13.03.2003

North West message

Glasgow MP George Galloway holds aloft his mobile phone: "I have an open line here to a refugee camp on the West Bank. I want you to send one message to those on the other end: 'Free, Free Palestine!'" A pause. No pre-emptory murmurs. No prompting gestures. 14, 000 voices - from beneath well-worn umbrellas - explode simultaneously: "Free, Free Palestine! Free, Free Palestine!" Who said this was a one-issue movement? On Saturday March 8, Manchester saw the largest demonstration in its history, called by the Stop the War Coalition under the now familiar dual slogans of 'Don't Attack Iraq' and 'Freedom for Palestine'. The march converged in the city centre after starting from three separate assembly points; the mood was buoyant despite the near obligatory Mancunian rain. The speakers were from a variety of groups and represented very disparate viewpoints (including the Bishop of Manchester, Nigel McCulloch, and James Thorne, a former tank commander in the British army). The speaker from CND reinforced her organisation's unequivocal opposition to war on Iraq. She picked apart the loose threads of the Bush-Blair case and ended her speech referring to International Women's Day: "Women," we were told to wide applause, "stand for welfare, not warfare." At which point, I was nudged by the man standing next to me: "Fuck off! What about Thatcher?" Typifying the approach of most charities/NGOs, the speaker from Voices from the Wilderness used his microphone time to lavish praise on the UN. Blix, Unmovic, inspections as the way to peaceful disarmament - in essence, no war unless rubber-stamped by the UN thieves' kitchen. Unsurprisingly, he was greeted by a somewhat subdued round of applause. The representative of the Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign was exceptionally well received. She pointed to the inconsistencies of US-UK foreign policy: Israel has consistently defied the UN, but no action has ever been proposed against the "terrorist regime of Ariel Sharon". Ending her speech, she called for pressure on Tony Blair to sever all ties with Israel. Jeremy Corbyn MP spoke next. He greeted the rally as a show of "solidarity for the cause of peace, justice and liberty". He went on to list what he regarded as Tony Blair's greatest achievements: he had provoked the largest demonstration in British history, the largest Commons rebellion in history, and he had "raised the consciousness of a new generation". The war, he went on to say, was for "the expansion of US militarism". He denounced the "corruption of the UN by the US" and ended with a "salute" to the Turkish parliament for having the "backbone" to stand up to US pressure. Tony Woodley, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, and a candidate to succeed Bill Morris, followed. This was, he said, "not a time to sit on the fence". The TGWU position was: "No to war - don't attack Iraq!" He went on to stress, quite rightly, that the war would not bring democracy to Iraq. Concluding, he said: "Manchester and the North West has risen today and the message is clear." No one doubts that the anti-war movement remains politically schizophrenic. Such a spontaneous upsurge could not be anything else. What, then, is the task of communists when faced with such a seething mass? We must seek to win the broadest elements in it to a clear, democratic, internationalist, working class position. To do this we must fight every false idea - from utopian pacifism to the darkest reaction. David Moran