20.10.2004

Damning criticism

ESF demonstration: Damning criticism An almost all-British platform dominated the final demonstration - no wonder many of our European comrades were unhappy

What was originally to have been a demonstration of the European Social Forum at the end of three days of discussion and debate was effectively hijacked by the Socialist Workers Party and turned into a Stop the War Coalition event, with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain invited as co-sponsors.

The main theme of the demo, as agreed by the European ESF assembly, was: ‘For another Europe in another world’. Of course, the occupation of Iraq is the most pressing political issue facing the left. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the SWP does not take the European Union seriously. It is a bore. Nor therefore does it take seriously the vital task of organising coordinated working class resistance across Europe.

In typical SWP fashion the ESF was totally marginalised. In the SWP mindset they run things here in Britain and brook no interference. ‘For another Europe in another world’ was completely absent from STWC advertising, which promoted the demo under the slogan, ‘Time to go: Bush out! Troops out!’ At the rally itself the main poster on Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square is a good example of SWP marketing - in large print at the top on a coloured background was ‘Stop the war’ and ‘No to racism’, while smaller and in black and white (and disappearing behind the stage) was ‘No privatisation’ and, at the bottom, ‘For a Europe of peace and social justice’.

In a line-up of three chairs and about 20 speakers, most of whom were not very good, the most shameful thing was the exclusion of Europeans generally and ESF speakers in particular. Aside from a representative from Palestine and Che Guevara’s daughter from Cuba, this was a British-only platform. Of course several of the approved speakers welcomed the Europeans and made mention of the ESF, but being merely polite to guests expected to keep quiet and listen is just sheer arrogance.

In its own terms as an anti-war demonstration, it was a success. The bulk of the march was good-natured and lively. It was large: figures are disputed between the traditionally low police estimate of 20,000 (which means they probably thought there were at least 40,000) and the organisers’ 75,000 (later revised up to 100,000).

It is difficult to be accurate, as the march was considerably slowed by police-imposed bottlenecks to film and photograph demonstrators and generally hold things up. There were also those irritating little groups that slow things up by staging their own mini-demos that invite the police to interfere. My view is that the organisers’ estimate is as silly as that of the police and I see nothing to be gained in exaggerating, or trying to pretend that it was bigger than the one in Paris last year. My own estimate is 40,000-50,000 - and that is a good-sized demonstration.

Some of the speeches were difficult to hear due to a police helicopter constantly hovering at low level over the square (perhaps this was the intention, although no doubt a great deal of filming was also going on). A number of morally indignant speakers called on Tony Blair to resign without much thought as to what would follow. Some of the more radical suggestions came from christian moralists such as Bruce Kent.

Andrew Murray (STWC and the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain) in his introduction to Natfhe general secretary Paul Mackney over-egged it somewhat when he referred to “particularly strong union support”. In fact there was support from some union bureaucrats. What was particularly noticeable to me was the lack of union support amongst ordinary members. This is a weakness to be confronted.
Comrade Mackney made a reasonable speech against imperialism and for peace and justice in the Middle East, but it was standard fare. Ken Livingstone’s adviser on race, Lee Jasper spoke of the evils of racism and then, excitedly and not quite in tune with the SWP agenda, actually quoted the decision of the Assembly of Social Movements and its call for a Europe-wide day of action on April 2 2005.

Bruce Kent (former chair, CND) opened with a comical dig at atheists, saying he had prayed for it to stop raining and now “the sun is shining”. The joke was on him later when it pissed down. Referring to the ESF at Alexandra Palace, the monsignor came up with a radical suggestion: for next time - “Buckingham Palace, why not? Everyone else can climb over the wall”. He went further than simply calling for Blair’s resignation: “I want to see him sit next to Milosevic in the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.”

After Jenny Jones (Green Party) made a rather bland speech about what for her were the three global issues - the threat of nuclear war, environment and poverty - Tommy Sheridan of the Scottish Socialist Party - normally a good speaker - got off to a lacklustre start with a Walt Disney portrayal of Blair and co. He reduced the whole imperialist strategy to oil - a significant but not the only or even most important consideration for Bush. He also threw in the demagogic appeal for Tony Blair to send his own son to fight in Iraq if his cause was so noble. Holding up the prospect of building a better world, Tommy came up with the distinctly soft, “Peace, love and human solidarity”. Equally soft was fighting against “poverty and inequality of wealth”. Not his best performance.

