Pip Hinman &
Ben Edwards, Sydney
"On March 20, millions of people will protest across the globe against the war in Iraq. It won't stop the war but it may, just may, deter them from pursuing the next part of their project — to attack Iran, or possibly Syria." This was the main message from acclaimed journalist and film-maker John Pilger when he addressed a packed public lecture organised by Students against War at Sydney University on March 10.
Introducing Pilger, Fred Fuentes from Students against War noted the group's relatively recent formation, but linked the current round of student anti-war activity to the Books Not Bombs protests in 2003. He said students opposed the war for many reasons, including the indiscriminate killing of innocent Iraqis and the corporate plunder of Iraq's assets, and that SAW was committed to campaigning to end the occupation. The government's push to introduce "voluntary student unionism" is partly aimed at containing such dissent on campus, Fuentes said.
Students were a majority of the 350-strong meeting and Pilger directed his remarks to them. He acknowledged that university life had changed, and cited the erosion of student organisations, humanities departments and a certain "internalisation of the propaganda" as some of the constraints on student activism. But he said that students nevertheless have a historic role to play in leading anti-war protests.
"Deadly crimes are being committed in our name and politicians such as Bush, Blair and Howard are complicit in these crimes. The Iraq war goes to the core of our own morality. If we don't stand up, who will? Not the 'fourth estate' — they are part of it", Pilger said. He pointed out that people, everywhere, are burdened with worries. "But we can expect students to lead to keep up the opposition to the war."
Pilger took issue with the refrain that protests no longer work, arguing that one protest alone — even like the massive February 2003 demonstrations — was never going to stop the march to war. It had to continue day-by-day and with sustained collective direct action. This is what happened in relation to the campaign to free East Timor, he said.
"We are living in more dangerous days now compared to during the Vietnam War", Pilger said, citing Washington's recent appointment of arch-reactionary John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton, who Pilger has previously interviewed, is known as being keen to start a war with North Korea and has been described as a "treaty killer". He has made it his brief to kill off every UN treaty protecting civil, political and other social rights.
"All around the world, people are stirring in a moral rebellion about what's been imposed on them", Pilger said. "The huge movements of rebellion across Latin America reveal this, and they have forced some extraordinary changes in government."
Asked how he would answer those who were against the war but are unsure about what impact the foreign troops leaving Iraq would have, Pilger replied emphatically that the troops shouldn't have gone there in the first place, and shouldn't be there now.
From Green Left Weekly, March 16, 2005.
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