships and alliances with young open-minded evangelical Christians. We all want to do good in the world, it turns out we agree on more issues than we disagree on, and yet culturally we have been isolated from one another. Because we still maintain some distinction in our social identity, there is less danger that work we do together will have the unfortunate by-product of producing an exclusionary cultural island that turns other sorts of people away. We are just humans connecting and wanting good for the world.
I think that sort of thing is the new dynamic that you seek.
re. papercut 1:23 pm: Will get vid.
We can count on our imperial government - whether Bush's, McCain's, Clinton's or Obama's - to eventually (or sooner) do something so outrageous that an angry and alienated public will turn out again for mass rallies. We need to be thinking hard and seriously about what the follow-on will be when that once again fails to get quick results. We have seen that the millions are too cynical and despairing about their elected representitives to just go on from mass rally to mass rally. The next time, we have to be prepared to keep them involved by leading them in upping the ante. We need to be thinking and talking about what that might look like.
Those of us who remember the 70's have seen many failed offshoots of the great movement that ended the Vietnam War. The Weathermen sought to inspire the people but helped disable the movement by provoking repression and fostering the idea that an elete would make a revolution for the people. Timothy Leary - the pied piper - led hundreds of thousands of young people off into the world of drugs, inner exploration, alternative community building and back-to-nature, which led nowhere, did nothing to help prevent the Reagan disaster. Half a dozen attempts to build an elite revolutionary cadre proved dead ends, cutting their adherants off from mainstream America in insestuous little worlds of quibbling over theory and building strange vocabularies. Black Power lost its way for lack of a larger and inclusive vision and lack of internal defense against corruption. The mainstream anti-war movement slogged on doggedly, struggling against intervention in Latin America and the buildup of the arms race. Early in the Reagan era it sparked one huge outpouring of anti-war activism, with a rally of a million (!) in New York's Central Park against the re-ignition of the nuclear arms race, but failing again to turn it into an ongoing movement that could challenge the power of the imperialists.
We need a new dynamic to emerge from the next cycle, one that empowers the millions to move forward another step. What will that be? What might work?
No you didn't. Mearsheimer & Walt and the foreign policy Realists did. Murray is free to fantasize that the StWC's 4 marches in 6 years stopped an invasion; it is the ferocious resistance of the Iraqi people and the actions of a few courageous dissenters that actually put a spanner in the war party's best laid plans. The "Stop! The War Movement", like its US counterpart, was quite content with giving the Israel lobby and its neocon vanguard a free pass. Now even members of the lobby are conceding that the NIE was a consequence of Mearsheimer and Walt's intervention.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/953302.html
I also recall a disgraceful incident, where the Iraqi dissident Haifa Zangana was cut short during a StWC rally by the organizers so they could read out a 'written statement' from the trade union leaders who 'couldn't make it', because they were too busy kissing Tony Blair's arse at the Labour Party conference where, incidentally, he was promising to further diminish their powers.
papercut is right. the electoral process is like the steering wheel on a child's car seat..not connected to the machinery. It seems a little early for congratulations on averting the next war, several are simmering away right now. if a democrat wins in the u.s., he or she will likely inherit a much wider war in the mid-east after israel has nuked iran.
it is important to avoid false promises when recruiting for non-violent action in the peace and justice movement, people need to understand that the need is long term and that participation will not result in instant gratification.
take credit where it is due, but resolve to continue the work!
there is a video "A FORCE MORE POWERFUL" easily found at libraries and online. it tell how nonviolent civil disobedience has changed the modern world. it gives detailed instructions on how to get your country back. it shows real examples of people taking back their country. if you study and practice with others, you could start taking back the us by April or May.
complaining on commondreams is worse than nothing because it gives you the false impression you are changing things. GET THAT VID.
YOUR VOTE HAS NOT COUNTED IN 8+ YEARS WHY DO YOU THINK IT WILL COUNT THIS YEAR! obama hillery mccain are not going to change the system but you can. get that vid.
get that vid.