Weekly Worker 569 Thursday March 24 2005

Hot air and lots of spin

The national ‘Bring the troops home’ demonstration in London on Saturday March19 was a big event. However, estimates as to how big vary considerably: between 45,000 and 200,000. So how many people were there?

It has been a general rule of thumb over the last 30 or more years that the real size of a (progressive) demonstration is roughly twice the police estimate. There have been a few exceptions, including the largest ever demonstration two years ago when the police estimate was impossibly low, but as a general rule it has held good. If the general rule holds for this latest demonstration, it would give a figure of 90,000. Personally, I think this is too high.

It has been widely reported in the mainstream media and some of the left press that the organisers’ estimate was 100,000. However, on the day various platform speakers declared figures of 150,000 to 200,000 and two of the main organisations involved, the Socialist Workers Party and Muslim Association of Britain, show 200,000 on their websites. It is important to be realistic and credible - 200,000 is a wild overestimate. The SWP in particular seems to make a fetish out of size, equating it with quality and, as usual, seems to be the force behind the upward driving of the estimate. I suppose if the state always plays down the numbers, then it is OK for the SWP to play them up.

Another misleading feature of the rally was several references, particularly by joint chair Andrew Murray (a member of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and chair of the Stop the War Coalition), to “enormous” trade union support. Certainly there has been very welcome backing from some general secretaries and the union bureaucracy generally. However, what is lacking is rank and file and branch level union support. I remember demonstrations in the 1970s that featured hundreds of trade union banners. Last week there were hardly any. This is a worrying indication of continuing apathy, atomisation and passivity amongst the mass of ‘organised’ workers.

To some extent there was an element of diplomacy at work when comrade Murray was introducing general secretaries - and of course he has had a long working association with various union bureaucracies. But there is a serious weakness here. Support from union tops is good, but it is the real heart and soul of the union movement we need to reach - the mass membership. This is where the real potential power to change things lies.

This problem of all chiefs and no Indians is also an indication of the separation between most union activists and the membership. A high proportion of union activists who were present were organised in various political guises. Little or no attempt, other than the odd leaflet, has been made to organise ordinary workers.

This is a problem generally, but is also a feature of the particular strategy and tactics of the dominant force in the anti-war movement, the SWP. Rather than begin to tackle the very difficult problem of activating the mass of organised workers that have the potential to exercise some power, the SWP prefers the easier task of tailing the union bureaucracy.

Lacking working class muscle, the SWP aspires to a populist electoral challenge to oust the warmongers - but in favour of what? With no clear strategic vision the consequent mish-mash of pandering to the right and tailing the limited and sometimes futile forms of struggle that spontaneously pop up results in a self-defeating cycle.

This subservience to spontaneity and populism could be discerned from the way in which the rally and speeches were organised. In addition to three chairs (one from each of the organising bodies - STWC, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and MAB), all of whom who made a number of introductions, read messages and made statements, there were about 25 speakers - far too many. Not only was there considerable repetition (often of weak, rightist ideas), but some of the poorer speeches only served to dissipate and obscure the better ones.

The leading organisation in this demonstration was the SWP (mostly present as the STWC). It has a history of putting up endless people to repeat the same simple ideas over and over - presumably so that they eventually sink into our thick skulls. They also, when not posturing as revolutionaries, submerge themselves into popular fronts and not only self-censor their socialist views but pander to liberal sentiment. Then there is the parading of worthies - look at these strikers, here are some students. And of course we have the frankly religious zeal to enthuse (it’s brilliant, it’s bigger, etc, etc).
Louise Richards (War on Want) told us that “war on poverty is the only war we should be fighting”. Her generic, classless and apolitical “we” implying it was all a question of winning the moral argument. To this end, under the banner of Make Poverty History she urged support for the alternative G8 summit.
Dr Adnam Saddiqui (MAB) made a good general case for civil liberties and argued against the “politics of fear and hatred”. Like almost all of the speeches his was strong on liberal sentiment, law and morality, but weak on any practical fighting measures beyond demonstrating (which did not stop the invasion and is not forcing US and British imperialism to withdraw).

