14.11.2002
One million say no war on Iraq
While Bush and Blair were still crowing over the unanimous decision of the United Nations security council that paves the way for an attack on Iraq, they were answered on the streets of Florence. Saturday November 9 saw up to a million people - many of them gathered in the city for the first European Social Forum - demonstrate their opposition to the warmongering of the US and its allies. Italy has perhaps the most militant and most politically advanced working class movement in Europe. Despite all its many problems - a thoroughly reactionary rightwing government, a divided trade union movement, a tendency to bow to movementism, the lack of a single authoritative working class party - Italy has many lessons to teach the rest of the continent. Precisely because of the size and social content of the November 9 demonstration - ie, the mobilisation of a significant portion of the advanced party of the working class - the whole day passed off entirely peacefully. A few city centre shops did shut down and 6,000 police were stationed in the surrounding back streets. But the police wisely kept out of the way throughout the march. Any black bloc anarchists that were there on the day were swamped and could not be used by the secret state as an excuse for a police riot, as in Genoa in July 2001. Comunista Rifondazione, CIGL, Cobas and other predominantly left organisations provided effective stewarding. A speaker from RC at one of the meetings during the ESF said that, although previous anti-capitalist demonstrations had been characterised by the smashing up of shops and other acts of individual or anarcho violence, anyone attempting to behave in such a way on Saturday's march would find themselves quickly surrounded by stewards. Quite right. We are against riots, vandalism and playing into the hands of the police. Our watchwords are solidarity, conscious discipline and organisation. The November 9 demonstration in Florence represented the working class and serious left decisively asserting its power. The whole day had a carnival atmosphere, with bands and DJs and much dancing and singing and street theatre that carried on into the evening - not only at the concert at the end of the march, but in the city centre, where groups of protesters congregated and continued the party. The sounds of 'The Internationale' mixed with every other kind of music. The red hammer and sickle flags and banners of Rifondazione Comunista proliferated in huge number. Its contingent was the largest of any single political party. The Green contingent was tightly knit, but tiny. Democratic Left was virtually invisible - at least as a political party. However, the CIGL, the trade union federation that its comrades still lead, had sizeable contingents. Indeed, the CIGL provided by far the largest trade union presence on the march. Here and there a banner from another country could be seen in the sea of demonstrators. There was a smattering of groups from the left in Britain - the most notable bloc being the Socialist Workers Party's International Socialist Tendency, which had a spirited contingent. The Italian section of the IST notched up nearly 200 applications to join - which would (if they are actually recruited and integrated) increase existing membership by nearly a factor of 10. There was a Scottish Socialist Party and a Socialist Alliance banner, but no real political intervention by either of them during the course of the ESF, let alone coordination. This despite the fact that the SA in particular has a lot to offer in terms of the organisation of the left in the European Union. Blame for this must lie with, on the one hand, the parochial left Scottish nationalism of the SSP and, on the other hand, SWP misleadership of the SA. The SWP insists on keeping the SA at the half developed stage of a "united front of a special kind" - a recipe for stagnation and eventual disintegration. The general culture of the left in Italy is very different to that in Britain. The left in Italy read other papers. Our comrades had no problem in shifting literature - in fact some 500 copies of the Weekly Worker were sold. Many were instantly attracted to the hammer and sickle image on the masthead - a symbol many on the left in Britain would freely hand over to ultra-Stalinites. Other left papers too enjoyed brisk sales. The SWP got rid of 1,500 copies of Socialist Worker. Yet, while sales of Socialist Worker were undoubtedly much greater than ours - they did have something like 20 times the number of sellers we were able to deploy - it has to be said that the Weekly Worker won out hands over fist in terms of content. Socialist Worker had a mere column strip on the ESF and nothing on its origins and prospects. In contrast the Weekly Worker provided excellent coverage, argued powerfully for a Socialist Alliance of the EU and outlined the revolutionary democratic programme needed to realise a United Socialist States of Europe. Sarah McDonald and Darrell Goodliffe
Worker