BY RAUL BASSI
& PIP HINMAN
Brian Sketchley takes Green Left Weekly to task for arguing for a mass anti-war movement aimed at getting the US-led occupying troops out of Iraq. It's futile, he argues, because the ruling class never listens.
The "troops out" movement in the US is now having a major impact on public opinion. Officers in uniform took part in the recent 100,000-strong October 25 march in Washington demanding the US leave Iraq. This is not about going down on bended knee — "pleading" with the ruling class. It's about demanding that the US and its allies pull out of Iraq or face growing political dissent at home.
Sketchley claims that the only way to help the Iraqi working masses in places like Australia is to organise to sabotage the war machine. Socialists should focus on acts which "do something that will tangibly impede the war drive", he says.
But this approach is very pessimistic and, if adopted, would substantially narrow down the movement.
Sketchley also says the global anti-war movement had no impact on the Coalition of the Killing because they attacked Iraq anyway. But is he correct?
There was a widespread sense of demoralisation in the anti-war movement that despite its unprecedented scale it failed to prevent the invasion. But the movement — and its primary tactic of mass street demonstrations — was not a failure. It stalled the war for a good three months; it forced the US, after asserting it needed no UN backing, to try, unsuccessfully, to get UN approval; and it denied the invasion the legitimacy the rulers sought.
If we ask ourselves what the objective of this war is, we see the real victory of the anti-war movement.
The invading powers' grossly one-sided military assault on Iraq was waged against the wishes of the world's majority. It was deeply unpopular in all the imperialist countries. It was the most unpopular war in Australian history.
Even in the US, where the Bush administration continues to manipulate the deep fear, uncertainty and anger caused by the 9/11 attacks, a large minority opposed the war on Iraq.
The imperialists are now campaigning to retrospectively win support for their aggression. They have to do this to carry on the next stages of the "war on terror" and to continue their neoliberal offensive. But the polls in the US show they are failing. According to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll published on October 27, more than 57% of people want US troops to begin leaving Iraq.
Our challenge is to defeat them in this war, so they cannot justify keeping their armies in the Middle East and in their other staging posts for aggression, and make sure that future imperialist aggressions have as little popular support as possible.
The best way of doing this is to continue building the largest possible anti-occupation movement. That means trying to rebuild and consolidate the movement, and winning the traditional institutions of working-class struggle — the trade unions — to take a more active and consistent role.
Socialists have to convince a new generation of activists, including those who may have become disheartened, why organisation and collective struggle in workplaces, schools, universities and neighbourhoods is the only way we'll achieve lasting social change. Rallies are just one manifestation of this.
Civil disobedience can be useful when it helps build a mass movement, but not when it works against this by either diverting attention from the main issue and/or by demoralising activists.
Industrial sabotage and non-cooperation with the war machine can also boost the movement. But such actions by the trade unions are more likely — and certainly more sustainable — if there is a mass movement.
The UK railworkers were universally applauded for their non-cooperation with Blair's preparations for war. But it's wrong to see their actions in isolation — the railworkers responded in a practical way to the growth of the British anti-war movement, which had grown up around the demand "Stop the war!".
In Australia, despite efforts made by some, the unions covering workers most directly connected to the war effort did the least. Some union leaderships did get involved in the last big anti-war upsurge, as did many hundreds of thousands of unionists. But it was largely the city-based anti-war coalitions and local peace groups which ordinary unionists related to.
Hinging a revival of the anti-war movement on the current union leaderships would be tantamount to giving up the struggle because the majority are too closely tied to the ALP, which had an ambiguous position on the war.
A fighting anti-war movement has to be rebuilt. But this can only happen in tandem with the building of struggle-oriented unions prepared to take a stand on the major social issues of the day.
[Raul Bassi is a member of the Socialist Alliance national executive and Bankstown SA. Pip Hinman is a member of Marrickville SA.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.