Barry Campfield (TGWU assistant general secretary) made an uninspiring speech about government accountability. He combined a plaintive plea that governments listen with the need to organise across Europe.

George Galloway, an accomplished speaker, referring to the discussions and debates at the ESF, summed up its conclusions as “No to war, no to savage capitalist globalisation”. Focusing on the battle at Fallujah, he characterised the struggle there as “a new Stalingrad”.

Tony Benn, demanded an end to the “aggressive imperialist war” in Iraq and for withdrawal of troops: “This is a war of liberation from our rulers.” If the Americans get away with it in Iraq, will it be Cuba, Iran or Syria next? But, according to Tony Benn, “no power on earth can stop us”.

The last speaker, Chris Nineham (SWP), was one of the better ones. Reminding us that everything that the anti-war movement said about Iraq has been proved right, he paid tribute to the worldwide demonstrations of February 15 2003 and announced another global day of action against the war for March 19 and 20 2005, the anniversary of the attack.

An incident to the rear of the stage that resulted in several people being arrested has now escalated into a full-blown row between the British organisers and European delegates on the official ESF email discussion list. Early in the rally word went round that the police had surrounded various anarchists at Kings Cross and had arrested four people.

This group eventually made it to Trafalgar Square and tried to access the stage in order to give “information” about the arrests. Stewards fought to hold them back. Of course, the vast majority of people at the protest could not see this or ascertain what it was all about. But during the speech from Aleida Guevara, one of the co-chairs, Kate Hudson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (and the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain), announced that “people are trying to storm the stage.” She was given a cheer and a further eight arrests resulted. Claims that stewards called the police are denied. And it should be added that Hudson’s co-chair and fellow CPBer Andrew Murray did mention the Kings Cross arrests and demand the release of the detainees.

Two conflicting attitudes have emerged.

One of those arrested, Javier Ruiz, states that the group earlier involved in protests at the ESF over exclusion and lack of transparency were trying to “negotiate space to speak on the stage”. The implication being that they wanted to criticise ESF organisation in London from the rally platform.
In his statement Alex Callinicos (SWP) says this is inaccurate. He accuses a “black bloc” of attempting to storm the stage, attacking stewards in the process, under the pretext of reporting the earlier incident with police at Kings Cross. He says that the organisers (that is, the SWP/SA-dominated British committee) were already working with Italian comrades to secure the release of those arrested, adding that the police seized on this incident to start behaving more aggressively everywhere: “Of course there is room for debate for the organisation and content of the London ESF - as there is of all the social forums,” states comrade Callinicos - ah, if only that were true.

Kees Hudig from the Netherlands then joined the dispute, saying there was no “black bloc” - the group included anarchists, but was in fact very diverse. Comrade Hudig says that all they wanted was space on the stage to report the earlier incident.

However, the most damning criticism comes from comrade Piero Bernocchi of the Italian trade union, Cobas: “The closing rally for the European Social Forum in London has been deeply marred by the intolerable behaviour of the British organising committee, and in particular by the forces that dominate it: the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action (the group behind London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone) and some trade unions.”

Disagreeing with comrade Callinicos, he says of the arrests that, despite “the insistent requests from the Italian delegation at the head of the march to demand their liberation, the British committee did not say a word.” Comrade Bernocchi adds that, when trying to get news of the arrests announced from the platform, “we discovered that access to this was restricted to the British committee. Instead of the agreed concert, we had around 20 speeches monopolised by the English to the exclusion of all other European delegations.”

Cobas has denounced the “grave responsibility of the British committee and the organisations involved, who have managed the rally as if it was their own, and have used the police to ‘solve’ the conflicts in the movement.” Cobas concludes that we will “talk about this, and about how to make sure that events like those that happened in London are never repeated”, in the next European assembly in Paris on December 18 and 19.

Whatever fault may lie with the methods of anarchists, the root of the problem is the undemocratic and excessive control-freakery exercised by the SWP and its SA and CPB partners. Together they have brought discredit upon the ESF.