Published on Thursday, February 20, 2003 by the Toronto Star
The People and the Web vs. Bush and Blair
by Haroon Siddiqui
LONDON—The million-strong anti-war march here was far more than the biggest
public protest in modern British history. It was a seminal moment, the full
significance of which is only beginning to be appreciated.
The first thing that struck me about the event was how un-British it was,
despite the very British orderliness of the human tide that kept rolling
patiently along central London all Saturday afternoon before converging on
Hyde Park.
The rally was to British politics what the communal mourning at Princess
Diana's funeral was to its sociology — a sudden and sharp break from
tradition.
More people turned up than anyone imagined possible. Once there, most shed
their British reserve for banter with strangers.
Their diversity — young and old, white and visible minorities, poor and the
middle class, grunge and Gucci, veteran protesters and first-time marchers
— constituted a rainbow coalition of the North American kind.
Those there, and even those not there, emerged elated. People proclaimed
how proud they felt, once again, to be British.
They had made an uncharacteristically powerful statement, to the American
president and to their own prime minister in particular.
"The marchers spurned isolation for solidarity, and fear for fury," wrote
Mary Riddell, columnist for the Sunday Observer. "Their momentum came from
nowhere."
Not quite. It came via the Web, here as also across Europe and North
America — a mass demonstration of the democratic potential of the Internet.
It was no accident that in the 60 nations where protests were held, the
biggest turnouts, as here, were where governments have bucked their
electorates to back the American march toward war — Italy (2 million),
Spain (2 million), and Australia (500,000, the biggest political protest in
Aussie history).
It also partially explained why authorities everywhere — including Toronto
and several American cities — were so surprised by the turnouts, so little
did they know the extent to which the anti-war movement had spread, almost
by stealth.
The media, too, stand reproached, especially in Canada and the United
States. Too many have been too busy beating war drums to hear their own
constituents.
Never before has so much slick and powerful war propaganda met with such
universal public derision in a common language of resistance from around
the world:
"Don't attack Iraq." "Not in my name." "No war for oil." And, one here with
a local twist, "Stop Mad Cowboy Disease."
"Wake up and smell the democracy," a poster admonished Prime Minister Tony
Blair. The biggest applause of the rally went to pop star Ms Dynamite when
she addressed him: "How long will you lie and deceive the country? Don't
underestimate or insult our intelligence."
"Regime change begins at home," read a sign.
The prime minister tried a new argument. The moral case against war, he
said, has a moral answer: Not removing Saddam Hussein condemns the Iraqis
to his killing fields.
True.
But coming from one who has long ignored Iraqi suffering under economic
sanctions, and who has also been bombing them since 1998, the rejoinder
proved unpersuasive.
His overall position is similarly seen as dishonest. He started off an
unabashed supporter of George W. Bush. Then he claimed to be acting as a
brake on the president and took credit for pushing America through the
United Nations. He even called for "more time and space" for U.N.
inspectors and committed himself to a second Security Council resolution.
But with unilateral American action seemingly imminent, he is preparing to
abandon the U.N., saying he would not let "an unreasonable veto" deter him
from his jihad against the Butcher of Baghdad.
Should he break his word to Britons and go to war without a U.N. approval,
counselled The Independent editorially, dissident ministers "should resign
and Labour MPs should defy the whips and vote against" their government.
There is speculation about Blair being toppled, as was Margaret Thatcher by
her MPs. Or becoming a prime minister without a party, as was Ramsay
MacDonald in 1931, abandoned by Labour after deep divisions over post-1929
economic policies and forced to form a government with Tory support.
The anti-war coalition is not quite through yet. It is calling for massive
civil disobedience the day the invasion of Iraq begins: "We want people to
walk out of their offices, go on strike, sit down, occupy buildings,
demonstrate."
In Canada, anti-war sentiment is running high as well. But unlike Blair, or
Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Jose Maria Aznar in Spain, Jean Chrétien is
at least respecting it, even if not totally reflecting it in his policy.
Canada does not have the luxury of distance from America that Germany and
France do. Nor are their economies as dependent on America as ours is.
Chretien's seemingly confusing pronouncements reflect that reality.
They also serve the purpose of not enraging Canadians and not totally
alienating Americans — at least for now.
Haroon Siddiqui is The Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column
appears Thursday and Sunday.
Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0220-07.htm
