Stop the War? Pull the other one..

[Sorry.]

I think that you could rebuild part of the movement around, say the third anniversary of the war next march, but you would have to go for a more regional approach, starting building local actions now, and allowing people to get on with it. The likeliehood is however that they will just opt for more of the same, another London demo.

But I do think you can take the 'blame the StWC and the nefarious forces therein' critique a little far. I don't think there was anything stopping other forces developing an alternate critique and acting effectively on it, so it's worth asking why they didn't.

Or is it realistically too much to ask; with the resources being sucked into the big coalition, it's function as a publicity center drawing in people and the tendency of people to look toward it? Maybe it wasn't feasible to build another structure alongside that would have to veer toward outright opposition to the main coalition. But then that's kind of what happened with the poll tax campaign ...

 

[grogwilton]

i dont know what stw you guys have been involved with, but it was completely different to my experience.

every time at uni and before, stwc encouraged local events in the run up to the big london demos. thats why for example we had a local demo in Reading of 400 people a week after feb15. in exeter we had a demo of a 1000 in exeter at the time of the bush visit. stwc also encouraged people to demonstrate and walk out of work on the day the war began.

the reason stw distanced itself from the school strikes, was because a lot of anti war people i knew disagreed with that policy, thinking it was irresponsible to encourage kids to leave school. in practice most stw activists encouraged it on the quiet, and putting the supposed discouragement down to swp control in stw is nuts, the 2 school strikes i went on, as a school kid, had loads of swp on them, and the one my mate at henley college was on was organised by the swp, (organised by him), and that was blocking a bridge over the thames, direct action enough for ya?

the reason stw has declined is because a combination of people feeling its pointless to protest when theyve been ignored, people agreeing with anti war but not anti occupation, and less media coverage cos its not as big news as it was in the run up to the war.

 

[Squatticus]

It certainly pissed me off (particularly conflating Palestinian with Iraqi issues) but the reason most people aren't marching is because they don't want our soldiers out of Iraq now they are there, it's that simple.

Er...

"Only 12 per cent of the 1,009 people questioned by an ICM poll published in the Guardian newspaper said the British troops' presence in Iraq was helping improve the situation and 51 per cent said Prime Minister Tony Blair's government should set a date for the withdrawal of the soldiers from Basra."

(According to various newspapers I read today)

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The StWC leadership was tepid at best on the issue of school student strikes right from the off. The idea was raised inside the Coalition and there was no interest. When it became apparent that they were going to happen anyway, and had been organised outside of their control, they stepped in to arbitrarily change the date. This caused serious problems for those who were actually out trying to organise the strikes - and in fact some couldn't be rearranged and happened on the original date anyway.

That's not to say that some SWP members didn't take part in and even organised strikes in a few schools. They did, but their contribution as an organisation was belated and minor. It was also a serious mistake to "distance" the coalition from what were the most effective actions of the StW movement so far.

 

[james_walsh]

The StWC leadership was tepid at best on the issue of school student strikes right from the off. The idea was raised inside the Coalition and there was no interest. When it became apparent that they were going to happen anyway, and had been organised outside of their control, they stepped in to arbitrarily change the date. This caused serious problems for those who were actually out trying to organise the strikes - and in fact some couldn't be rearranged and happened on the original date anyway.

That's not to say that some SWP members didn't take part in and even organised strikes in a few schools. They did, but their contribution as an organisation was belated and minor. It was also a serious mistake to "distance" the coalition from what were the most effective actions of the StW movement so far.

I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes-not as act policy i expect , i think they where in birhingham, it would explain how they got leaflets out etc. As my old man says, a spontaneous riot, takes a lot of organising.

 

[mk12]

Do the CPB have any members in school?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes

Nope and in fact the CPB were more concerned to distance the StWC from the whole issue than the SWP were. Apart from anything else the CPB age profile wouldn't be very conducive to organising anything involving schools!

The idea was raised by young Socialist Party and ISR members, who distributed 50,000 leaflets calling for school student walkouts and explaining how to organise them on the previous national anti-war demonstration. They then set about doing a great deal of on the ground organising, leafletting schools and colleges and preparing for walkouts in their own schools, but it has to be said that other groups and people not in any group also took up the call.

The vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations.

 

[JHE]

Er...

"Only 12 per cent of the 1,009 people questioned by an ICM poll published in the Guardian newspaper said the British troops' presence in Iraq was helping improve the situation and 51 per cent said Prime Minister Tony Blair's government should set a date for the withdrawal of the soldiers from Basra."

(According to various newspapers I read today)

Yup, that was the ICM poll.

According to the same poll, support for the occupation is at 41% and only 12% believe that British troops are helping to improve the security situation.

According to a recent YouGov poll the proportion who favour withdrawal is higher than the 51% indicated by the ICM poll. YouGov says 57% favour withdrawal.

