LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Global nature of protest
BY MIKE MARQUSEE
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A look at the significance of February 15, 2003.
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"Many demonstrators who hoped to deter the invasion of Iraq probably underestimated what they were up against ... ."
Voices of dissent: More people agree with what the protesters were saying. PHOTO: REUTERS
THREE years ago, the world witnessed something unprecedented. On the same day, in 900 cities in 40 countries north and south, east and west, 30 million people took to the streets in protest against the imminent attack on Iraq.
There were demonstrations in Moscow, Karachi, Dhaka, Manila, Johannesburg, Cairo, Kinshasa, Tel Aviv, among many others, but the biggest turnouts were in the belligerent nations. The marches in Britain, Spain, Italy and Australia were probably the largest in their countries' histories.
On February 15, 2003, I was lucky enough to find myself in New York. Here, in the city whose suffering on 9/11 had been the pretext for the escalating war on terror, half a million people braved freezing temperatures and police hostility to voice their dissent, their rage and their hopes. In race, age, sexuality and occupation the protesters were as diverse as the city itself. And it was clear from the speeches and from comments in the crowd that the dissident New Yorkers took comfort in the global nature of this protest. They knew they formed part of a human majority.
Greater misery?
There had been international protests in the past, but on those occasions a turnout of a few thousand in half a dozen cities might have been deemed a success. February 15 was something different: in numbers, in geographical spread, and in its impact on public consciousness.
Nonetheless, three years on, the war in Iraq continues, and the protesters' fears have been realised many times over. The U.S.-U.K. invasion uncovered no weapons of mass destruction but did plunge millions of Iraqis into even greater misery than they had known before, which is why in a survey of Iraqi opinion conducted by the British Ministry of Defence, 82 per cent wanted a prompt end to the occupation. Iraqis have endured three years of lawlessness, disrupted power and water supplies, human rights abuses (tens of thousands detained without charge, many tortured), economic breakdown, increasing disease, and lethal violence.
Bush himself conceded that he thought 30,000 Iraqis had been killed in the conflict so far. A statistical analysis recently published in the U.S.-based Counterpunch magazine — working from data collected in 2004 by researchers from Johns Hopkins University — concludes that the "best estimate" for deaths inflicted to date as a result of the invasion and occupation stands at 1,83,000. Even the facts as presented by the Pentagon imply death and injury on a huge scale.
A report to Congress indicates that in the second half of 2005 there were on average 60 Iraqis killed per day — a 50 per cent increase over the previous year. In the same six-month period, U.S. forces conducted more than 400 airstrikes, involving bombers, gunships or unmanned drones. Since March 2003, the Third Marine Aircraft Wing alone has dropped more than 5,00,000 tons of ordnance on Iraq, compared to the two million tonnes dropped by all U.S. forces in the entire course of the Vietnam War.
Destruction at many levels
Countless horrors have accompanied the conflict. The looting and destruction of Iraq's (humanity's) ancient heritage. The wave of kidnapping and assassinations that has taken the lives of more than 250 of the country's leading educators and intellectuals. The 100 journalists killed either by the occupiers or the resistance. The plunder of the Iraqi treasury by corrupt officials and multi-national corporations. The erosion of women's rights.
The occupiers have proclaimed one turning point after another. But despite referenda and elections, constitutions and cabinets, the high-tech bludgeoning of alleged rebel hot-beds such as Fallujah, Tal Afar, Samarra, Al-Qa'im, Haditha, Ramadi, and Husaybah, warfare continues and self-determination for Iraqis remains a remote prospect.
The writ of the central government remains negligible and its authority dependent on the 1,80,000 U.S.-led foreign troops. Meanwhile, the occupiers' divide-and-rule strategy (the only one left in their arsenal once it became clear that the bulk of the population, however relieved to be rid of Saddam Hussein, did not welcome their presence) has unleashed sectarianism and pushed Iraqi society perilously close to civil war.
A common theme of speeches at the February 15 demonstrations was that attacking Iraq was likely to increase the jihadi terrorism it was supposed to combat. So it has proved — in Iraq, in London and elsewhere. In Greek mythology, Cassandra's tragedy was that she saw the future but no one believed her predictions. The protesters' tragedy was that nearly everyone believed their predictions but the rulers proceeded on course for disaster regardless.
The remaining proponents of the initial invasion argue that all this is still better than rule by Saddam Hussein. Many in Iraq would disagree, but in any case what kind of a measure is this? Are these the only alternatives the West is prepared to offer the people of Iraq? For the dead, injured, impoverished and abused, this kind of calculus never adds up.
In the U.S. and Britain, more people than ever broadly agree with what the protesters were saying three years ago, but there are fewer people protesting. Ironically, one of the reasons for the decline in numbers on the streets is the extraordinary success of February 15, and the concomitant sense of failure that ensued. The record-breaking turnouts did not stop the U.S. and Britain from going to war. "We protested in huge numbers, numbers never seen before, and still it made no difference," people in London say. "They didn't listen. They never listen. So what's the point of protesting again?"
Too early to judge
Actually, it's far too early to judge the long-term significance of what happened on February 15, 2003. People who took part in the non-cooperation and civil disobedience campaigns in India in the 1920s and 1930s had to wait a long time for swaraj. There were eight years of protest and more than two million dead before the Vietnam War came to an end.
Many demonstrators who hoped to deter the invasion of Iraq probably underestimated what they were up against: not just a rogue U.S. president but also a sole superpower accustomed to shaping a global order of extreme inequality to its advantage. Reining it in will be the work of more than a day of demonstrations, no matter how huge. What February 15 did display, spectacularly, was the existence of a popular internationalism that has grown in the shadow of elite-driven globalisation.
Whether and in what manner the day is remembered in the future will depend on how the contest between the two unfolds.
Visit: www.mikemarqusee.com
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