BY BRYAN SKETCHLEY
A number of recent articles in Green Left Weekly have carried a common thread of argument for what the anti-war movement needs to be doing now, its strategies and goals. That line of thought was succinctly encapsulated in the editorial of GLW #544. The editorial concludes on a disturbing note:
"Through mobilising those opposed to the war on Iraq in large, highly visible public protests that raise the clear demand that the US and its allies get out of Iraq — thus restoring to the Iraqi people the national sovereignty that the invasion has violated — the growing public disquiet about the war can be turned into an irresistible mass political movement."
The unprecedented protests of 15 million people around the world on the weekend of February 14-16 were heralded with a similar sort of triumphalist logic. Yet, the ruling classes of the US, Britain and Australia paid those historic marches no heed.
What was at stake was unfettered access to the lubricant of the world's economy. It's unlikely that if the marches on that February weekend were double the size they were that they would have impacted on the headlong rush to war. The banners that were lofted pleaded "no war". The marchers were entreating the ruling class to stop, and consider other options. Predictably, the ruling classes interest in war and access to cheap oil had been decided long before.
The simple plea, no war, made to "our leaders" was the expression of where the anti-war movement was at then. However, eight long and bloody months have passed since that weekend, and it seems that little has been learnt. Slogans like "stop Bush's war drive" are still pleas to somebody, anybody, to do something to stop the war, to end the occupation, to recognise Iraqi sovereignty.
At the same time these pleas are being made, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld is preparing to send an additional 10,000 troops, and has another 5000 on standby. The slogans that are now being raised are really questions that need to be put to the anti-war movement. How will we stop this war? How can Bush's war drive be stopped? What can we do to assist the Iraqi working class to liberate itself?
It is the responsibility of socialists — not to continue to foster the illusion that the ruling class will be put under enough pressure if we simply build "large, highly visible public protests that raise the clear demand that the US and its allies get out of Iraq" — but to make arguments in the anti-war movement that can do something that will tangibly impede the war drive. Socialists in the anti-war movement need to take responsibility for arguing for such actions.
Pleading to end the occupation, or stop Bush's war drive is not enough. Such an orientation for the anti-war movement disarms our ability to argue for strategies that can take the movement forward.
Jeff Sparrow wrote in edition #171 of the quarterly magazine Overland, in an article entitled, Weapons of Mass Disaffection: "The Left has a huge task in front of it, if rather than appealing to the conscience of men who possess none, we want to render the outbreak of the next war physically impossible. That entails rebuilding, almost from scratch, the traditions and organisations of our movement."
He is right. We need to rebuild and re-orientate the anti-war movement. It is a large task, but without attempting it, we are doomed never to accomplish our stated goals.
We, as socialists, need to be arguing for a different kind of anti-war movement, an anti-war movement that recognises that if there is any hope of slowing down the war machine then we need to do what we can to impede their efforts, rather than plead with rulers.
We need to argue with and cajole unions to emulate the actions of loco drivers in the UK in the lead up to war, where drivers refused to move war goods. We need to be arguing in our unions that companies and government departments that have any role in the killing should themselves be the targets of goods and services bans. We need an anti-war movement that will make the cost of waging the war out-strip any potential benefits that the ruling classes are counting on.
While the invasion has been completed, and the "coalition of the willing" is struggling to manage the occupation on its terms, there are tasks for socialists in the anti-war movement that are important, indeed vital. The re-emerging labour movement in Iraq is a development that deserves active and tangible solidarity from socialists and unionists in Australia. In any post-occupation Iraq, a well-organised labour movement will be the first and last bastion against fundamentalists and the puppet regime.
[Bryan Sketchley is a member of Workers Liberty and the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 5, 2003.
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