ChangingMan has a point. There are things about StWC that probably put off some people who want an end to the occupation. But I don't think those things explain why many fewer people joined the march than the StWC had hoped and later (dishonestly) claimed.

Anyone who watches the news knows that Iraq is a bloody mess. According to ICM, 64% believe the situation is getting worse. Most people are unconvinced that the occupation is doing any good or is going to do any good. A majority - 51% or 57%, take your pick - oppose the occupation. However, with a few obvious exceptions, people are not up in arms about it figuratively, let alone literally.

I think most people are just waiting for the govt to see sense and pull the troops out - and don't expect demonstrations to make any difference. Next spring seems to be the time for pull-out now being leaked.

The enormous demonstration in 2003 was at a time when it seemed that there might be a chance (albeit a small chance) of averting invasion. It should not surprise anyone that there has not been another march of that size.

 

[flimsier]

I heard that the CPB where behind the orginal school strikes-not as act policy i expect , i think they where in birhingham, it would explain how they got leaflets out etc. As my old man says, a spontaneous riot, takes a lot of organising.

Errm, you are correct, according to at least two people I know. The SP and Workers Power tried to take credit.

The worst bit was when an SP member tried to take credit for some action at my school - organised and led by a student utterly independent of them. They've no members in the school, and had never gone near any of the students. It was all down to an (agitating) SWP member who has since left, but couldn't reveal her role.

Dishonest at best.

 

[flimsier]

Nigel, I wrote that before seeing your latest post. I might delete it because it doesn't help. Dennisr has denied that this SP member exists, despite him selling your paper and proposing your candidate for NUT GS.


Anyway, why are you bothering with this shit?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

Anyway, why are you bothering with this shit?

What are you talking about? What "shit"?

The idea was raised by young Socialist Party and ISR members, who distributed 50,000 leaflets calling for school student walkouts and explaining how to organise them on the previous national anti-war demonstration. They then set about doing a great deal of on the ground organising, leafletting schools and colleges and preparing for walkouts in their own schools, but it has to be said that other groups and people not in any group also took up the call.

The vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations

That's an entirely accurate account of how the idea for the school student strikes was raised and where things went from there. Which bit do you think is "shit"?

 

[flimsier]

The 'shit' bit is to do with the thread.

Carry on though.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The 'shit' bit is to do with the thread.

Now I don't even know what you are talking about.

 

[flimsier]

Right, I was saying 'why are you getting involved with this shit'?

I meant 'why did you get involved in this shitty thread'?

ok?

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I meant 'why did you get involved in this shitty thread'?

I was responding to some arsehole who was whining on about people raising issues like nuclear arms or Palestine at an anti-war demonstration.

Then the thread turned into a more serious one about what exactly has gone wrong for the anti-war movement in Britain. That's quite a serious issue and one which deserves a bit of thought. Looking back over the thread, I think that people are concentrating a little too much on the errors made by the StWC leadership - which were many - and not enough on the objective situation.

The school student strikes came up as an example of the kind of wide participation and militancy that were features of the anti-war movement a couple of years ago. For me that's just as graphic an illustration of the scale of the current decline as the fall in the numbers on the marches.

 

[X-77]

I marched last Saturday principally for the same reason, but when i got to Hyde Park I realised I was totally alone. So I turned and buggered off

were you the one person who actually carried a union jack with '95 RIP' on it? Bet it was you, wasn't it...

 

[X-77]

Yeah, me and 985,000 others.

yeah right - if there's so many of you tossers who don't give a fuck about war/Palestine etc and only care about 'islamic extremism' (*YAWN* - change the record ) then why was the Feb 15 2003 demo a sea of peace placards, Palestine flags, and every other type of banner associated with the left. Strange enough, don't remember a single 'controversial' banner banging on about Islamic extremism.

Anyway, keep dreaming that most of those people thought the same as you. Whatever keeps you happy

Whoever said the media was a big factor was exactly right - there was a load of hype surrounding that demo whereas no subsequent demos have had that same focus. In the US, the massive Washington DC march on Saturday was the culmination of a lot of coverage of Cindy Sheehan etc. It's not a matter of people being as callous as you, more likely most people aren't aware of demos until the media decide to mention it, very conveniently, on the day.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

School student walkout background for anyone who is interested:

SP and ISR members raised the idea inside and outside the Stop the War Coalition, as it was an idea that their sister organisations around the world were pushing for (and something many of them had previously had a lot of success with, for instance during the previous Gulf War). The StWC leadership weren't very interested.

ISR started producing material about it anyway and began distributing it. 50,000 leaflets about walkouts were distributed on a national anti-war demo alone and many more were distributed at schools and colleges. From there things took on a life of their own, with all kinds of groups and individuals joining in. As I said above, the vast bulk of those who walked out did so independently of any organisation - they heard about the idea and organised things in their own schools. If these things are to work on any kind of scale they have to take on a life of their own, well beyond the capacities of any of the originating organisations

The StWC leadership, for reasons of their own, had stepped in before the strikes and rearranged the date which led to some difficulties on the ground. Most of the strikes were rearranged but some were not and took place on the original date.

