01.11.2001

Middlesbrough

Class solutions

Anti-war activists from across the North-East met in Middlesbrough last Monday to hear Labour MP Alan Simpson. He is one of the few parliamentary voices thus far to break from the three-line whip imposed by Tony Blair and Hiliary Armstrong on internal dissenters. He shared a broadly constituted Teesside Against the War platform alongside speakers from the Socialist Alliance, the CPGB and the Green Party. With over 200 in attendance substantially more so than initially predicted,  the event was without doubt a success,

The proceedings began with a number of brief introductions from local anti-war campaigners. Pete Smith, an ex-university lecturer and a founding member of Teesside Against the War, condemned Washington as ?The new Rome?, and declared that a ?non-exploitative relationship between the so-called first and third worlds? was necessary in order to prevent further conflicts. However, he only offered international diplomacy as a solution. Bill Wennington of the Green Party warned of the dangers of attacks on nuclear power facilities, such as that in Sellafield, which, he said, would release 44 times the radioactivity as was discharged from Chernobyl.

The final local speaker was Mehdi Husseini, a prominent figure in the local muslim community. He pointed to the high muslim turnout at the meeting. Husseini rejected the hypocrisy of the British state?s chauvinism, and asserted that his national identity as a UK citizen should not therefore cancel out his democratic right to question government policy.

Despite being labeled a pernicious dissenter and troublemaker by chief whip Armstrong, Alan Simpson stated that he did not feel he had ?broken the rules in order to support peace?. According to Simpson, this is our opportunity to ?define a new and different internationalism?, working to forge a world ?driven by an urge to create equality, not war?. He condemned the ?futile, immoral, destructive and nonsensical? imperialist war drive, and stated ?if there is a peace to be built, it will be built by ordinary people?.

Despite socialistic rhetoric, however, Simpson offered no independent working class solution. Instead, he advocated ?debate between world leaders? and ?diplomacy? through a newly constituted ?international court of justice?. Such a court, of course, would undoubtedly be headed and controlled by the international bourgeoisie.

Comrade Mark Fischer, from the CPGB, however, principally emphasized the irrationality of the current conflict. He spoke in no uncertain terms that the ?key task? of the anti-war movement was to challenge not only the immoral violence, but also the reactionary ideas of Taliban fundamentalism on the one hand and on the other the global system of capital. We must reject all suggestions that there can be no internal solutions in Afghanistan. ?It is up to the ordinary people of Afghanistan to create democracy and overthrow the hated Taliban?, he said. He continued by asserting that western military action would only create a ?world safe for hypocrisy?, and denounced the attacks on civil liberties and democratic rights which have manifested from the so-called ?anti-terrorism? legislation recently drafted by Bush in the US and Blunkett in the UK.

The debate that followed largely consisted of routine condemnations of violence, and reiterating comments initially made on the platform. In reality, there was little political debate. Alan Feasby of the Socialist Alliance, however, made the point that many in the room were not opposed to all wars ? as socialists, the instigation of class war is in fact a principal aim.           

In his summing up, Mark Fischer stressed that to end this war we would have to follow a ?political process?, and that the anti-war movement ?must therefore evaluate the political forces involved?. In the light of Monday?s success, then, we hope that future meetings will be even bigger.

James Bull