A-Infos (en) Freedom 6404 22 Feb, 2003 - Biggest demo ever

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On 15th February, London once again witnessed a 
massive mobilisation of disapproval for the 
government's impending war on Iraq, and this time in 
record numbers. There can hardly be any doubt of the 
scale and breadth of popular unrest - proof, if it were 
needed, that political apathy doesn't reside in the 
people, but in the politicians. The majority of Britons 
didn't vote in the last general election. This wasn't 
because they have no interest in how their lives are 
shaped, but because they have no faith in political 
leaders to shape their lives for the better. Perhaps the 
march was evidence of the first tender shoots of 
people's growing faith in themselves.

It's a fitting irony, as cracks begin to show in the Blair 
edifice, that the self-righteous proponent of a muddy 
and meandering 'Third Way' is now incapable of seeing 
beyond the false opposition between bombs or 
sanctions for Iraq. But a large number of electors are 
convinced that other solutions are available, and 
they're refusing to take the government at its word. 
Blair's Teflon halo has been irreparably tarnished.

However many people actually marched on 15th 
February, there's a remarkable level of criticism and 
outright suspicion among the public about the motives 
of their leaders. There's a deeply felt anxiety that 
British democracy isn't what people had been taught 
to believe. Who'd have thought it would be so 
commonly believed that tanks in Heathrow were little 
more than window-dressing, hard-sell scare tactics to 
merchandise a war?  Or that this view would be so 
widely reported? The notion would normally be 
dismissed as extremist by the mainstream press, as of 
course it was by politicians of ever colour.

There's no doubt the volume of popular protest has 
contributed to such refreshingly honest coverage. But 
this, in itself, doesn't account for the relish with which 
some in the mainstream media - usually ardent 
supporters of Britain's wars - have been going for the 
prime minister's jugular.

The media hasn't switched sides. It's still the (more or 
less explicit) voice of imperialism. Mainstream 
coverage this week concentrated on the 'Middle 
England' contingent, the first-timers, the liberals 
seeking a second UN resolution to sanction the killing. 
It's been resolutely dismissive of activists with a 
deeper criticism of buccaneering Western power. 

They're still, to use one journalistic phrase from last 
Sunday's papers, the 'usual suspects'.

The media's interest is because of a faultline that's 
now opening in western imperialism. About the 
balance of global power, the pressing question at the 
moment is whether an expanding Europe will be run by 
Europe itself (which means the bosses in France and 
Germany) or by the US, supported by dollar-hungry 
countries brought into the EC by its eastward 
expansion.

The government here has wholeheartedly thrown in its 
lot with George W. Bush, and there are grave doubts in 
the British ruling class about whether this will serve 
Britain's long-term interests. It's this unease amongst 
our rulers that explains the mainstream questioning of 
the war, much more than any new 'radicalism' in the 
country at large. When the war does finally come - as it 
will, regardless of how unprecedented the march was - 
the media will rally round the flag. We can only hope 
the same won't be true of the people who marched on 
that cold afternoon in central London.
Anton Pawluk

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