Like a few, but sadly not that many, anti-war activists I took to the streets on 27th of September, and like many of those who joined me I was not exactly overjoyed with what I saw and heard there. If ever any indication of the self-imposed crisis the anti-war movement is in were needed then the platform on this demonstration would do the trick quite well.
To start with the Liberal Democrats are back on the platform, claiming rather laughably that they were "the only consistently anti-war political party". If I were pressed to find a word to describe the Liberals' policy on the war then consistent would not exactly be the first word I'd choose. Especially not if I were able to use swear words. Fortunately a later speaker questioned the Liberal speaker's choice of phrase, however only to point out that Plaid Cymru had also been consistently anti-war. I never thought I would have to listen to people who call themselves socialists applauding a representative of a self-proclaimed nationalist party. The policy of much of the left on this issue appears to be that these kind of nationalists are ok, as they're only Welsh so it doesn't really count.
However, joking aside, this view of politics seems to permeate a lot of the anti-war movement; it's ok to forget your real politics if you think you can get something out of an unpalatable partnership. Which brings me to the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB). Their presence at this most recent march was possibly the most visible yet, maybe not due to increased numbers but probably more due to efficient organisation. Alliances with reactionary organisations lead to uncomfortable situations, to say the least, as no self-respecting socialist should be happy having "God is great" shouted from a platform they are sharing. The embarrassing nature of this contradiction is obviously starting to become plain to many people who had previously embraced MAB with open arms, but sadly the bed has already been made.
But the bad politics of the anti-war movement didn't start on September the 27th - they were there from the beginning. For a start, the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP), who ran the Stop the War Coalition, decided that socialism was off the agenda because they didn't want to offend their new chums - the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru and the MAB. Also, despite paying lip-service to the trade union movement by having TU speakers on the demos, the STWC had no orientation towards the working class. Nothing moves in society unless the working class makes it move, and therefore that the power for major social change lies in the hands of that class. The only way to stop the war was to have a movement centred around the working class - calling for strikes and industrial action to bring Blair's war machine to a halt. 2,000,000 people on a demo is wonderful, but you can have 5,000,000 people on a demo and still get nothing changed unless you seriously think about who in society has to power to change things. The STWC thought demos were enough; they weren't.
Now, the only Stop the War meetings being run in most cities are 'Defend George Galloway' meetings. Whatever you think of the man's politics, a movement that could once bring 2,000,000 people onto the streets has got to have some aims beyond saving one politician's career.
So what really has come out of the anti-war movement? 2 million people marched through the streets of London, yet Tony Blair never flinched in his line on the war. The movement made absolutely no impact in achieving its stated aim. And honestly, did we really mobilise 2,000,000 people to win Brent-East for the Lib Dems? I strongly hope not, yet listening to the speakers on the 27th you could be forgiven for thinking that had been the sole point of the whole exercise to begin with. The Labour Party may be led by warmongering idiots but its still essentially a party of the working class because of Trade Unions are still affiliated to it. That was how it was created, and that is still the nature of the party at a grass-roots level. The Liberal Democrats may appear to have a marginally more progressive position on this issue but they are still a capitalist party and as such they are unable to tackle the real issue that caused this war - capitalism.
The anti-war movement finds itself in trouble as it has never really decided what it was in fact in favour of. The idea behind it often seemed to be that as long as the issue's involved were kept quite vague then the coalition could be as broad as possible. The movement has wasted whatever potential it had by failing to plan for the one event it would seem we could all have been sure of - the end of the war. This highlights the problem of simply being "anti-war" without being more specific about what you're in favour of; once the war is over the movement is theoretically satisfied but has simultaneously failed to achieve any of its aims.
What the anti-war movement requires is open discussion on what its actual goals are. Without a clear idea of where the movement is attempting to go it seems laughable to think that it will ever get there.
