On February 15, 2003, the people of London shrugged off the early morning fog and chill to march against the impending war on Iraq. They brought their overcoats, banners, drums, hangovers, and the fire in their belly. We were all there. Our reasons for being there were as varied as our numbers. There were students, activists, lawyers, leftists, capitalists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, the sober and the stoned. Our grounds were political, moral and legal. And none of us could see the reason behind launching into war. The biggest reason that brought out people was the affect this war would have on Iraqi citizens. The Bush family’s first fieldtrip to the Middle East cost around 100,000 deaths in Iraq in 1991. How many more will die this time around? How many of them will be from among the British troops? How many more families will be destroyed so that one Texan son keeps his promise to his daddy? How many casualties will be acceptable to us, the reasonable folk? The world is now being asked to support another war, politically and financially. But why are we going to war? This war will cost more than the Gulf War of 1991 and ambitiously aims to claim Baghdad and promote “regime change” in the arrogant belief that democracy is contagious. How will bombing Iraq get rid of it’s dictatorship? Has bombing Afghanistan gotten rid of Al Qaida? How is democracy going to work in a country that has just been bombed by the US and has lost much of it’s civilian population who had nothing to do with Saddam ignoring UN resolution 1441? Where is the reasoning there? The most frightening thing about this farcical situation is how history is repeating itself, only without any of it’s lessons. The USA is planning on yet another regime change convinced that it would replace a military dictatorship with democracy. Lessons from Nicaragua, Chile and Vietnam are forgotten by the reasonable folk. Of course dictatorships are never what the people need to live free and fulfilled lives. But it is reasonable to question why “regime change” becomes so pressing only in the case of certain countries. Indonesia’s Suharto regime was responsible for killing a million of it’s citizens. Where was the US’s love for the citizens of another country then? Or was it simply passionate about creating employment for Indonesians in the US owned oil businesses in Indonesia? We could turn to the “evidence against Iraq” for some answers. Answers which are never clear but we are promised that they exist, by the politicians who are asking us to go to war with our cluster bombs, carpet bombers, tanks, ammunitions and smart bombs. While we, the reasonable folk, are being fed these promises, news reaches us that the US and UK forces have already started air bombing Iraqi no-fly zones, all in the name of reducing risks to Allied troops from surface to surface missiles. This is, of course, in addition to the weekly air raids that the forces carry out in the southern and northern no-fly zones. And yet, we are asked to remain amenable to the politicians’ words. The anti-war marchers had brought with them a colourful sea of banners, strung with powerful words of peace, of visions of a reasonable world. On that cloudy day, the banners swung and swum in and out of view, blown about by the below freezing winds, buoyed by beating drums and marching footfalls. People were asking the government to not go to war in their name, to not spill Iraqi blood for Iraqi oil. Some asked for equality, some asked for equity and the freedom for the people of Palestine. In a reasonable world, we asked, should the weapons inspectors not be sent to Israel first? Why should only Iraqis face UN sanctions because of arms violations? Why should the USA calmly ignore the International Court of Justice’s ruling that they have illegally mined Nicaraguan harbours? Because they can. Because “reason” is something the poorer nations cannot afford the luxury of having recourse to. What will become of us all after the war? What of the four million Baghdadis? What of the millions more who will be rendered homeless, pitched under the light blue tents in refugee camps with the UN cars freighting cans of US corn beef? What will become of Saddam, exiled in another country? What will become of the new head of state, the new US puppet, filling the shoes that Saddam slipped into so easily when the US required him to? What will really change for the people of Iraq? What will change for the people of Palestine? Cant Exxon send it’s own troops? Sometimes, we are too afraid to truly imagine the answers and sometimes, we simply do not know. We do not understand the “why” and we do not know the “what then”. We are, in all likelihood, going to war. And yet we call ourselves reasonable. They talk of Democracy and Freedom of Expression and yet any voice of dissent from the Middle East and Europe is labelled as “blurred vision” and “Old Europe”. Prime Minister Blair is more than content in his role as honorary US Vice President, embarrassed at home as Labour MPs threaten to resign over the Government’s position. But the questions that we reasonable folk pose aren’t the issues being dealt with in political debates. They are more concerned with the realpolitik of it all: how to deal with Russia, Germany and France vis a vis the international arms industry. What are we do to now but to wait for a second UN resolution? The pro-war coalition is hoping that evidence supplied by the UN report by Hans Blix will help avoid accusations that the US and UK will bomb Baghdad regardless of international consent. Meanwhile Saddam has been given a final list of demands that must be met within mid March to comply with Resolution 1441 targets. The endgame is near as we, the reasonable folk, can do nothing but wait on our heels. Clearly, we are not convinced or more trusting of the political process. The Anti-War Coalition is already planning on more demonstrations on the day the allies go to war, at London’s Parliament Square, followed the next day by mass rallies converging at Hyde Park, much like the one we participated in. The students unions at various London University campuses are planning protests and rallies. We will all be there. But this time, it will be too late. As my friends and I made our way home from the march in February, I wondered what it meant to have morals and ethics. It is a luxury in the consciences of the reasonable few, the tempered pacifists, the Gandhians. It is too often not backed by political seats or by oil money. It is often wasted by the twists of fate and slights of national pride. It is a burden that we must carry, as we watch the Middle East go up in flames, in horror. It is difficult being so reasonable, when there is so little to have faith in. |
