Bush visit - welcome?
November 19, 2003
Tomorrow the streets of London will be filled with a cross-section of the entire community as we march from Malet Street to Trafalgar Square via Kingsway, Waterloo and culminating in a march along Whitehall. This itself is a product of weeks of negotiation with the Metropolitan Police, to try and protect the right of free speech and assembly in our capital city. Having been a party to all these talks I have always had the feeling that there were huge pressures being placed on the Police to try and prevent any access to London by anybody whilst Bush was visiting.
Bush’s visit, the first state visit by a US President (as opposed to the lower status ‘Head of Government’ visits by Carter, Regan, Bush Snr and Clinton) is really bizarre for any observers of this scene. Refused an open procession in the State Landau with the Queen, Londoners will at least see a horse and carriage, with appropriate cycling outriders when the Stop the War Coalition put on this event later this morning.
All visiting heads of state or Government visit the Palace of Westminster and make an address to an assembly of both Houses, and some even answer questions. President Mandela came twice and happily answered questions on one visit for over an hour; he led no one into war, showed the courage of the South African people to oppose, and defeat the vile apartheid system. His State visit was the most popular ever. Bush Jnr on the other hand has no history of ever standing up for anything, unless avoiding being drafted into a war which he claimed to support counts as principle.
Since he is the centre of attention this week, and those of us who oppose his visit are being accused of “crude anti Americanism”, it is worth looking at his record.
On Sunday evening I was privileged to meet Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic and introduce him to the audience at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, and then watched the film with him. The film is really a journey of discovery of a young man growing up in a patriotic American household in the sixties. Convinced of his country’s rightness and opposition to the communist menace he joins the marines, and in his fervour, does two tours of duty. Almost killed and paralysed in 1968, he comes home to indifference and hostility and in time, becomes opposed to the brutality of the Vietnam War.
Ever since that time Ron has devoted his life to opposing the military policies of the United States. On Monday morning he led a delegation to Downing Street to ask that Bush’s visit be cancelled.
Tomorrow the march will be led by a group of United States citizens who are opposed to the war. Far from being anti-American, the peace movement has united the ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic, in the cause of peace.
George Bush, for the red carpet and £4 million worth of security and hospitality being spent, is the only US President to be elected by the Supreme Court, and as a result of the greatest ever expenditure, by Corporate America, on his campaign. Since then he has repaid with interest: tax cuts, welfare cuts, huge arms budgets, oil drilling and now contracts to rebuild Iraq to the same companies who provided the weapons to destroy it.
Globally, his administration has opposed the Kyoto protocol, supported cruel World Trade Organisation conditions and methods, and continued dumping surplus US food on the poorest countries - destroying much sustainable agriculture.
Post September 11th the US never took stock and looked at the world; war in Afghanistan followed; the Axis of Evil speech; and then the build up to Iraq. Afghanistan is presented as a victory, yet 8000 died and opium production is soaring, so it is hardly complete.
In Iraq, the military ‘victory’ of May, and the premature celebrations have been brought to a halt, as the casualties mount, and the effects of cluster bombs and Depleted Uranium are felt by thousands of wholly innocent Iraqis and their children.
Bush’s cabinet contains those who met and financed the Saddam Hussein section of the Ba’ath Party and they will be well aware of the problems that the unilateral and illegal war has created. Nobody who opposes the war ever supported the regime, but most people want to see a peaceful Iraq with an accountable Government.
In his determination to go to war in Iraq, Bush flouted the UN, and now wants the world body to pick up the pieces, without any legal authority.
Whilst the war in Iraq and Afghanistan gain all the publicity, we should not forget the on-going gruesome and grim conflict in Colombia, where the pro US Government is rapidly losing support as the US maintains its military presence on the pretence of being part of an anti drugs crusade.
Whilst many issues unite the peace and anti-war movements in this country, the Government’s support for the Bush-inspired National Missile Defence system has mobilised many members and supporters of CND; we opposed the US inspired cruise missiles in the 1980’s; NMD is equally as dangerous to world peace.
