The programme was as follows:
Opening session. I missed this.
Workshops:
1) Can military intervention on humanitarian grounds ever be justified?
2) Troops Out Now, or timetabled withdrawal?
Plenary session: way forward for the anti-war movement.
I attended workshop 1, and the plenary.
1) Can military intervention every be justified on humanitarian grounds?
The main speaker introduced the topic with a brief breakdown of the
question, making the following points…
* ’Humanitarianism’ is the logic of the powerful supposedly ‘helping’ the powerless. We should call for solidarity, not ‘humanitarianism’.
* The ‘humanitarian’ argument has been invoked for probably every single act of imperialist aggression in history, from the Romans invading Gaul to ‘stamp out human sacrifice’, to the ‘white mans burden’ of civilising Africa in the nineteenth century, etc etc. So it is nothing new.
* The real question, then, is how seriously can we take our government’s claims that it intervenes on humanitarian grounds?
* Second, if the answer is ‘not seriously at all’, should we demand that they DO intervene in other countries in a humanitarian way?
The following points were made in the ensuing discussion:
* The state structures and power relations in imperialist countries make it IMPOSSIBLE to intervene in a humanitarian way. Demanding that they do so is like demanding milk out of a donkey: silly. This was point was made several times, but one person in particular was unconvinced, which suggests to me that we need to work on explaining WHY THE STATE STRUCTURE DISALLOWS
imperialist countries from intervening in a progressive way.
* Examples were put forward where people felt interventions HAD been justified: Cuba in Angola, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and Vietnam in Cambodia. It was noted that none of these states suffered from the same defects as the imperialist countries – they were not set up to maximise profit for the ruling class, therefore they were able to commit resources for purposes of solidarity, an option which is not available to, for example, the British state.
Plenary: The way forward for the anti-war movement
This discussion revolved around two main issues:
1) What should be the slogan for the anti-war movement?
2) How should the movement organise itself, and what actions should it be working towards?
This session was introduced by Zed, chair of the Oxford Anti-War
association. He made the following points:
· When he has done stalls, there has been confusion from the public about whether the war is actually still going on. Hence, we need clarity about the movements objectives.
* The main problem the movement has faced is lack of activists.
Although we had many sympathisers, very few of these became involved in organising.
Slogan
There was general consensus that “Troops Out Now” should be the main slogan of the movement. (There has been discussion in some quarters of the national movement of watered down slogans such as “Troops Out as soon as possible” (no different from the Blair/ Bush line…), and “Troops out by xmas”!?
These seemingly wacky alternatives have come about largely due to the (Iraqi Communist Party-affiliated) Iraqi Confederation of Trade Unions’ support for a ‘timetabled withdrawal’.)
It was noted that the national leadership did well to maintain a stance of ‘Don’t Attack Iraq’ before the war, in spite of calls for watered down slogans such as ‘take it to the UN’ or “no war without a second resolution” or other such unprincipled rubbish. It was felt that we needed a similar simple slogan that recognised that the future shape of Iraq is not for Britain, even for the British anti-war movement to decide! Ie – Troops Out NOW (not ‘when we’ve sorted the place out’ or whatever…)
One person suggested that the demand for REPARATIONS for Iraq should also be one of the movement’s demands. However, it was noted that this could potentially open a can of worms, namely, who should they be paid to??
If it were to be the present Iraqi government, presumably they’d spend it on private US soldiers to protect them…
Action
*I raised the point that I had yet to see ANY decent analysis of the
anti-war movement and its’ strategies, successes and failures etc, from anyone involved in the movement, and suggested that we start thinking about…
1) Demos – how effective are they? Can they be made more effective?
2) Strikes – would strike action against the war have been feasible? If the national leadership had called for strike action, how would national union leaders have responded? How would ordinary workers have responded? If it has not been feasible so far, is it ever likely to become feasible? What are the necessary conditions?
3) Direct Action – is there any role for other forms of action, such as protests at military bases etc?
