18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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Wrong answer
Not everyone in Britain and America wants war. Jasper Thornton reports
As the US-led coalition rains bombs on Afghanistan, some of the hawks have been muttering about fifth columnists back home. Anti- war protests and rallies have startled residents in European capitals, in Australia and in the US. The London protests have brought together anti-globalisation protesters, Muslim groups and an organisation that campaigns for nuclear disarmament. In the US, the "independent" media have celebrated marches involving "up to 10,000", but the national media have either been silent on any anti-war protests or stressed their meagre support.
In Britain, the very day the bombing began on 7 October, a small group of 50 reportedly gathered in Trafalgar Square, in London, while 100 more held a peace vigil opposite Downing Street, the residence of the prime minister. On 13 October, a large rally organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and others, snaked its way from Marble Arch in London to Trafalgar Square. CND was last prominent in British public life during the 1980s, when it clashed repeatedly with then prime minister Margaret Thatcher over Britain's nuclear defence system.
The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, a non-official body of some Muslim leaders, asked British Muslims to support the CND march. Muslims made known their presence at the rally by interrupting an otherwise respectful minute's silence for the dead in Afghanistan by chanting "Allahu Akbar." Britain's Guardian reported that "over 20,000" attended the march; the BBC put the figure at 5,000.
Elsewhere in Britain, there were protests in Glasgow, and on 30 September an anti-globalisation protest at the Labour Party conference in Brighton took on an anti- war hue. Police arrested several at Brighton, including some "Wombles" -- activists who dress like characters from a popular British children's show, and who had a high profile during the May Day anti-capitalist riots in London.
Another rally on 13 October in London saw between 20,000 (according to police) and 50,000 (according to organisers) march against the war.
Despite the apparent flourishing of pro-peace sentiment in Britain, a Guardian poll last week said that 74 per cent of Britons support the US strikes.
There have also been reports that in the past weeks, 15,000 have demonstrated in Berlin, Germany, and 2,500 in Gothenberg, in Sweden (site of recent anti- globalisation action). In Australia, large demonstrations, planned for over a year in protest at US President George Bush's missile defence shield, also opposed the war in Afghanistan.
In the US, media groups independent from traditional news providers claimed that rallies have proliferated on university campuses across the country, with as many as 5,000 at some rallies objecting to the war. Other rallies were reported to have taken place in New York. The New York Times did not report any rallies, contenting itself with running an article by AP claiming the anti-war movement was paltry. The article contrasted apparently feeble turnout at progressive college campuses with the thousands who marched during the Vietnam War.
Since the Gulf War, anti-war groups and media watchers in the US and Britain have bitterly complained that the mainstream media has muffled reporting or debate on anti-war feelings. In Britain, a group called "Media Workers Against the War," started by documentary film maker John Pilger during the Gulf War, has revived. Hundreds attended a meeting after the bombing of Afghanistan. The group asks journalists to examine whether their reporting about war is slanted. Pilger remarked, "You would be forgiven for thinking that all the reporting on the conflict is written by the Ministry of Defence," blaming much of the distorted reporting on the absence of news agencies from Afghanistan. Until they began managed tours of the bombed village of Karam for the Western press at the end of last week, the Taliban had only suffered the presence in Afghanistan of Al-Jazeera, the Qatari satellite channel.
Meanwhile, in the US, complaint that truth has become war's earliest casualty, grows. During the Gulf War, Martin Kalb, an NBC correspondent and Harvard professor, complained, "The American people were short-changed because the press engaged in that most dangerous of professional practices: patriotic journalism." This time around the complaints are the same. A graduate student at Harvard University complained to an Al-Ahram Weekly correspondent that there was no variety of debate about the war in the US mainstream press, no nuance. "We're left with lazy reductionist categories like 'freedom versus terror,' which avoid all probing assessments of foreign policy," he said. "When talk-show host Bill Maher can be excoriated for uttering some banality about the war, what hope is there for any reasonable debate?" he asked. Bill Maher, host of satirical TV show Politically Incorrect, was pilloried by the press for suggesting that bombing targets from 20,000 feet was more cowardly than losing your life to destroy your target.
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