Anti-war movement

At the end of August, the Respect Unity Coalition MP, George Galloway, circulated a document to the party leadership, which seems to have precipitated the disintegration of the organisation.

Galloway's paper, entitled It was the best of times, it was the worst of times brought to a head long-simmering tensions within the party.

The document sharply criticised the Respect national office (largely staffed by SWP members) for the party's failure to fulfil its potential “in…

In equal measures: hope and despair

This March marks the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and the start of the long-term military and economic occupation.

Tens of thousands of civilians and more than 3,000 coalition soldiers have been killed; thousands more have been horrifically wounded. Over the past four years people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their families and their minds. Iraqi society is in ruins and the occupiers' political stability is on a…

In what is perhaps the first academic survey of locally based anti-war groups in this country, a picture emerges of a movement which, whilst primarily concerned with international conflict, is very much rooted in local people, local politics, local activism and local media, to a possibly surprising degree.

Based on survey responses from 105 local groups and 27 follow-up interviews with activists, the municipal character of the movement shone through. Indeed this may even be one of…

Here's a quiz: who said this? “It is also a time when XXX - totally united around its goals and in support of its leadership - has an increasingly high profile ...” That's the second sentence of a recent press release (from organisation XXX). The language is reminiscent of that in the news-sheets of the (greatly missed) Workers Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism which had several members in South London 25 years ago.

Clearly this is from some throwback to an earlier era, when…

“Before I went to Iraq I was concerned about the legality of the invasion and the occupation. But whilst I was there, what I saw - the conduct of the war - was wrong, a lot of things were going wrong ... and my views became clearer and stronger, until it reached a point where I couldn't separate them from my job and I could no longer serve in Iraq.” - Former SAS trooper Ben Griffin speaking in mid-March about his decision to leave the military for reasons of…

Timing and space dictate that this second offering from Verso - a slim volume of anti-Iraq war essays - gets a rather slim space in this issue of PN.

This collection of six short articles, written over the past three years by contributors Brian Eno, John Le Carre, Harold Pinter, Richard Dawkins, Michel Faber and Haifa Zangana, was published in March to mark the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

To a large degree this book is essentially “recycled material”: I…

In an effort to prevent the war on Iraq, millions of people around the world took to the streets and demonstrated their own passion for peace. The war still happened. The occupation of Iraq continues. But why couldn't we stop that war? What more could we

Despite the subtitle, this is not “The story of Britain's biggest mass movement”. There are brief inspiring accounts scattered throughout and some wonderful poems and posters, but these are in the margins, drowned in a sea of analysis and national pol

War is not an inevitable fact of life - though it may seem so when we look at the entirety of human history - it is something that we create.

The long build-up to the war on Iraq, the disastrous mess the occupiers have created (and no doubt, eventually, will leave behind) may appear to be just another sorry chapter - a predictable consequence of the global power structures and aspirations of our, predominantly, militarist, capitalist, mode of operating.

…

“Migrant workers from different nationalities in Korea stand united against the US war against Iraq. We join in solidarity with other peace--and freedom--loving people in Korea and the rest of the world, and with millions of our fellow migrants and compatriots in our homelands and overseas, in saying NO! to this unjust war.”. So read the text on a leaflet ETU-MB (Equal Trade Union Migrant's Branch, a part of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions/KCTU) members distributed during the anti-…

For some time now the US government has threatened to expand the “war against terrorism” - suggesting that more “rogue states” will face war. On the US defined “axis of evil”, Iraq is the primary target, with a war being threatened since May 2002.

Activists from a variety of German peace groups wanted to organise against this war - a war which we believe is in breach of human rights and international law - and in autumn 2002 we came together to develop forms of resistance to the war…

The overt military phase of the War on Terrorism has begun. And so, too, have the demonstrations, both in the Islamic world and through the cities of the Western democracies - including the US. Past polls have shown an overwhelming majority of the world opposed to US military retaliation for the atrocities of 11 September - 80 to 90 percent in much of Europe and Latin America. But in the US, the “peace movement” faces a number of challenges in making its case against this, the first military…