I also asked what people thought about the idea of calling for people to STAY outside parliament on February 15th, Ukraine style, literally staying day and night, until their demands were met. If the national leadership had made such a call, how many people would have responded? Even if it were only 0.1%, that would still have been 2000 people, quite a significant presence.
Rotas could have been organised to ensure these numbers did not
dwindle, etc.
The following points were made in response to my questions…
Strikes
* First we must win the argument. The Labour movement is not convinced that
we should be calling for troops out now.
* It is illegal to strike in support of someone else (‘secondary
picketing’)
– therefore no union leaders would have supported it, as it would have risked all their funds being taken away.
* The chair of Oxfordshire Unison’s health branch commented, however, that he was shocked by how many Oxfordshire workers in his branch WERE open to the possibility of taking illegal strike action against the war, although he thinks the usual ‘conservatism’ may have taken hold again now.
Demos – why not make them ongoing?
* Ed pointed out that there are several differences from our situation and the situation in, for example, Ukraine or Uzbekistan earlier this year (where people took the streets and stayed there).
1) They have more job security in those countries, whereas in Britain, people would get the sack straight away – therefore they were worried about losing their jobs, and want to get back home.
2) They utilised situations where they had bans on demonstrations, that were unenforceable, thus forcing a confrontation the government could not
win – the governments had to accept that they couldn’t make people obey them
(Ukraine), or in Uzbekistan, the government opened fire, thus giving
support to the demonstrators. In Britain, we would have neither – the police WOULD have the power to clear the demonstrators, but wouldn’t need to kill anyone.
However, people by and large seemed to think that a national call for a continued presence outside parliament wouldn’t have been a bad idea.
* Finally, the point was made that there need to be regular, ongoing, practical activities for newcomers to engage and take part in, if they are not to simply drift in and drift out.
From my point of view, it was good to have a forum to actually start to discuss strategies for the anti-war movement, rather than just
listening to someone saying how terrible everything is. However, I still found people a little reluctant to come forward and say WHAT they thought should be done as a movement – what should the national leadership be calling for, how do they think people would respond to such calls, etc. But it was a start.
Opening session. I missed this.
Workshops:
1) Can military intervention on humanitarian grounds ever be justified?
2) Troops Out Now, or timetabled withdrawal?
Plenary session: way forward for the anti-war movement.
I attended workshop 1, and the plenary.
1) Can military intervention every be justified on humanitarian grounds?
The main speaker introduced the topic with a brief breakdown of the
question, making the following points…
* ’Humanitarianism’ is the logic of the powerful supposedly ‘helping’ the powerless. We should call for solidarity, not ‘humanitarianism’.
* The ‘humanitarian’ argument has been invoked for probably every single act of imperialist aggression in history, from the Romans invading Gaul to ‘stamp out human sacrifice’, to the ‘white mans burden’ of civilising Africa in the nineteenth century, etc etc. So it is nothing new.
* The real question, then, is how seriously can we take our government’s claims that it intervenes on humanitarian grounds?
* Second, if the answer is ‘not seriously at all’, should we demand that they DO intervene in other countries in a humanitarian way?
The following points were made in the ensuing discussion:
* The state structures and power relations in imperialist countries make it IMPOSSIBLE to intervene in a humanitarian way. Demanding that they do so is like demanding milk out of a donkey: silly. This was point was made several times, but one person in particular was unconvinced, which suggests to me that we need to work on explaining WHY THE STATE STRUCTURE DISALLOWS
imperialist countries from intervening in a progressive way.
* Examples were put forward where people felt interventions HAD been justified: Cuba in Angola, the Soviets in Afghanistan, and Vietnam in Cambodia. It was noted that none of these states suffered from the same defects as the imperialist countries – they were not set up to maximise profit for the ruling class, therefore they were able to commit resources for purposes of solidarity, an option which is not available to, for example, the British state.
Plenary: The way forward for the anti-war movement
This discussion revolved around two main issues:
1) What should be the slogan for the anti-war movement?
2) How should the movement organise itself, and what actions should it be working towards?