Paul Mackney, general secretary of Natfhe, reminded us that TUC policy was for a “speedy withdrawal” - hinting that it was about time the general council did or said something. Of course this policy gave way to a general collapse of the trade unions before the Blairites at the last Labour conference. Top priority for most unions is the re-election of Labour and they have, and are, demonstrating in practice that they will voluntarily retreat if there is the remotest possibility that a tougher stance might damage Labour’s election prospects. The “enormous” trade union support referred to by comrade Murray amounts to little more than hot air.

After adding to the civil liberties case of the previous speaker, Paul Mackney called for “troops out now” and went on to list what all the money used on war could have been spent on (assuming it was a matter of moral choices for our rulers, that is). It was a fairly routine, indignantly moralistic, speech that had the right slogan, but no strategic or tactical plan beyond the next demonstration.

Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas, also full of indignant moral outrage, concentrated on the legality of the war and occupation. This is problematic, as was pointed out by Mike Macnair in the Weekly Worker last week (March 17). She went on to say that if Blair does not resign he must be impeached. Individualising British imperialism and the whole post-World War II junior partner relationship with US imperialism to Tony Blair is to completely miss the main enemy - imperialism itself.

Ms Lucas’s demand for an independent public enquiry into the war likewise concentrates on legal argument and effectively asks the state to comment on its own exploitative and oppressive nature. If necessary (it is not necessary yet) a scapegoat can be found - even Blair perhaps - but the real problem, the system, is left intact.

Salma Yaqoob (STWC), often an interesting speaker, commented on her experience as a muslim mother gaining confidence to speak out and do something. Having the simple and modest ring of truth, her speech posed the sort of good example that the SWP dreams of, but usually kills with overstatement and ostentatious show. Ms Yaqoob went on to make a mainly agitational speech about state terrorism - including what she called economic terrorism - making the point that the US inflicts the equivalent of 10 9/11s on others every day. Like the other speeches, however, it lacked any concrete proposals for fighting back.

Tony Benn was introduced by Andrew Murray as the “best prime minister we never had”. Long experienced in public speaking, he outlined the usual mix of christian moralism and legalism. But, as usual, some of his points were to the left of the ostensible revolutionaries trying to subsume themselves within the broad and amorphous mass.

He referred to the global nature of the weekend’s protests - technically, this demonstration was part of the European Social Forum’s international day of action, although I heard and saw no mention of this. It was promoted as a strictly British STWC-CND-MAB event. I suspect the pumping up of figures was in part a desire by the SWP to outperform European ‘rivals’.

Tony Benn’s point was to contrast most of humanity to the relatively “tiny group of businesses who run the world”. However, this oblique reference to capitalism (or capitalists) was given the Benn christian-socialist moral twist - the war on Iraq had “betrayed poor people all over the world”.

Benn does not believe in pleading, making instead a series of correct demands: “troops back”, “no invasion of Iran”, “ a Palestinian state”, “release Vanunu” and so on. What again was lacking was anything that might add weight to the demands. Benn stated that previous demonstrations at Trafalgar Square had forced a change in government policy (true only in as much as they have been part of movements capable of delivering a real punch, like strike action, to back up the demands). Benn’s advice was “look to yourselves”, not a new set of leaders. Well, we need action from below, but we also need leadership - based on sound analysis and a clear strategic vision.

Rose Gentle and Reg Keys from Military Families Against the War, who had both lost sons in Iraq, gave highly personal accounts of their opposition. According to Rose Gentle, campaigning by MFAW had caused a drop in army recruitment. Reservist Ray Hewitt, who fought in the first Iraq war when he was 19, stated from the platform: “I won’t fight in Iraq”.

A number of lacklustre speeches followed and then it was the turn of Tariq Ali. He started well: “We need regime change in this country. It’s no good shouting about Blair - we need to get pro-war MPs out” and “get Galloway back”.

