This was meant to be a post with a detailed account of the March 18th demonstration against the Iraq war and looming Iran war, complete video clips of some of the speeches. Well, it didn’t quite turn out like that. Despite arriving at Parliament Square at 11:30 am, we found ourselves about two thirds of the way down from the front of the march. By the time we got to Trafalgar Square most of the speeches had already finished and it would have been very difficult to get close enough to the front of the crowd to film the rest on my small digital camera.
- Jeremy Corbyn, MP
- Tony Benn
- Craig Murray, ex UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan
- Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
- Bruce Kent, CND
- Baroness Jenny Tonge
- Brian Eno
- George Galloway, MP
- Military Families Against the War
- Muslim Association of Britain
Of course, we should remember that London was just one of many cities throughout the world holding anti-war protests to mark the third anniversary of this illegal war. Demonstrations have also been held in cities throughout the world including: Baghdad, Basra, New York, Madrid, Rome, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Dublin. Will it make a difference? Only time will tell. Demonstrations rarely have a direct effect on government policy in Britain, but when it’s the only way to make your voice heard they are necessary.
We failed to stop the Iraq war but all the predictions that were made about the consequences of invasion have proved correct and the government’s lies have been exposed. New Labour is now so unpopular and mired in sleaze that it cannot afford to take part in another war regardless of the bombastic nonsense Tony Blair has been spouting. Maybe in that respect the demonstration was a success.
Another interesting point to note is that there was no publicity for this demonstration outside the internet. Unlike previous protests against the war, I saw no posters to inform people of it, the mainstream media made no mention of it at all until the day it happened, and only then gave this international event, that spanned several continents, the very briefest (and inaccurate) of mentions. This highlights the power of the internet like nothing else.
4 Comments:
Great photos, especially the first one. I just linked to you from my blog.
I helped organize the LA Demo. We use the Net a lot to be sure, but we also do an enormous amount of face-to-face work; flyering, meetings, events, etc.
We had about 20,000 yesterday, good-sized by LA standards.
Thanks for the link. As a guess I would
say about there were at least 50,000 at the London demo, but I have no way to verify that. All the other London demos had posters and flyers before hand. Maybe I just missed out on it as I'm not an organiser, but I don't remember seeing a single poster this time which is very strange because the Stop The War
Coalition are extremely well organised and produce loads of printed material. I suspect something more sinister.
I was at the Walnut Creek, CA protest with a friend of mine. Found myself walking next to a local pressperson. I asked her how they counted the numbers. She responded that they count the number of signs and not the walkers because "it reduces false positives" to which I responded that increases false negatives. People like myself, who don't carry signs to the war protest, but hurt our throats screaming, aren't counted.
Hasan, that sounds like a really bizarre way of counting people. Some of the banners are large and are carried by several people, and like you say, many people don't carry signs at all. I must say, I like your response about it increasing false negatives. I don't know the best way to work out the numbers, but I would have thought that aerial views would help give a good estimate. Trouble is, only the police and the big networks have helicopters and we have to rely on their honesty, which over here, is a problem. What sort of numbers were reported in Walnut Creek, and did that number seem realistic to you? Thanks.
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