International Socialists

J.P. Ryan

Across the world, millions of people have taken part in demonstrations opposing Bush’s war plans.
It is being described as the largest mass movement in history, and it is certainly the best coordinated. Activists are organising on a global scale as never before.

In Aotearoa most of the major centres witnessed large protests on Saturday February 15. At least 8000 marched in Auckland (police suggest as many as 15,000), making it one of the largest actions since the days of the Springbok Tour. What is striking about these numbers is that it was a first-time experience for many of the people present. They gained new knowledge of a different political form: mass action.

As socialists, we’ve always argued that this is the best kind of protest. It’s based on the idea that liberation cannot be imposed from above, but rather must come from below. The concerted activity of the vast majority is real democracy – not the hackneyed politicking of parliamentarians, our ungovernable mis-representatives.

History shows us that this style of organising can stop wars. The withdrawal of the United States from its slaughter in Vietnam owed a great deal to the fervent opposition of American citizens, and those around the world who stood in solidarity with the fierce resistance of the Vietnamese people. Many of those protesters were not especially political at the beginning, but their views often changed through the experience of struggle.

It is true that the recent protests are unlikely to prevent the US war machine rolling into Iraq. Washington has played a very skilful public relations game over the past months, and illusions in the United Nations (an American creature) have hampered attempts to build a viable anti-war movement. It’s only now that people are taking to the streets. Anger, not despair, is the primary emotion here. The challenge is to direct this anger in the right directions, and to keep it burning. An American invasion will only be the first step, and we must organise now to keep the opposition going once the bombs stop falling and the occupation begins.

How should we go about this? Getting the United States out of Iraq will take a massive effort. This will never be achieved by the United Nations. The only force in the world today capable of realising this is the working class – the people who actually make the wealth, transport the materials, and die in the wars of the bosses. Organising disruptive strikes, placing bans on military items, and throwing Bush out of Washington – the working class has the potential to do all these things.

Conventional labour organisations will usually steer away from this kind of action. Here in New Zealand the Council of Trade Unions has limited its position to calling for “pressure on the Iraqi regime to destroy weapons of mass destruction.” They have nothing to say about the US arsenal, and remain silent on the subject of the economic sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants over the past decade. The Council makes no mention of the ongoing US bombing campaign. Furthermore, they state their support for a UN-approved invasion – as if a war of conquest can suddenly be rendered admirable by means of a vote.

Most significantly, the CTU has done nothing to mobilise its members against the war. This is giving tacit approval to a system that sends workers off to kill other workers in the interests of big business. No pressure has been placed on the Labour Government, and Helen Clark doesn’t feel her government to have been a target of the recent protests. We need to make it clear that it is.

Wars are not isolated, irrational events – they are a basic part of the system in which we live. Socialists have an important role to play in the anti-war movement by making clear the links between war and business. This means targeting governments that pretend to sit on the fence while the bombs fall. It means pushing for mass actions that make concrete demands. It means calling for the defeat of American forces in the Gulf and their withdrawal from bases across the region.

All this requires an analysis that exposes the capitalist system for what it is – brutal, hypocritical, and pathologically unjust. This is a system that must be smashed. Wars are the most barbaric expression of ruling class domination, and if we wish to rid the world of violence we must first put an end to the system that profits by it.