Protests spring up around the world
By G. Dunkel
Major anti-war rallies took place the last week of September
in countries that are close military and political allies of
the United States. The media here generally ignored them.
In Britain, the U.S.'s closest ally, about 5,000
people waited hours in a driving thunderstorm to protest at the
Labor Party's annual conference in Brighton, where Prime
Minister Tony Blair gave a pro-war speech wrapped in vague
promises to "change the world."
The cops, fearing another Gothenburg or Genoa, brought in
heavy reinforcements, put sharpshooters on the roofs, created a
five-mile air exclusion zone, and set up crash barriers, all as
part of the biggest security operation they have ever
mounted.
Police searched all coaches and vans heading for the
demonstration, delaying the start of the protest march by two
hours.
The protesters chanted slogans condemning Britain and the
U.S. "Blair, Bush, CIA: how many kids did you kill today?" they
shouted in reference to the British and U.S. bombings of
Iraq.
They waved signs with the message "No to war" and "People,
not profit--peace, not war," while listening to an impassioned
demand for Britain and the U.S. to avoid the mass slaughter of
innocent people in Afghanistan.
Italy saw two major protests; one in Naples on Sept.
27 drew 30,000 protesters, according to the organizers; one in
Rome on Sept. 29 drew 100,000 people.
The protest in Naples was aimed at the military buildup and
threat of a global conflict in the wake of the attacks in the
United States. Naples, which is home to NATO's Southern
Command, was supposed to play host to an important NATO
meeting, but it was moved to Brussels, Belgium. The
demonstration, however, was not called off.
The marchers were mostly students and blew whistles when
they weren't chanting anti-war slogans. Those at the front
chanted in English, "One, two, three, four, we don't want
another war. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the violence, stop
the hate."
Many carried portraits of Karl Marx and Che Guevara.
Two days later, on Sept. 29, the Refoundation Communist
Party (PRC) called out 100,000 people to march "for peace and
against war." The procession wound through the streets of Rome
to the sound of music that has disappeared from the U.S.
airwaves since Sept. 11--"Sunday, Bloody Sunday" by U2 and
"What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong.
The leadership of the PRC, including Fausto Bertinotti, and
representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization in
Rome all walked behind a banner with the slogan "Another world
is possible."
The demonstrators, mostly young, came from all over Italy
and sang fighting songs of the Italian partisans made popular
during the resistance to fascism--"Bella ciao" and "Bandiera
rossa"--as well as the International.
Some 10,000 marched on Sept. 27 in Athens, Greece,
against being dragged into a U.S. and NATO war in the Middle
East.
On Sept. 29 police in Istanbul, Turkey, arrested some
50 people trying to hold a protest against plans for a military
response by the United States.
The protesters gathered in the Bakirkoy, on the European
side of the city, under a banner reading "Anti-war platform,"
before police arrested them. Among the slogans shouted by the
group were "No to war" and "Curses upon American
imperialism."
Those arrested included the head of the Istanbul branch of
the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD), the lawyer Eren
Keskin.
Substantial demonstrations were also reported in Montreal,
Canada; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Berlin and
Frankfurt, Germany, and Barcelona, Spain.
Over 1,000 anti-war protesters marched in Sydney Sept. 29
calling on the Australian government to limit its
military role in the U.S. war. The protesters carried banners:
"Stop this racist war" and "Money for jobs, not war."
Reprinted from the Oct. 11, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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