[Peace-discuss] [Fwd: Big London Demo]

[Al Kagan]

>
>Forwarding . . .
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>BIGGEST PROTEST IN A GENERATION IN UK
>
>By Andrew Johnson and Jonathan Thompson
>
>[The Independent - 29 September 2002]
>As many as 350,000 people marched through central London yesterday in one
>of the biggest peace demonstrations seen in a generation.
>
>Organisers said the numbers protesting against war in Iraq were three times
>higher than expected, though police put the figure at 150,000.
>
>Led by the Stop The War Coalition and the Muslim Association of Great
>Britain, protesters marched from the Embankment,made their way past the
>Houses of Parliament and through Piccadilly to Hyde Park.
>
>There they were met by speakers including former MP Tony Benn, London
>Mayor Ken Livingstone, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter,
>the Bishop of Bath and Wells and the father of the House of Commons, Tam
>Dalyell.
>
>Mr Dalyell, a Labour MP, told the crowd: "We are sleep walking to disaster."
>"The Government's dossier states that Iraq has chemical and biological
>weapons ready to use. We can be sure they will use them if cornered."
>
>Mr Livingstone said: "This is all about oil and there is nobody in this
>country so stupid that they don't realise that."
>
>Hundreds of coaches brought protesters from across Britain, including
>lecturers, priests, students and Iraqi and Palestinian citizens. The march
>passed off peacefully.
>
>
>"THIS WAR IS WRONG AND WE WON'T STAND FOR IT"
>
>        Eye witness: Up to 350,000 people marched in
>        London yesterday against military action in Iraq,
>        And they were not the 'usual suspects'
>
>                            By Simon O'Hagan
>
>[The Independent - 29 September 2002]:
>The voice of middle-class England was how Debbie Mainwaring described
>herself yesterday as she stood amid the clamour of one of the biggest
>anti-war demonstrations ever, and it was clear that she was not alone.
>The sheer numbers who turned out to express vociferous opposition to
>military action in Iraq - between 150,000 and 350,000 on the central
>London march - meant there was no way they could be dismissed as "the
>usual suspects" ofthe hard left.
>
>It took something to prompt Mrs Mainwaring and her family, from
>Walthamstow in east London, to take to the streets. But as anxiety
>increases over the prospect of the US launching an attack, the message
>of the people was being driven home to President Bush and Tony Blair, a
>man widely characterised as his unquestioning accomplice: this war is
>wrong, and we won't stand for it.
>
>The scale of the turnout could be explained partly
>by the fact that this was two marches in one. For
>the Muslim Association of Britain, the issue was
>primarily freedom for Palestine. The Stop the War
>Coalition's aims were self-evident, and the
>demonstration was merely the latest in a series it
>has mounted since before the US went into Afghanistan.
>But it had never drawn support like this before,
>and the scenes along the Embankment, where the wait
>to get moving lasted up to three hours, could be
>compared only with last week's effort by the
>Countryside Alliance. September, it seems, has become
>the marching season.
>
>"Whatever you think of rural issues, I think it's
>fair to say that the issues at stake on this march
>are rather more serious," said Lindsey German, the
>Stop the War Coalition convenor. When the march
>finally ended in a vast rally in Hyde Park, Ms
>German was one of those who addressed the crowd,
>along with Tony Benn, George Galloway MP, Ken
>Livingstone and other leading figures in the anti-
>war movement.
>
>But the day was only partly about people like them.
>It was equally about the thousands who, as with the
>Countryside Alliance march, were losing their
>marching virginity, and clearly feeling pretty
>pleased about it. In their very ordinariness they
>added up to a presence that Mr Blair might struggle
>to ignore.
>
>There was no more unlikely figure to be making his
>marching debut than Scott Ritter, the former UN
>weapons inspector and now scourge of the Bush
>administration. "Never been on a march in my life,"
>he said. "But the message we have to get across is
>so much more important than any discomfort I might
>feel." Mr Ritter was over from his home in Albany,
>New York, for the Labour Party conference, and then
>was persuaded to join the march. "All I'm trying to
>do is uphold the principle of the rule of law. The
>US is engaged purely in regime removal, and that is
>in direct contravention of the UN. Their behaviour
>is anti-democratic. I'm not sure how much impact this
>march will make on people in the US, but if it puts
>pressure on Blair and then he changes his attitude
>to Bush, then it will have helped."
>
>Mrs Mainwaring, meanwhile, couldn't remember when she
>had last been on a march. "I'm a moderate. But I
>heard this being dismissed on the TV as a socialist
>thing, and I was determined to show that it isn't."
>Kevin Waddington, from King's Lynn, Norfolk, added:
>"It was important to show Tony Blair that he is
>simply not acting in accordance with the views of the
>vast majority of people in this country. The so-
>called evidence in his dossier is almost entirely
>speculation."
>
>A variety of shades of opinion were gathered, and you
>could argue that the items on the agenda weren't all
>consistent with each other. But the main thrust of
>it - that many in Britain have no stomach for war and
>are not prepared to give Mr Blair the backing he seeks
>- was undeniable.
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>
>{+} Yani Herdes {+}
>yanipeace at earthlink.net


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu