Louise van der Hoeven
even coaches went down to London from
Justice for Palestine demonstration on September 28th. Five were organised by the mosque, one by UNISON and one, ours, by the Tyneside Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).
The Tyneside PSC coach had been publicised on our weekly stalls in the city centre, and by the Tyneside Stop The War Coalition.
We held a march and rally on the PSC National Day of Action on 1 4th September which had about 300 participants, and several people signed up for coach places on the day.
The final composition of our coach party was very mixed, aged between twelve and sixty, with PSC members and activists from the various left organisations and trade unions. Others had never been on a demonstration before, but felt very strongly about the war and the situation in Palestine.
On the morning of the demo everyone turned up on time, so we left Newcastle Central Station at 6.00am.
When we got down to the Embankment in London we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a huge and boisterous demonstration. The noise was exhilarating, with singing and chanting and whistle blowing.
There was a huge range of banners and placards from different communities and organisations. Lots of individuals were carrying home made banners, from the sophisticated to the handheld.
The people immediately in front of us turned out to be a group of twelve who had come down by train from Berwickupon-Tweed! One of them had only ever visited a city once before in her entire life, but had obviously felt so strongly that the thought of being in a crowd of thousands in the middle of London did not put her off.
The march was moving very slowly, now and then shuffling forward a few paces which was always accompanied by a huge roar from the crowd.
Eventually we tured off the Embankment where we met another stream of protesters coming from the other direction. We were converging into one stream, hence the hold up. Once past this point we were freely moving again.
The atmosphere was exhilarating, with huge cheers often arising in reply to a supportive gesture or hoot from a passing car. Often we had no idea what we were cheering at, but joined in anyway.
As we passed out of Trafalgar Square we found ourselves on two sides of a central barrier - presumably intended to separate us from oncoming traffic because there were two London buses stranded in a sea of protesters.
On one of the buses all the passengers on the top deck were pressed up against the front windows giving us victory signs! I thought to myself then that it was one moment of solidarity that would particularly stay with me.
We soon reached Hyde Park, and we felt quite disappointed that we'd been nowhere near Downing Street. We were getting phone calls from other members of our coach party saying that they were at various points between Hyde Park and Whitehall, so the march must have had more than one route. Although we had aimed to leave for Newcastle at 4.30pm, it was nearly 7.00pm by the time everyone managed to find our coach. Getting out of London took a long time, but the road congestion only reminded us just how big the mobilisation had been.
The demonstration had been a massive display of opposition to US imperialism, the British government's collaboration with it and the murderous agenda of the Zionist war machine. It showed that ordinary people are seeing through the lies and hypocrisy of the capitalist politicians It was brilliant to have been a part of it. Andrew Burgin mous of that document. fraud. the use. concern tion at that time'
НАЧНИТЕ пілл Russian anti-war protestors - outside the cinema occupied by Chechen gunmen The Dossier, Putin and the American plan
leader that while this shoddy propaganda hat such an enor- enough for British consumpcemonsud- tion he would like at least tion took place less one or two facts. Blair than one week after Tony retumed empty handed. Blair had produced his The dossier on Iraq is in itself a Foreign Secretary Jack Straw testament to the flimsiness was sent by Bush to the
Middle East to promote the
The dossier is a complete war. His visit was a complete
Written several failure: none of the countries months ago it is pure propa- there want war, except for ganda, with no new information and just the vaguest generalities to support the thesis lost the plot. Certainly they that Iraq is planning a nuclear overestimate their strike on the west. Even with importance to the war projall the time in the world and ect and their influence on the all the security agencies US. Although Blair and Straw working on it the dossier had and others are spending all nothing of substance. their time working for the
Where it did refer to Iragi American use of chemical weapons in they are completely dispenduring the sable. This makes them all Iran/Iraq war, it neglected to the more pathetic. mention that Iraq was at that time the ally of the US and have failed to notice is that British goverments. The US the game has moved on. not only supplied Iraq with Bush now has Congress the technology to develop approval for the war, and the ГАРАНТИРУЙТЕ ЖИЗН ЗАЛОЖНИКАМ!
out of the deal. might be Both France and Russia, on whom the future UN resolutions depend, have billion dollar contracts with Iraq. Russia is owed a further previous week $7 billion by Iraq and wants that guaranteed. More than this, Lukoil, the main oil company in Russia has a $20 billion contract to drill in the West Qurna oilfield and another Russian oil company, Zarubezhneft, has a $90 The British seem to have billion concession to drill the
Bin Omar oilfield. own When the Americans take over they are unlikely to honour these contracts, especially if Security Council resolutions have been blocked. administration In the latest US plan, Saddam Hussein is now to be replaced by General Tommy Franks. Last year the What Blair and Straw bestselling book on the left
was 'Empire' by the Italian autonomist Toni Negri, who argued that the US does not ... ... The arms inspectors are form the center of an imperialist project. Imperialism is over'.
Well, it is clear that imperialism is far from over. In fact this period is what the Marxist Istan Meszaros calls 'the most dangerous phase of imperialism in all history'.
Driven by the chronic instability and structural crisis of its system the US seeks to impose its political dominion through massive military force. The US now has military bases in over 70 countries around the world. Last year the American military budget was $396 billion and it will increase by 20% this year - while the US remains the most indebted nation on the planet.
but as Phil Hearse explained in the last issue of Resistance, their project is fraught with difficulties. They cannot become the global hegemonic state they strive towards. They cannot simply make their capitalist adversaries 'disappear', any more than they can dispense with the international working class.
The war on terror is where there has been some limited success, as in Afghanistan, they have only succeeded in strengthening the forces of Islamic fundamentalism - look at the gains made by the Islamicists in the Pakistan
The war. on terror will increase terror attacks throughout the world. The terrible attack in Bali is proof of this.
Even though many estab lishment commentators now question the wisdom of concentrating on Iraq instead of dealing with al-Quaeda, Bush and Blair still pursue the attack on Iraq.
The great danger is that this war threatens the existence of humanity itself. Rather than the Iraqi regime threatening the use of weapons of mass destruction, it is the US and their subservient British allies who seek their use.
Both the Pentagon and the British government have explored the possibility of using nuclear weapons in Iraq. As Geoff Hoon, the defence minister, said in Parliament earlier this year, they [the Iraqis] can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.
The conditions outlined by Hoon were if Britsh and American troops were threatened with chemical or biological weapons. The danger for the world is that Bush and Blair may come to believe their own lies - for example Bush stated recently that Saddam Hussein was going to use unmanned aircraft to drop chemical weapons onto US cities. No fantasy is too outlandish.
Although over a year old, the Stop the War Coalition is in its infancy. We have built a mass movement against the war.
The responsibility of socialists is not to fritter this gain away. We must work to build the Coalition into an unstoppable force.