On
a recent march and demonstration in London which
had been organized by the Stop the War Coalition,
there were banners and placards which proclaimed,
"We are all Hezbullah Now". In the main,
these placards were carried by members and supporters
of the Muslim Council of Britain [MCB], which
is an integral part of the StW coalition.
A
considerable number of non aligned Muslims and
Leftists also carried the placards, some of whom
were members of the SWP, which has a close relationship
with the MCB, as membership of both organizations
overlaps within the Respect Party. But socialists
from other Left organization and independents
could also be seen carrying the placards aloft.
What these people were doing by carrying the placard,
or marching along side people who were, was expressing
in a public and legitimate manner that in their
opinion the behavior of the Israeli government
and the Israeli Defense Force [IDF] in Lebanon
was wrong, and by proclaiming the sentiment expressed
on the placard they were publicly proclaiming
their support for the people of the Lebanon and
their main resistance movement, Hezbullah. Plus,
in the process, they were rejecting the continuous
lies told by G.W. Bush and Tony Blair and their
media gofers about current events in the Middle
East, not least the United States and UK administrations'
complicity in them, when they green flagged their
support for the IDF war machine in its 38 day
orgy of killing and destruction in the Lebanon.
Hardly
surprisingly then, when the mass media, never
slow to pick up on anything which might discredit
the Left, quickly cast their net around to find
anyone with a history of left activity, no matter
how far back it might be, who was willing to condemn
those who carried the aforementioned placards
on the march and decry them as supporters of international
terror, and misogyny. Nevermind that well over
half of those carrying these placards were women.
The
usual former leftist suspects were rolled out
by the Media, much as they had been in support
of Bush and Blair's criminal and disastrous invasion
of Iraq, to fill the Sunday broadsheets, right
wing magazines and websites like Harry's Place,
with nonsense about socialism in its dotage and
Islam being reactionary bedfellows.. With an eye
on the part of the fee retained until publication,
the hacks who were paid to write such guff failed
to mention the appalling behavior in the Lebanon
of the IDF, let alone the fact they rained down
cluster bombs upon the towns, village and countryside
of south Lebanon, which is against international
law due to the deadly nature of these ordnance,
which scatter small explosive devices indiscriminately
over a wide area, making it deadly dangerous for
civilians to return to their homes at the war's
end.
Nor
did these gallant scribes for freedom think their
readers might be interested in the fact that their
own governments had secretly been replenishing
the IDF weaponry throughout the course of the
war. Instead they centered their fire on those
Leftists who carried the aforementioned placards,
as if this act was somehow akin to a war crime.
Perhaps they would have done better to ask themselves
how many Lebanese or Israeli civilians were killed
by flying placards that proclaimed 'We are All
Hezbullah Now'!
If
there is one legacy from 9/11 it has been an ever
increasing intolerance for those who do not subscribe
to the neo-liberal viewpoint of the powers that
be. In the UK even the main opposition leaders
are afraid to step outside the cocoon of neo-liberalism;
this is especially true over Iraq, despite the
majority of people within the UK and Ireland being
against the war on Iraq and the continuing stationing
of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
ROI government felt unable to refuse the US administration
landing rights at Shannon, despite a majority
of its people being opposed to secret US government
flights.
There
is consensus amongst the political class in the
UK and to a lesser degree in the RoI that the
only option is to remain full square with the
Bush administration, which in reality amounts
to 'keep on digging'. Most citizens understand
only too well if you are in a hole, the best thing
to do if you wish to get out of it is to stop
digging.
By
carrying the 'We are all Hezbullah Now!' poster,
many of us were not dotting every "i"
or crossing every "t" of that organization's
program, but saying that the bloody hole Blair
and Bush have dug themselves into is not of our
making and we want no part of it, as our sympathy
and support lays not with them but their victims.
