Why we should continue to march

BY
PIP HINMAN

As the US-led war on Iraq began in earnest on March 20, the mass
outpouring of anger across the world surprised even some seasoned campaigners.
In Australia, around 90,000 people took their protest to the streets in
all the major cities and many regional towns on just a couple of hours'
notice. Some downed tools and walked out of workplaces.

This response answered a question that has been deliberately amplified
by the pro-war media in the last week — is there still a point to these
protests now that the war is definitely on? Isn't it too late to force
the US, UK and Australian governments to stop this unjust war? And are
they going to listen? After all, the anti-war movement, for the first time
ever, has mobilised millions before the war was officially begun and yet
our political rulers seemed to take no notice.

We could dismiss this as part of the “psy-war" that is in full gear
(just watch the sick war-game-style TV news coverage) — which it is. But
it is a psy-war that touches on real questions some anti-war activists
are asking. What can protests do, now that the biggest military power in
the world has vowed it won't stop until the Iraqi regime (not to mention
thousands of innocent civilians) is crushed?

First, is it really true that US President George Bush and Australian
Prime Minister John Howard aren't listening? No. They are watching the
global protests nervously. But, as yet, the political pressure is not at
the level at which these war makers are forced to back down.

Secondly, protests have to continue because they are the best and most
democratic way the majority of the world's peoples have of registering
our opposition to this immoral and illegal war. And even if they fail to
stop this war, or at least cut it short, we will help delegitimise it and
make future wars of aggression — which the US rulers have planned — harder
to pursue. We owe it to the future of the world to keep on marching.

We need a sustained campaign. One half-million-strong march is not enough.
We need a sustained campaign of mass protests, which are complemented by
strikes, walk-outs and peaceful civil disobedience actions.

“The US, UK and Australian governments have thrown out the rule book,
so why shouldn't we?", was a common sentiment on the street during the
Sydney emergency protest on March 20. People are beginning to challenge
the constraints of the “normal channels" of political action.

High school students have taken a lead in this country with their powerful
anti-war statement on March 5, with another strike planned for March 26.
The best of the trade union leaderships — particularly in Western Australia
and Victoria — are also urging their members to get more involved in building
the anti-war protests. But they are an exception. It's actually more the
case of the leaderships struggling to catch up with mass sentiment and
initiative — including that of their members.

Having committed Australian troops to the war without any real parliamentary
debate, and in defiance of the will of the majority of the people, we must
demand that John Howard's government face the people in fresh elections.
This could bring forward the threat of an immediate electoral price for
the war and would set in train new alliances that could inflict further
political costs on Howard and the reactionary forces he represents.

The Socialist Alliance has initiated such a call, and is seeking to
work with the Greens, ALP and Democrats to build public support for the
opposition parties in the Senate to block the supply bills for the next
federal budget as a way of forcing Howard to call a new national election.

Predictably, Labor leader Simon Crean has rejected any such move, arguing
that “to do so would deny support to our forces overseas ... [and] make
their position untenable and extremely dangerous".

At the same time, Crean argues that the government should be pressured
to bring the troops home immediately. Wouldn't denying the government the
funds to “support our forces overseas”, i.e., in invading Iraq, force the
government to bring them home straight away?

They can fool some of the people some of the time, but they are not
fooling us now. We see the chorus of international condemnation. We see
the resignations of British Labour ministers and even a US ambassador in
protest against the war. We see Bush and Blair isolated in the UN. We see
the despair of the aid workers. We hear the cries of the children of Iraq.

And most importantly, we see our potential power in the streets. Let's
use this growing power of our collective action to put the maximum pressure
on the government to either change its policy on the war or to bring about
a change of government.

[Pip Hinman is a member of the Socialist Alliance and an activist in
Sydney's Walk Against the War coalition.]

From Green Left Weekly, March 26, 2003.

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From GLW issue 531