This session was introduced by Zed, chair of the Oxford Anti-War
association. He made the following points:
· When he has done stalls, there has been confusion from the public about whether the war is actually still going on. Hence, we need clarity about the movements objectives.
* The main problem the movement has faced is lack of activists.
Although we had many sympathisers, very few of these became involved in organising.
Slogan
There was general consensus that “Troops Out Now” should be the main slogan of the movement. (There has been discussion in some quarters of the national movement of watered down slogans such as “Troops Out as soon as possible” (no different from the Blair/ Bush line…), and “Troops out by xmas”!?
These seemingly wacky alternatives have come about largely due to the (Iraqi Communist Party-affiliated) Iraqi Confederation of Trade Unions’ support for a ‘timetabled withdrawal’.)
It was noted that the national leadership did well to maintain a stance of ‘Don’t Attack Iraq’ before the war, in spite of calls for watered down slogans such as ‘take it to the UN’ or “no war without a second resolution” or other such unprincipled rubbish. It was felt that we needed a similar simple slogan that recognised that the future shape of Iraq is not for Britain, even for the British anti-war movement to decide! Ie – Troops Out NOW (not ‘when we’ve sorted the place out’ or whatever…)
One person suggested that the demand for REPARATIONS for Iraq should also be one of the movement’s demands. However, it was noted that this could potentially open a can of worms, namely, who should they be paid to??
If it were to be the present Iraqi government, presumably they’d spend it on private US soldiers to protect them…
Action
*I raised the point that I had yet to see ANY decent analysis of the
anti-war movement and its’ strategies, successes and failures etc, from anyone involved in the movement, and suggested that we start thinking about…
1) Demos – how effective are they? Can they be made more effective?
2) Strikes – would strike action against the war have been feasible? If the national leadership had called for strike action, how would national union leaders have responded? How would ordinary workers have responded? If it has not been feasible so far, is it ever likely to become feasible? What are the necessary conditions?
3) Direct Action – is there any role for other forms of action, such as protests at military bases etc?
I also asked what people thought about the idea of calling for people to STAY outside parliament on February 15th, Ukraine style, literally staying day and night, until their demands were met. If the national leadership had made such a call, how many people would have responded? Even if it were only 0.1%, that would still have been 2000 people, quite a significant presence.
Rotas could have been organised to ensure these numbers did not
dwindle, etc.
The following points were made in response to my questions…
Strikes
* First we must win the argument. The Labour movement is not convinced that
we should be calling for troops out now.
* It is illegal to strike in support of someone else (‘secondary
picketing’)
– therefore no union leaders would have supported it, as it would have risked all their funds being taken away.
* The chair of Oxfordshire Unison’s health branch commented, however, that he was shocked by how many Oxfordshire workers in his branch WERE open to the possibility of taking illegal strike action against the war, although he thinks the usual ‘conservatism’ may have taken hold again now.
Demos – why not make them ongoing?
* Ed pointed out that there are several differences from our situation and the situation in, for example, Ukraine or Uzbekistan earlier this year (where people took the streets and stayed there).
1) They have more job security in those countries, whereas in Britain, people would get the sack straight away – therefore they were worried about losing their jobs, and want to get back home.
2) They utilised situations where they had bans on demonstrations, that were unenforceable, thus forcing a confrontation the government could not
win – the governments had to accept that they couldn’t make people obey them
(Ukraine), or in Uzbekistan, the government opened fire, thus giving
support to the demonstrators. In Britain, we would have neither – the police WOULD have the power to clear the demonstrators, but wouldn’t need to kill anyone.
However, people by and large seemed to think that a national call for a continued presence outside parliament wouldn’t have been a bad idea.
* Finally, the point was made that there need to be regular, ongoing, practical activities for newcomers to engage and take part in, if they are not to simply drift in and drift out.
From my point of view, it was good to have a forum to actually start to discuss strategies for the anti-war movement, rather than just
listening to someone saying how terrible everything is. However, I still found people a little reluctant to come forward and say WHAT they thought should be done as a movement – what should the national leadership be calling for, how do they think people would respond to such calls, etc. But it was a start.
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