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A
crisp winter morning set the scene for the events
that were to follow globally throughout the remainder
of that day. I awoke to the sun shining down on Belfast,
and with the rain staying thankfully away my immediate
thought was Mother Nature is with us too.
The
day being Saturday February 15th where people in 603
different cities all over the globe and throughout
mutiple team zones marched together jointly to loudly
speak out to the US/UK lead alliance that any attack
on Iraq would be “Not In Our Name”.
Congregating
for the West Belfast feeder march, (which was organised
by the ‘West Belfast Stop The War’ campaign)
at the bottom of the Whiterock Road a few hundred
people stood and listened while the speakers; Michael
Ferguson (Sinn Fein), Feilim O’Adhmail (Ireland
Palestine Solidarity Campaign) and David Carlin (Socialist
Worker’s Party) highlighted the issue and reasons
as to why so many people were there, willing to give
up their time to ensure their voices are heard. The
over riding theme - that this proposed war on Iraq
is not a legitimate one and should be stopped before
thousands of innocents die. No blood for oil was the
basic message. Feilim also focused on the severity
of the situation in Palestine and the importance of
not allowing Israeli agression to continue and to
be further reinforced by the ridiculousness that is
in my view “The War Against Terror”.
Shortly
after 1pm, once posters and banners where distributed,
the people came together and set off down the Falls
Road behind a banner reading “ West Belfast Says
No to War on Iraq “. The atmosphere was wonderful
- people of all political spectrums marching down
the Falls under one united issue, almost unbelievable
if one had looked to some of the individuals that
made up the marchers.
I
happened to be at the front of the march and therefore
was unable to realise the crowds of people that had
joined in since leaving the starting point. At one
point just after the Beechmount Leisure centre Others
asked the three would-be -revolutionaries at the front
eager to carry out the day's task to slow down and
let the rest of the march catch up - it was at that
point I remarked to others in amazement at how many
people were present. What also made the journey down
the road even more appealing was the police escort.
Many a march down the same road would at one time
or another been stopped or harassed by the security
forces, but not today.
Marching
past banners like that on the Falls Women’s Centre
calling for “No War on Iraq” and following
what was mostly Davy Carlin and Sean Symth’ chants,
one of which seemed to be the favourite of the crowd
- “Who let the bombs out “ response being
“ Bush, Bush and Blair”. Car horns sounding
in support of marchers and passers by either joining
in or at least stopping; paying attention to the numbers
passing them on the road reinforced the beginning
of what was indeed a beautiful day.
Upon
reaching the city centre, it occurred to me that for
many years marches from ‘our’ end of the
town never even got past Castle Street let alone the
continued escort from the security forces. Walking
up Royal Avenue I remarked jokingly to a fellow marcher
that we where walking up the street with a banner
written on the back of Celtic wallpaper. When in our
lifetime would any of us have done so and not feared
a beating? This feeder march was on its way to the
Arts College to meet with other protestors that had
gathered there to begin a joint procession and rally
to the City Hall. We luckily arrived at around the
same time as the Derry feeder march only instead of
a crisp afternoon walk those protestors had just walked
for four concurrent days from Derry to Belfast. They
were greeted like heroes by the rest of the thousands
that had squeezed into the surrounding area. We arrived
to cheers and applause as well as the crowd joining
in with slogans rung out yet again by Davy and his
loud speaker. At this point it was hard not to feel
elated when it was obvious so many had turned out
to make this day one we should not to quickly forget.
Arriving
and making our way to the front of the Cathederal
it was an amazing site, banners and posters of all
origins. A few made remarks of “my god there
is an SDLP banner too”. The only noticeable parties
not present by banners were that of the unionist political
parties and not to my surprise no Sinn Fein banners
or posters that where so evidently distributed in
Dublin. (Does this mean the North wing of Sinn Fein
is pro war?) Regardless of any absence or presence
nothing would have been able to dampen the carnival
like atmosphere of these protestors who came from
all walks of life. Diversity of the crowd reinforced
that people are genuinely aware that this war is unjust.
As the crowd grew and grew stewards where busy trying
to get everyone in place to move on and begin our
procession to the City Hall. Walking once again through
Royal Avenue I noticed that the shop ‘Cult’
had closed its doors to allow employees to attend
the protest. This I thought should have ideally been
the policy of all business owners even for those few
hours.
Walking
shoulder to shoulder it was impossible not to notice
that thousands had made the same decision as myself,
an attempt that their voices were to be heard by those
in power. Once I had reached the end destination I
stood and observed the historic event taking place
- again speakers adressed the crowd; probably the
biggest crowd any of them has had the opportunity
to address. Among the speakers where, Jamal Iweida,
President of the Belfast Islamic centre. Eamonn McCann,
Journalist and Anti-war activist, representatives
from the ‘School Students Against War’ (SSAW)
The assistant general secretary from Irish Congress
of Trade Unions (ICTU) spoke. They all reiterated
what we had heard at the beginning of our journey.
Eamonn voiced quite loudly the words that Sean Symth
had sprayed on his own banner “ Ulster Says No
- To War”. Words that were once infamous - having
their origins with right wing unionist Ian Paisley
- ''Ulster Says No'' rang out and were applauded by
the tens of thousands that had turned out onto the
streets of Belfast.
I was glad to hear from the podium that those from
the coalition gave credit where it was due and thanked
the SWP for the hard work that they had done to enable
the march to take place. Regardless of one’s
opinion about the party’s politics the work that
their members put into this coalition was shown when
they along with others were able to mobilise so many
in an otherwise normally apathetic political climate.
It was indeed a sight for sore eyes. And as Anthony
(waistcoat and Sean Thorton hat-free) had stated -
for a city who have a few years previously given a
Mexican wave to the one and only Mr Bill Clinton,
it was now uplifting to witness it having over twenty
thousand people on its streets letting these so called
people who are leading this tyranny that they dare
not do so - ''NOT IN OUR NAME''
That’s an accomplishment in a city like Belfast
where even the deaths of its own inhabitants had never
been able to bring tens of thousands together onto
the streets in unity of purpose and protest.
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