great - wish i could have been there - how do we build this nationwide? and expose the Big Lie on which the war is built?

It was a great turnout, but we need to do things differently next time. First, those bits of paper people were holding up, they said 'SHOULDER TO SHOULDER' in big letters, then 'for peace and justice' in tiny letters. A lot of the open top buses that went past, well the tourists were waving, I'm convinced that a lot of the tourists were waving because they saw 'SHOULDER TO SHOULDER' and thought it was a rally supporting Bush.

I thought we should have been shouting loud, with big banners saying No to War and other obvious things and stopping traffic in whitehall.

What does anyone else think?

hi. yesterday it was great because there were lots of people in the street. but...why didn't we stopped the traffic? next time i think we have to do something different.
ciao

I agree it would have been good if there was one single anti war justice not vengeance banner for the traffic to see, although i liked the request not to bring banners - otherwise given the number of socialist worker paper sellers it would have looked like a swp demo.

When the crowd cheered as the petition was taken in to downing st I thought the crowd was going for it, maybe next time, but there's a lot to be said for keeping it 100% peaceful and non threatening for all participants in order to make each event bnigger and bigger.

Positive:

* Huge turnout given very short notice & some people's fear of being perceived as pro-terrorist or pro-Taliban etc;

* Attended by people from a variety of backgrounds including lots of young people;

* Dress code & other rules well respected which emphasised the feeling of unity and participation and made the event very impressive.

* The slogan of Peace and Justice was and is absolutely right - we must go beyond mere pacifism and challenge the inequitable global order / disorder which is the context of both terrorism and war.

Negative:

* As has been said above, lack of a big banner made it difficult for people passing on buses etc to work out what we were there for;

* Not much involvement from Muslim & other ethnic minority groups - I hope people are working to make links, although it is understandable that some groups may want to keep their heads down at present;

* Although banned from flooding the demo with their placards and chanting their mindless slogans, the parasitic SWP still managed to abuse the occasion by having a huge number of paper sellers. They are incapable of making a constructive input as an organisation and can only see opportunities for promoting their brand and recruiting members. I think organisations which arrange protests would be perfectly justified in insisting on only one or perhaps two paper-sellers per political sect. Having more than this is a misuse of a demonstration and we should be assertive in challenging it.

However, the demo was an overwhelmingly positive event and was a very good sign that there will be more serious resistance to the agenda which the ruling classes are trying to force through on the back of the WTC & Pentagon attack.

By the way, a co-ordinated government / media campaign for compulsory ID cards started this weekend. How ID cards will help the fight against terrorists when they each already have one or more PASSPORTS is beyond me! But I suppose that's part of the reason for whipping up an atmosphere of hysteria - to prevent people thinking rationally and asking difficult questions.

yes it was a great demo, shame some of the commentors here still have to have a go at the SWP.

Maybe you went to the 2000+ rally in friends meeting house that contributed to the impressive turnout on Saturday, want to know who got their act together to get that organised so quickly and get all the different speakers from varying perspectives?

I'll let you guess - that's what it means to be serious about building a movement and not just your own group otherwise we'd have just called a meeting for party members.

for maximum unity and peace.

noel x

Saturday was brilliant - high profile from the crowd, even if we didn't do much to get a message across to all the tourists etc (and i saw several confused bus conductors, too). still, tuesday remains....

By the way, i thought friday night had been 'organised' by Globalise Resistence....oh yeah, they are SWP, aren't they?!

Next time, organise more, smaller gatherings where the emphasis is on engaging the wider public in discussions. That's what shopping malls were made for!

who said that globalise resistance organised the meeting?

what would you prefer a meeting organised by the swp where all activists from all political backgrounds or no meeting?

please stop the sectarianism

peace love and unity

Lets face it these people are bewildered and more than a little jealous. They couldn't organise something like last Friday's meeting so the SWP success is just more evidence of what complete bastards we are.

you should be thankful for the other 99% of us who dont cower at times like these....you emotional cripples would would be speaking german now had the tantrums of your ilk not been ignored when it was time to deal with hitler.
grow up, children...

In Germany they speak German, the Japanese speak Japanese and the Italians speak Italian. I presume your mail was translated from Vietnamese into ENGLISH for our benefit.

Fair play to the SWP and all parties and groups standing up against war. Condemning organisations and activists as parasites is hollow sectarianism and childish. We need a lot more anti war groups in every town and city- if the SWP, Greens or anarchists can help put posters up, organise meetings and demos, and build the movement, then fair play.

Excellent turnout. Its satisfying to have an outlet for expression seeing our media is so tightly controlled, There is dissent and let it be heard.
Not sure why cnd requested no banners ... any comments frm CND would be appreciated on this. As a moslem working for Justice and peace in the middle east I'd like to say thank you to all for yr support.

I feel in my heart that we must stop this and all terriest in all countries but first we have skip the most important thing in our lives and this is praying for God's answer and there was this man in the Bible that had the same problem in his days and Jehoshaphat was being hit by other countries and he great fear on him so he called a prayer and fasting for the whole country and then God answered and said that this is not your battle but God's and I do think all the people needs to get back to the Bible and this account is listed in 2 chronicles 20: 1-18 and if the people reads what God had for the answer for them he'll do it for us and through prayer God can and will move mountians and one other scriptures is in Exodus 20:13

D.J.M.