The Anti-War Assembly

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, the Stop the War Coalition called an Anti-War Assembly at Trafalgar Square on Saturday, October 8.

Contingents built up in the square from the opening shortly after mid-day to the time of the demonstration down Whitehall to Downing Street at 4pm. Five-thousand militantly and vociferously marched to the very gates of Downing Street, a densely packed mass of placards and banners, to the last demonstrator shouting slogans, including “Fight for an Anti-War Government”.

The Anti-War Assembly had been mobilised by the Stop the War Coalition calling for pledges to be present, pledges which included many high profile figures. Speakers from the platform included University and College Union (UCU) organiser Mark Campbell and former Respect MP George Galloway. But many had mobilised and come in contingents from local Stop the War groups.

In this respect it represented the stage of the anti-war movement at the present time. Its main victories have been in consolidating stable local groups who can stand on their own feet, and in blocking the attempts by those in power at Westminster to mobilise public opinion in favour of war and intervention. It is the case that, as a number of speakers to the Assembly in essence pointed out, crimes against peace are considered anathema and that war criminals such as Tony Blair cannot walk the streets of Britain.

The way forward lies in continuing to build and organise the anti-war movement towards its goal: the creation of an anti-war government and building a society on the new basis of the defence of the sovereignty and independence of peoples and nations, outlawing the use of force to settle conflicts internationally and de-militarising society nationally, with all that entails.

Today we are summing up the historic work of the anti-war movement in Britain from the point of view of where we are now and how we can crown this movement with the success of bringing about an anti-war government in Britain. As with all great movements of the people at the very beginning when literally millions of people are taking part they reveal their essence to base themselves on what is the new in society and to oppose the old arrangements. We wrote then in an article Defeating the Warmongers Means Giving Rise to Modern Arrangements:

The important thing is that today people are seriously searching for ways to develop the movement in order to defeat the warmongers. There is also a growing realisation that the key to achieve this is to unleash the people’s initiative by organising in such a way that the people consciously participate in decision-making at every level. Defeating the warmongers means giving rise to modern arrangements. (Silence is Shame No. 1 August 5 2003)

As we predicted then those modern arrangements are the order of the day in this movement where people in their thousands from different walks of life, industrial and non industrial workers, trade union movements, students intelligentsia, small business people, unemployed, military personnel and their families, people with differing political, religious and other views united together to oppose the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Such a powerful movement was not just a sum of the different forces coming together but showed the people revealing their own thinking and anti-war ideas and values, rejecting 10 years of the criminal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya carried out by successive pro-war governments in Britain alongside the US and other big powers.

This was no more keenly felt than here in South Tyneside where we decided to meet weekly, discussing and analysing as a thinking South Tyneside part of the stop the war movement in our region. We have done this in an uninterrupted fashion over this whole ten years. Always able to find our bearings in the new situation that confronted the anti-war movement and never more so than in the present circumstances with the new phase in the Anglo-Us wars giving new pre-texts as their old pre-texts become exposed and condemned.

That such thinking, ideas and values have been defended and nurtured in the peoples movement against war, with their love of peace and justice, means that it cannot be smashed by the constant misinformation of the monopoly media. It is one of the the greatest assets of the peoples movement that show it is not just a fight against successive warmonger governments but it is a fight for the new in society against the old arrangements. It is about removing one by one the obstacles placed in the way of the people to stop them seizing the initiative to build an even more powerful opposition than existed previously in the last 10 years.

This new represents seeking truth, basing oneself on ones collective, or peer group and solely on the well-being of fellow human beings both at home and abroad. It is serious discussion to unmask the plans of the Anglo-US powers both here and abroad and then act against them. It is creating a new modern mass media in the hands of the people, in many of its forms, to unmask the lies and involve people finding the truth to the problems we all face. It is brushing aside all of the theories stemming from Westminster and the monopoly media that blame the people themselves for all of the problems in society as if their anti-people policies at home and abroad had nothing to do with the problems of people in Britain and abroad. It is taking a stand against government, and mass media pretexts and misinformation to pursue their criminal wars of invasions and occupations and then also attack, criminalise Muslims and other people here, many of whom have been arrested, criminalised and imprisoned with some of those even without a trial.

The anti-war movement must be the force for peace in society by striking at the roots of the causes of war. In particular, this means not simply being a protest movement, but itself striving to be an embodiment of the new arrangements and new political quality in society which are the alternative to the old arrangements and old political quality which has become addicted to war, intervention, aggression and empire-building as the way of dealing with conflicts of interest in the world. In other words, the anti-war movement aspires to be not simply the sum of all the various forces involved within it, but to be a movement with an identity which is more than the sum of its parts, a movement which aspires to bring into being an anti-war government. We see the anti-war movement as a movement that is and should stamp its agenda at the heart of the political aims and mechanisms of society for the realisation of an anti-war government that embodies the aims and aspirations of all in society.

Significant is giving modern content to the previous attempts to build local and national Peoples’ Assemblies as an alternative to a Parliament that votes for illegal and criminal wars. Certainly our experience here is significant and reveals many things about the movement setting its own political agenda. We have stood two anti-war candidates in South Shields in successive elections. At the last election we went further, taking account of the fact that some candidates were not involved directly in the stop the war movement here we set about creating an anti-war alliance of candidates and small parties against the cartel of Westminster parties that presented a pro-war consensus to the electorate. How to take this work forward in the context of further building the work of the anti-war movement is one of the crucial questions the movement needs to address.

