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End the occupation of Iraq! |
Workers Power Global, London: 31 August 2003
Four months after George Bush declared the end of major operations in Iraq, this bloody imperialist adventure refuses to leave the headlines.
As Tony Blair took the stand in the Hutton inquiry, the 50th British soldier was killed in Iraq. Yet not a single weapon of mass destruction has been found. The "liberated" Iraqi people - denied work, electricity, water and basic security - have turned their anger against the gun-totin' invaders.
Most importantly of all, the millions who stood up against the war earlier this year are still angry. They remain ready to punish Blair and demand justice for the Iraqi and Palestinian people.
Tony Blair is in the weakest position he has ever been. Alastair Campbell's forced resignation underscores his growing isolation. He should be looking vulnerable. The sad truth, however, is that he isn't - or at least not yet.
The second National People's Assembly should have been a great opportunity to address this problem. How can we refocus the movement so that it can take advantage of this tremendous opportunity to force the warmongers from office and get the British troops out of the Middle East? How can we go back onto the offensive, like we were in February and March?
Unfortunately, the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition - the Communist Party of Britain (Morning Star) and the Socialist Workers Party - provided totally inadequate answers to these questions.
Their declaration to the Assembly called for a public inquiry into the government's "whole war policy" and for "the withdrawal of all British and US military forces from Iraq". It ended by insisting that the "British government... adopt instead a foreign policy based on principles of peace and social justice". As if an imperialist state like Britain could ever adopt such a foreign policy! Do these socialists not remember Robin Cook's "ethical foreign policy", which involved selling hawk aircraft to Indonesia to repress its national minorities? Britain is one of the leading capitalist countries in the world. So long as this is the case, its foreign policy will always be shaped by its capitalist interests.
And who would control a public inquiry? The government would appoint another judge like Lord Hutton, trained in the no-jury courts in the north of Ireland and drawn from the ranks of the ruling class. We can be sure that without a mass movement on the streets mobilising to expose the government lies and hold the Labour MPs who voted for war to account, it would produce another whitewash. The SWP even helped vote down an amendment from the Socialist Party that said such an inquiry would only be legitimate if convened by the trade unions and anti-war movement.
The People's Assembly, like the last Stop the War activists conference, was dominated by long speeches from top table speakers like Tony Benn, Lindsey German and John Pilger with amendments and resolutions being relegated to 20 minutes at the end of the day. This format is virtually designed to restrict activists from having time to discuss, debate and exchange ideas based on successful activities in the localities.
In Manchester, for example, the local coalition - like many others around the country - wanted to keep together and organise on the streets after the end of the war. The activists found that they had many views and values in common: anti-racism, internationalism, anti-capitalism and democracy. They formed their own People's Assembly, which immediately started to campaign in solidarity with the Palestinians. They built a mock "Israeli wall of steel" outside the Town Hall and pulled it down, protested against Manchester's police attacks on the right to demonstrate in privatised town centre, and built support for striking electrician on a major building site. This has not diminished their ability to oppose the war and the occupation of Iraq: it has strengthened it since more people have come across its activities.
And Manchester is not a one off. Cardiff anti-war activists formed their own social forum to carry out the same kind of campaigning. In Sheffield, Leeds, Durham and London similar initiatives are in progress.
These local people's assemblies and social forums can keep the movement together and broaden the scope of our impact in Blair's Britain. More than that, through developing a network of people's assemblies and social forums, we no longer have to be reactive. We don't have to wait for another war. We can fight back now. Indeed, if we can mount mass campaigns against NHS foundation hospitals, in support of the post workers and for immigrant and asylum seeker rights. We will begin to create a far larger base from which to build an opposition should Blair and Bush try to launch another war.
A resolution from Cardiff Social Forum, initiated by Workers Power members active there, was put to the Assembly. It welcomed the setting up of local peoples assemblies and social forums and called on the anti-war coalitions to do the same in all areas "with the aim of building an anti-globalisation movement of the scale and vitality of the anti-war movement". This policy obviously struck a chord with the delegates, as it had at the first Assembly.
This time, despite the SWP opposing it, as they did at the first Assembly, it was passed by a majority. The SWP has consistently refused to back the project of building social forums or local people's assemblies in Britain. We believe this is a sectarian position, based on the premise that only the party can unite the struggles. In fact hundreds of thousands of activists today want to unite the various struggles, without necessarily being ready to join a socialist organisation at present. The SWP in pursuit of narrow party self-interest prefers to use its own fronts, like Globalise Resistance and the Anti-Nazi League, which are wheeled out and then parked at the whim of the SWP's leadership.
It must become the aim of every anti-war activist and anti-capitalist activist to build local social forums/peoples assemblies in the run-up to the European Social Forum in Paris in November. Britain had one of the liveliest anti-war movements anywhere in Europe. Yet, it lags behind other European countries when it comes to the development of a mass and ongoing anti-capitalist movement and in developing links with trade unionists in struggle.
Internationalism is not just about solidarity. It is also about learning from other peoples' struggles. If the Italians have built a mass movement that can act on issues as ranging from asylum seekers to workers rights, then maybe we should look at adopting a version of their social forums. If the French workers can paralyse whole cities as they did in the spring by co-ordinating their struggles in action councils (called "interpros") then that too might hold lessons for our struggles.
There is no shortage of issues to struggle around. But if we keep each issue locked into its own separate united front, Tony Blair will remain in office. No matter how weak Blair is, unless there is a stronger force to oust him, he will not fall. But if we link the issues on which there is mass anger and hatred together, we can begin to loosen his grip on power.
Of course we aim, on the basis of fighting together in the struggles, to win these activists to revolutionary socialism. But, in order to do that, we should help them broaden their experience rather than artificially confine it to a single issue. This may of course lead to activists developing their own ideas outside of the party framework or comparing the policies and theory of different socialist organisations. Is the SWP really afraid that, in open competition, its politics will not win out?
The continuing attacks on social services, public sector pay and asylum seekers will have a meshing effect on the anti-war, anti-capitalist and workers' movements. And out of that new organisations of struggle will emerge.
• Link the issues!
• Build social forums/local people's assemblies everywhere!
• Drive Blair from office!
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