Comrade Ali correctly argued that the war in Iraq has to be the central election issue, but went on to state that we should abandon all tribal loyalties and make sure Blair loses his majority. This not only blurs class lines - even a few Tories were opposed to the invasion and, of course, the Lib Dems pretended to be anti-war - but again fails to deal with the small matter of an alternative. If Blair loses his majority, what then?

Billy Hayes, general secretary of the CWU, was no better and no worse than the many other speakers, but the speeches were by now becoming very repetitive. He did say that his union’s anti-war stance was very popular - he had received no letters from his members disagreeing, but hundreds asking him to keep up the good work. However, as there was no evidence of CWU presence other than Billy himself, this underlined the point made earlier about the atomisation, apathy and passivity of ordinary union members.

Lindsey German (STWC, SWP) made a speech virtually indistinguishable from the low-level, populist approach promoted by the other organisers. There was certainly room for at least some revolutionary socialist ideas amongst the seemingly endless stream of ‘moderate’ speeches - but, no, Lindsey was an undercover revolutionary.

Joe Fahey from the New York peace movement was apologetic: “I ask you to forgive us”, but “don’t forget we are a good people: we’re going to fight this”. For some reason that I could not understand, a section of the crowd booed his contribution. Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, gave a particularly poor speech. Sentimental liberal nonsense followed by “Prime minister, you gave us the Human Rights Act … but you strangled it at birth.”

Things then picked up slightly just because Bruce Kent (CND) is a capable speaker. Like most others, even if he said it better, he centred on legal arguments for a prosecution (write to The Hague) and morality.

Also attracting a degree of hissing and booing from the more stupid elements in the crowd was one of the more unusual speakers, former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray. He said he had witnessed at first hand “a regime sponsored by the west that tortures its own people at the behest of the United States”. Adding that intelligence from torture is useless, he went on to describe the government’s approach to civil liberties as “criminal”. With a reference to Göbbels he noted that while “Whitehall practises lies, the media call it spin”. He argued for calling things by their proper name - in this case “state propaganda”. He said to put a cross beside Labour candidates would leave “blood on your fingers”.

Jeremy Corbyn reminded us that he had voted against the war. Repeating the arguments about civil liberties and the cost of the war, he then moved slightly to the left when he asked who benefited from the war and what their motives were: “Yes, it was a grab for oil, but mostly a lesson to the world that the US will go where it likes.”

George Galloway, ever the canny politician, went straight into election mode, alerting people to the fact that his campaign headquarters were in Brick Lane. A good agitational, if demagogic, speaker who is always well received on such occasions, he used the story of Spartacus and the slave revolt to show solidarity: “I am a Palestinian. I am an Iraqi.” In full flow, he let rip with “These liars, these hypocrites, these killers …” He argued it was “no good being here if Blair is rewarded at the ballot box. If they are not made to pay, why should they stop doing it?” He proposed a much more useful approached to Labour candidates than some other speakers: they should be asked if they had voted for war and if they oppose immediate withdrawal. There could be no question of voting for those who answered either question in the affirmative.

The last notable speech, from South African Jay Ahmed Rassin, stood out as very different from the rest. Bringing revolutionary greetings, he said he was “anti-imperialist war, but pro-revolutionary war” and pro-liberation struggle. Since he had spent 11 years either under banning orders or in prison, he must surely be a “classic terrorist” - a description which he did not disavow: “My job,” he said, “was to terrorise the oppressor and I have no regrets.” Arguing that the Terrorism Act and the occupation of Iraq were themselves forms of terrorism, he declared that all human beings had a legitimate right to self-defence. He ended with a South African black nationalist slogan, “One oppressor, one bullet”.
This certainly stood in sharp contrast to all that had gone before, but in a way it was merely the flip side of the liberal legal-moral approach - empty slogans without concrete analysis or strategic vision.
Alan Stevens

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