Meanwhile over the same few weeks a whole load of school student strikes happened in other countries - Northern Ireland had huge ones in proportion to the population there, Sweden, Germany and Australia also had very large walkouts. These were all countries where sister organisations of the SP and ISR had been heavily involved in pushing the idea. Spain also saw very large school student walkouts, which were initially called by a different left wing current. The SSP took the lead in Scotland. I can't remember what other countries were involved.

A second wave of school student strikes were then called for Day X.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

I thought cockers had said that workers power had led strikes in schools against the war, in fact I think he claimed it as the only industrial action taken against the war.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

I thought cockers had said that workers power had led strikes in schools against the war, in fact I think he claimed it as the only industrial action taken against the war.

Not quite, I think you are mixing up two different claims he made.

If I recall correctly he claimed that Revo and Workers Power had organised some of the school student walkouts and also that they had organised some actual industrial action somewhere. I don't know if either claim is true or not, but I do vaguely remember Revo/WP being one of the groups that took up the call for school student walkouts.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Not quite, I think you are mixing up two different claims he made.

If I recall correctly he claimed that Revo and Workers Power had organised some of the school student walkouts and also that they had organised some actual industrial action somewhere. I don't know if either claim is true or not, but I do vaguely remember Revo/WP being one of the groups that took up the call for school student walkouts.

Yes, he claimed that teachers who were members of workers power had led strike action aginst the war at two schools in London.

 

[changingman]

he doesn't actually do that - he says he realises this thread should be in P and P - "I guess this post should belong under "protest/direct action"," - but he doesn't exclude that arena from his assertion that "I can't find any posts about last Saturday's Stop the War demo"

so

It wasn't an assertion.. it's just that I simply couldn't find them (well I found the "let's go drinking" one but that wasn't what i was looking for). Thanks for putting me straight Wolfie.

 

[changingman]

I would have gone, but I felt it had got hijacked by lots of people who had lots of agendas many of which weren't mine. So I didn't go. '

Exactly. QED. And the rest of your comments are spot on too. Thanks Badge..

 

[changingman]

seeing as changingman seems to have started this thread and then buggered of, and it seems to be attracting the "usual suspects" I can't see any merit in it remaining in "General" - off to P&P it goes ....

Apols for buggering off.. all I did was go home (to claim my place on the settee to watch a whining man on telly who can't sing or play harmonica. See other thread in the Music bit. And I'll be doing the same tonight.) After spending most of the day in an office chained to a computer, the last thing i want to do is go home and do the same there..

 

[changingman]

You see that only makes sense if you think that the other couple of million people who have been to anti-war marches weren't on the last one because they don't like other people raising issues which are linked to the war. Are you seriously suggesting that?

Yes. See Badger Kitten's eloquent response. And she of all people would have had more reason to go than the rest of us, being an (almost) direct victim of the threat I was talking about.

 

[changingman]

I was responding to some arsehole who was whining on about people raising issues like nuclear arms or Palestine at an anti-war demonstration.

Nice!! Moderator?? Is this guy one of the "usual suspects" you were talking about? Certainly lives up to his name. But as a grumpy old man I applaud that. Should be more of it.

were you the one person who actually carried a union jack with '95 RIP' on it? Bet it was you, wasn't it...

No I wasn't. I abhor nationalism of all stripes (English, Irish; Israeli, Palestinian) so wouldn't be seen dead with a Union Jack. I'm a bit thick so I don't get the ref, to '95 RIP'. Can u pls enlighten me?

 

[Pickman's model]

nostalgia for a year now gone?

 

[Pickman's model]

anyway, if killing 52 people is the best (or worst) the mussulman terrorists can do in london, i doubt we should be quaking in our beds or on our tubes.

 

[changingman]

anyway, if killing 52 people is the best (or worst) the mussulman terrorists can do in london, i doubt we should be quaking in our beds or on our tubes.

They didn't just kill 52. They blew the arms, legs, faces, eyes, who knows what else off more than another 700. The forgotten. And they're not going to stop there..

 

[Pickman's model]

They didn't just kill 52. They blew the arms, legs, faces, eyes, who knows what else off more than another 700. The forgotten. And they're not going to stop there..

yeh. but it's small beer compared to what we have been repeatedly told would happen. frankly after 3,000 dead in sept 2001 52 dead and 700 injured doesn't indicate to me a clear and present danger of the onslaught tony blair would have us believe.

if you put even a minute's thought into what you could do with two 10lb bombs and a tube train, the death toll could have been far nearer the 700 mark, with perhaps 52 injured.

we're not facing people who could destroy an entire russian convoy in the salang tunnel before breakfast, but a bunch of fucking amateurish wankers, which though no comfort for the relatives of the dead, and the wounded, is quite a comforting thought for the rest of us.