People's Democracy

ECONOMIC NOTES

The Significance Of The Anti-War Protests

Jayati Ghosh

THERE is no doubt about it, the world is changing. The scale of anti-war protests across the globe over the past weekend was so large as to be completely unexpected even by the organizers. Nearly 10 million people are estimated to have marched in more than 600 cities and towns, in a display of public concern and anger that is unmatched in recent history.

Comparisons have been made to the protests against the US-Vietnam war. But really, there is little comparison. Most of the anti-war demonstrations of that time, especially in the United States, occurred well after the war had been in progress for several years, had already claimed thousands of lives, had devastated the north of that country and led to hundreds of “body bags” of dead American soldiers being brought back. While there was some idealism and some principled reaction to US aggression in those protests, it is true that many of the protestors were in fact young US citizens who were directly affected by the war in terms of being drafted to serve in the US army, or in other ways.

UNPARALLELED PROTETS

 By contrast, the current protests are historically unparalleled, because they are occurring on such a scale and intensity even before the war has started. Of course, in some less obvious ways, the war has already started. The people of Iraq have already suffered more than a decade of harsh sanctions which have meant that more than a million people, half of them children, have died for lack of medicines. Recently they have been subject to the most humiliating and intrusive inspections by UN weapons inspectors, which have disrupted daily life and created massive instability. They have been living under tremendous psychological pressure in the form of the almost constant and ever more likely threat of US bombing and war.

Despite all this, the US government has not yet been able to begin its aggressive military campaign in the way that it clearly intended to. And this makes the anti-war protests even more significant. There are three other features of these protests that make them not only qualitatively new, but also possible harbingers of changed international politics as well.

The first is that the protests so far have been the biggest and most vociferous (but peaceful) in the very countries whose governments have been most actively supporting the US war. In London, the capital of the country led by George Bush’s favourite ally, the antiwar demonstration is estimated to have numbered two million people, surprising even the organisers. In Italy, there were more than two hundred thousand people protesting against Silvio Berlusconi’s support of the US on this issue. In Australia, whose government has already committed troops for this unjust war, a quarter of a million people are said to have marched against the war in Sydney. And in the heart of the beast itself, in Washington DC, the anti-war demonstration drew an estimated 350,000 protestors, many of whom were prevented from reaching the meeting point by over-zealous police.

Such a huge display of public antipathy even before any actual battle or bombing, is completely unprecedented. It shows the much greater degree of principled objection to the war across the people of the world. This shows that the disjunction between the rulers and the people of these countries is now very great and may never have been greater. There is widespread public dismay, resentment and even anger, at the way in which preparations for the war are going ahead despite the clear evidence that the people are against it.

This becomes clear from the second important aspect of these demonstrations, that they have included a wide range of people that is much larger and more inclusive than those which include simply the “usual suspects”. In other words, while leftists and progressives have everywhere been at the forefront of the protests, many more people of different broad political views have taken part, including people who were attending a demonstration for the first time in their lives. The fact that so many people who earlier considered themselves to be apathetic have been drawn into reacting against the planned war, is a sign of both the greater maturity of the citizenry and the blatant aggression which has already been displayed by the United States government.

The third point is that these protests have truly been part of “globalised resistance”, that is they have been synchronised and co-ordinated across the world. In this, they have much in common to the anti-globalisation protests that have also swept across the globe in the past few years. Indeed, it could be safe to argue that the anti-globalisation and anti-war protests are actually merging, so that they effectively become a joint struggle of ordinary people across the world against imperialism.

NEW FORM OF GLOBAL RESISTANCE

Of course, it is still too soon to say that this is a cohesive or even coherent movement. Nor is it clearly defined, and it contains many different strands with many different views about the world. In fact, many of the people who are taking part in these huge demonstrations are probably not aware of the full power and implications of all that they are protesting against. Nevertheless, this marks not just beginning but a qualitatively new phase in international capitalism, and a whole new form of international resistance to imperialism.

Indeed it is probably right to believe that this series of events is likely to mark a turning point in international politics, and even therefore in world history. Even the New York Times, which is very much a newspaper of the US establishment, was moved to comment that “there may now be two superpowers in the world: the United States and international public opinion.”

Of course, it has helped the protestors to some extent that the US has been so blatant in its imperialist designs and even so ridiculous in its claims for the need for this war against Iraq at this time. It says much for the overconfidence of the only superpower in the world, that its expansionist and aggressive designs have been so open and blatant, and that the US government has not even tried to make a minimally plausible case for its actions. It is probably this attitude that has caused even the governments of France and Germany to react against it.

So, this latest aggressive display of US imperialism may turn out to sow the seeds of its own undoing. There is no doubt that already, it has succeeded in creating a global resistance of unprecedented spread and organisation. The instability that will inevitably be created by this overextension of US power may then at least have one positive fall out, in terms of accelerating the revival of global progressive forces.