22 - 28 November 2001
Issue No.561
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 22 - 28 November 2001 Issue No.561 |
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A portentous prelude
As their hold on Afghanistan's urban centres crumbles, Taliban forces go on the defensive, but the anti-war movement in the West shows no signs of abating, writes Gamal Nkrumah
With the abrupt ending of Taliban rule in the Afghan capital Kabul, and the Taliban's tactical withdrawal from the cities into the surrounding mountains, the "war against evil," as the relentless bombardment of Afghanistan has been dubbed by Western political establishments, has taken a new turn.
Protesters outside the EU foreign and defence ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday speak to a growing anti-war movement in Europe (photo: AP)
The deployment of the low-flying AC-130 Spectre aircraft signalled the commencement of a new stage in the "campaign against terror" that promises to be excruciatingly long and drawn-out. It portents a new stage where special forces from a number of Western nations are widely expected to play a more prominent role.
So, how is the anti-war movement in Western Europe reacting to these changes, and has the exacting pounding of "terrorist targets" and the resulting reversal of the Taliban forces' fortunes, pulled the rug from under the feet of the anti-war movement?
"There is a change, but it is a change in political emphasis -- a progression in a certain sense," Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) Vice-Chair Kate Hudson told Al-Ahram Weekly. CND, one of the most vocal anti-war groups, organised an anti-war event in London last Saturday in which some 50,000 people participated. The event was also held in remembrance of Afghans killed so far in the anti-terrorism campaign.
"The previous emphasis was more broadly on a simple anti- bombing message, but yesterday there was a greater emphasis on the dangers of the war escalating to other areas. It marks a greater understanding of US aims in the region and contextualises those developments within the framework of the globalisation process, indicating, in particular, our great concern for the implication of this campaign on civil liberties here in Britain and in the US," Hudson explained.
Hudson stressed that the pace of the anti-war campaign has quickened with the new developments. "There is no intention to cancel any of our anti-war activities. We have continued local vigils and protests, meetings with parliamentarians and we have a public rally scheduled for 15 December around the strategic issues in the war," Hudson assured.
On the parliamentarian front, and despite British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's warning to critics of the Afghanistan campaign against "indulging and appeasing" Osama Bin Laden, there have been strident condemnations of the government's performance across the political spectrum.
Oona King, Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, angrily condemned the wanton use of armed violence in Afghanistan, and voiced concern about the crippling impact of the sustained cluster-bomb attacks on Afghanistan's civilian population. She also criticised the wanton use of violence which resulted in incidents such as the razing to the ground of an International Committee of the Red Cross warehouse in Kabul last month.
There is also mounting concern that Western special forces, armed to the teeth with sophisticated high-tech gadgets, may end up unleashing a new round of terror. The Taliban, old hands at drawing enemy troops into deadly ambushes, are likely to be raring for the chance to waylay the special forces and engage them in hand-to-hand combat.
Many anti-war activists have described the deployment of Western special forces in Afghanistan as nothing more than an injection of infiltrators, assassins and hit-and-run squads, intended to terrorise the populace. "The British people will support this intervention as long as it is short, clearly defined and they know where the end of it lies," said Gwenyth Dunwoody, MP for Crewe and Nanwich, indicating that few people are prepared to tolerate a bloody cycle of protracted violence.
The other burning question for anti-war activists is how societies in the West can defend civil liberties and democratic rights at home while simultaneously rushing anti-terrorism legislation through their legislatures. The two issues have become inextricably linked for anti-war activists who have been compelled, through the introduction of draconian anti-terror legislation in the United States and Britain, to focus on the correlation.
While British parliamentarians voted overwhelmingly in favour of sweeping new anti-terrorism laws, including the power to imprison suspects without trial, those who oppose war are sticking to their guns and urging the government to uphold civil liberties. Some MPs have had reservations about the new legislation and insist on the insertion of time-limit clauses, meaning that the new rules will expire automatically after a set period if not renewed by parliament on a regular basis.
And the suggestion that the new anti-terrorism legislation sidesteps the European Convention for Human Rights has been another major point of contention. One Labour backbencher, Brian Sedgemore, dismissed the anti-terrorism legislation as "a ragbag of the most coercive measures that the best mandarin minds from the Home Office can produce."
Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington concurred, explaining that he detests what he considers a "knee-jerk approach" to promulgating anti-terrorism legislations. "Following the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, the Prevention of Terrorism Act was rushed through Parliament. Today actions carried out by protesters, campaigners and activists on a wide range of political and social issues may be deemed terrorist, thus attracting possible life prison sentences," Corbyn noted. He warned that, now that anti-war and anti-globalisation forces have coalesced, the anti-war movement itself might be targeted.
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