Amidst all the opposition to Bush we should reflect on one positive aspect: the world, as John Pilger reminds us, is divided into one superpower and world opinion. The unwanted visit of George Bush has helped to create a huge Trans Atlantic movement for peace and justice. Merely being allowed to hold the march tomorrow shows the strength of public opinion and the power of peaceful protest.
European Social Forum
November 12, 2003
This week end 50,000 people will be in Paris from all over Europe to join in the European Social Forum; another popular expression for peace and justice. In January the next World Social Forum will take place in Mumbai, the first time it has been held in Asia following the successful event in Porte Alegre last year.
The phenomenon of the Social Forum is the reality of John Pilger’s very apt analysis of the world relations. John told the Edward Said memorial meeting at the London School of Economics that there were two big powers in the world. “The USA and public opinion”.
The social forum movement brings together an enormous range of opinion from the established political parties of the left to environmental and justice movements. There is a verve and optimism around the process that produces results. The huge global anti war movement and the support for the efforts by southern countries in Cancun to get a better deal from the USA and Western Europe are examples of the rapidly changing face of the world of active politics.
Left parties and groups across Europe have come together and produced a statement in preparation for the European Social Forum.
This statement, agreed last Sunday in Paris, quite correctly starts from the view that each European country is subject to similar pressures on pensions, attack on social security and welfare systems and privatisation of health care. It also points out that anti Trade Union laws are a norm throughout Europe, although the degree varies as Britain is still living with the Thatcher legacy.
Amidst all this pressure the attacks on refugees and asylum seekers goes on. In reality many are the victims of an even more virulent form of the same pro free market policies that affect European workers.
The agreed statement goes on to point out that Europe should be a factor for progress and human rights but that the Maastricht criteria on economic convergence actually worsens inequalities and is creating higher levels of unemployment. The “overspending” by France and Germany can only be dealt with by attacking the most vulnerable in society.
The feeling of powerlessness and insecurity has strengthened the right in Europe. The answer to the far right is not to accept these dogmas but for socialists to demand more justice.
The “stability pact” of the central Bank must be challenged. We need an economic strategy that creates jobs, endorses a shorter working week, protects the environment and measures success by the quality of life and welfare of the people; we need also to address the issue of environmental protection and sustainability.
The leadership of the European Union increasingly see themselves as creating a Europe to rival the United States with its own Army, harmonised currency and economies and free market influence around the world.
The anti war movement around Europe took many of the pro war leaders by surprise. The very determination and strength of the anti war demonstrations certainly made it politically impossible for some countries to join the US and Britain in the illegal attack on Iraq.
The political classes in Europe are debating the draft European constitution yet there has been very little public or popular debate about it and where there is it is usually characterised as pro or anti Europe. Perhaps we should be asking why this document is being produced at all and how it will make the institutions and the economic direction of Europe more accountable.
Above all, in the case of Britain there is a very real question of the need for a public referendum on it – something that so far the Government has signally failed to give any undertaking on.
Another Europe that provides real security from poverty and unemployment and is a force in the world that opposes the orthodoxy of the World Trade Organisation and International Monetary Fund is possible. It is also possible to have a Europe that will give political expression to the millions who marched for peace in Iraq and the Middle East.
Last Sunday was a day of remembrance of the millions who died in the two world wars and in numerous conflicts since. Ordinary decent people killed by war: young men and women with everything to live for dead on the Western front and the battlefields of the Second World War. Since the end of the war in 1945 millions more have died in colonial conflicts and wars for resources.
Peace is not just the absence of war, or even the absence of the threat of war. Falling standards of living and life expectancy in sub Saharan Africa; brutal trade conditions on primary producers and massive shanty towns around cities are hardly recipes for peace.
Socialist ideas grew in Europe from the brutal experience of the industrial revolution. This week end in Paris thousands will be discussing and debating a way forward where Europe works in harmony with the rest of the world, not in that other great tradition of European expansion and colonialism.
The Social Forum movement is a huge statement of optimism and hope for peace, and an opportunity to agree on common positions from many disparate groups and traditions.