Today, it could be said that the great success of the anti-war movement to place centre stage in the political life of the country the opposition of the people to these wars of foreign intervention has caused Cameron to now paint naked intervention against Libya in the colours of a “revolution” of the Libyan people taking their country back. Most of the monopoly media have now switched to justifying the crimes of Anglo-US NATO bombing and mass murder of Libyan people as a “revolution”. In-spite of the calls for a negotiated solution by the majority of countries in the world, by the African Union of which Libya is a part, the government chose to bomb Libya into submission. This super-high level of disinformation is being used to actually deny the Libyan people sovereignty. Whilst continuing to lead the bombing of Libya that has killed tens of thousands over recent months. Cameron has taken the lead in a UN Security Council decision to recognise the “revolutionary” National Transitional Council as the UN representative of Libya something that 80% of countries in the UN have refused to do including the African Union. In the same session of the UN the security council is trying to oppose the claim of the Palestinians to recognition at the UN when the majority of countries demand it.

This path of the Anglo-US powers and NATO countries spells great dangers not only for the people of Libya, of Africa as a whole and the peoples of the Middle East and Asia but it is extremely dangerous for the peoples of Britain and the whole world. The dangers of a major world conflagration are growing. The experience of Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated that come what may the imperialists cannot make history as they wish. The cost in hundreds of thousands of lives and trillions of pounds is and has been colossal. The stability of the whole of the Euro zone is being threatened by the neo-liberal agenda which is linked to war and aggression abroad, with commentators even predicting war within Europe as the crisis further unfolds.

All these things lead to the conclusion that the anti-war movement must pay attention to these developments and to its own history and successes and consciously base itself on the need for the new in society in standing against the old arrangements. What is new is not some extreme outlook from the margins of society, but is the agenda of the vast majority of peace-loving people who wish to see justice prevail and build a society fit for humanity. The new is to further build the unity of the anti-war movement in a principled way, that sovereignty of peoples and countries must be respected, all acts of intervention must be uncompromisingly opposed and acts of state violence against our own people opposed. It is to build the movement to end the crimes against peace and to bring about an anti-war government in Britain. A government that, stands for the peaceful resolution of international conflicts, brings all troops home from foreign soil, withdraws Britain from NATO. A government that brings the war criminals in Britain to justice and pays reparations to the countries invaded and occupied.

For the Peaceful Resolution of International Conflicts!
Britain Out of NATO!
Condemn NATO’s Criminal Intervention in Libya!
No Troops On Foreign Soil!
Fight for an Anti-War Government in Britain!

September 27, 2011

On Wednesday, October 5, Tyneside Stop the War held a successful public meeting in the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Over 60 people attended, veterans from the ten years of the Stop the War Coalition and youth and students from the community and from the universities.

Lindsey German spoke on the ten years of the anti-war movement in Britain, and Professor Stuart Elden gave a contribution on territorial integrity and territorial sovereignty since the second world war. The North East Stop the War Coalition has posted the audio files of the two speakers and the concluding remarks of the chair, Roger Nettleship. Click on the link to listen to the speakers. The meeting concluded with the showing of a new documentary on the Stop the War movement, part 1 and part 2, with more to follow in the future. The meeting was organised by Tyneside Stop the War and Newcastle University's Place/Space/Politics research cluster.

SPEAKERS:
Lindsey German - National Convenor of Stop the War Coalition since 2001 Lindsey addresses the meeting - audio
Professor Stuart Elden - Durham University, author of award-winning book 'Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty' Stuart addresses the meeting - audio
PDF version of paper of Professor Stuart Elden
Chair's concluding remarks

Edited from the report by Jamie Ritchie who also took the photo

A public meeting was organised by Brent Stop the War at Willesden Green Library Centre on Tuesday, October 4. The meeting was a great success and a considerable number of people from Brent joined the Assembly in Trafalgar Square on October 8.

October 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of local anti-war group Brent Stop the War, the local chapter of the national Stop the War Coalition, as well as ten years of the NATO-led war in Afghanistan. The meeting was addressed by former cabinet minister Tony Benn, John Hilary, chief executive of anti-poverty campaign War on Want, and Sheila Robin from Kilburn, a founder member of Brent Stop the War, and chaired by BStW chair Mike Phipps.

John Hilary spoke first and told the audience of over 100 local people about the dangers posed by the spreading use of unmanned “drone” planes controlled remotely which cause huge numbers of casualties in both Afghanistan and over the border in Pakistan. He also talked about the use of private armies and militias and the involvement of British arms and security companies in running them.

Sheila Robin, a founder member of Brent Stop the War, talked about the group’s activities at street stalls, public meetings and in fundraising to oppose wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. She thanked the audience and the people of Brent for their hard work and support and urged them to carry on opposing the war. Tony Benn told the audience that similar meetings were taking place up and down the country in preparation for the National Assembly in Trafalgar Square on October 8. He also stressed that this was no time for the public to give up on opposing the war. While the government is at odds with the vast majority of the British public, who oppose the war in Afghanistan, public pressure can lead to change and seeing what otherwise seem like unpopular views and ideas gaining currency.

The audience also had the opportunity to express their views and raise their concerns about the war.