|
I
went to a meeting of the Irish Anti-War Movement last
night. I had not been at one in almost a year. And
after that I promised myself I would never go back.
Members of the various Trotskyists sects sat there
waiting to pounce on each other and they did not have
long to wait. That meeting fell apart in disarray
while most of us departed the room and headed home.
They didn't even notice we were away as they got on
with, what for them was the real business of the evening,
snarling and howling allegations at each other. Being
thankful for small mercies I was grateful that they
had no ice picks with which to sort each other out.
I suppose sectarian squabbling is the raison d'etre
for their sectional existence. In the meantime the
world moves on leaving them stuck in Moscow in 1917.
Last
night's meeting was different. Only one of those involved
in last years charade was in attendance. And freed
from the goading of the others he made an excellent
contribution. It was heartening also to see Ann Fitzpatrick
there. She had chaired last year’s debacle and
can only have been demoralised at the complete lack
of seriousness on display at a time when an impoverished
and vulnerable Afghan population was paying the price
set by the Coalition bombers for the crimes of their
totalitarian and theocratic leadership. But that hardly
mattered to the sects when there were deviationists
to be denounced and rounded upon. On the platform
with Ann yesterday evening were Feilim O hAdhmail
of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Brian
Kelly of the Socialist Workers Party.
In
many ways it was Ann who summed up a sentiment common
to swathes of people involved in non-institutional
politics throughout the world today. ‘We know
what we are against but we are not sure what we are
for. It is still being debated.’ A bit Chomskyan
- perhaps even Foucauldian or Derridean but hardly
Marxist. Yet, that Marxists and non-Marxists alike
are sitting down together trying to prevent or even
limit the fate that most likely awaits the civilian
population of Iraq and are having that debate was a cause
for some satisfaction. Ann spoke of her recent involvement
in the huge Florence demonstration and shared with
her audience the lesson she took away from that experience
- there are non-institutional alternatives and it
is important for people to build them here rather
than have them exist only as mere memories from an
Italian city.
Following
her was Feilim. In the past year he has expended much
of his energy in campaigning on behalf of the Palestinians.
He has visited the occupied territories and carries
with him a controlled anger as a result of what he
witnessed there. His house for a month was home to
four young Palestinians who visited Ireland at the
request of the IPSC during the summer. He spoke about
the Israeli targeting of Palestinian children, backing
up his claims with extensive statistics. He stated
that the IPSC would be opposing any US led attempt
to attack Iraq. While opposed to the war on principle
he stated that his work on behalf of the Palestinians
had led him to fear for their future - Sharon would
use it as a shield to commit even greater atrocities.
Commenting
on the palpable lack of widespread involvement in
campaigns of the type we were gathered to construct,
Feilim felt the cause for this lay in our own conflict
situation here in Ireland. Too many people who would
otherwise be involved are not because they are busy
in other political activities or standing shoulder
to shoulder with their own communities who are under
siege or facing some other problem. But I felt that
a competing explanation was worthy of consideration.
The development of a culture of institutional politics
within the heart of what were formerly resistance
communities may, in my view, have helped marginalise
the alternative non-institutional politics that Ann
had referred to and which are the substance and mainstay
of oppositional campaigns. Feilim concluded by asking
the audience to call on all parties, in particular
those who claim to be radical, to demonstrate where
they stand on the great issues that plague the world
today - with the oppressed or the oppressor.
Brian
Kelly has recently been the recipient of a number
of prestigious awards for his book on racist related
activities in the Southern states of America. Organised
and articulate he wasted no time in beginning his
deconstruction of the pro-war myths. Drawing on material
from informed sources he argued that the evidence
showed that Iraq has no capacity to wage an attack
of mass destruction on the USA. Amongst those sources
quoted were CIA documentation, the International Institute
for Strategic Studies and Scott Ridder, the former
head of the United Nations Weapons Inspection team.
He then went on to ask why, if there was no genuine
threat from Iraq, were the US determined to pursue
the present course of action? His answer is that American
capital is trying to shape a world in which it can dictate
what others will do. The intentions to wage this war,
he contended, were well entrenched before 9/11.
An
interesting feature of the night came when Davy Carlin,
the chair, read out a statement from PUP member and
former loyalist prisoner Billy Mitchel who offered
his support for the stand of the anti-war movement.
I held my breath in anticipation of a walk out from
some cultic moron on the grounds that loyalists can’t
take part in anti-war activity. But they seemed to
be elsewhere last night - maybe at 'defend China'
rallies - and we were spared the rant.
Davy
Carlin who chaired the meeting managed to achieve
what few do at these type of events - he did not permit
the panel to go on too long and he provided sufficient
time for the audience to participate. One drawback,
however was that due to the need to keep contributions
from the floor brief some of his SWP colleagues were
unable to expound at any length even though they were
actually making some of the most insightful contributions
of the evening. They at least respected the position
of the chair. Other socialists, however, persisted
in long winded exercises in vacuity. One man, fed
up with the monologues, whispered to me 'I'm bored.'
I was too.
The
best contributions I heard dealt with a rejection
of the notion cultivated by Christopher Hitchens that
Islamic fundamentalism constituted a theocratic fascism
which should be confronted by a progressive Western
secularism; and that the Bosnian experience showed
us that despotic regimes removed by military intervention
rather than popular revolt reduced the chances of
the despots being replaced with thoroughly democratic
regimes.
A
positive meeting, I nevertheless came away feeling
it was very much the same old faces; tired people
digging deep into their depleting reserves of time
in order to achieve something better for others not
able to do much themselves. What can a malnourished
and ill Iraqi child or his mother do to halt the cluster
bombs? I left for home not convinced that we could
do much either. This is a city that sees many of its
inhabitants jump up and down like clowns to greet
Bill Clinton not long after he had destroyed a Sudanese
pharmaceutical factory. Andrew King was alone in challenging
him. No surprise that out of the Clinton audience
he was perhaps the only one to have been with us last
night. But to go home and do nothing seemed less ethical
than persevering in a bid to register resistance and
dissent, and help in some infinitesimal way to keep
alive Ann Fitzpatrick's hope for that alternative
world.
Index: Current Articles + Latest News and Views + Book Reviews +
Letters + Archives
|
