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No War But the Class War demo report

Top Cat | 08.10.2001 12:46

News of the bombings arrived about 30 minutes into an open meeting called by No War But the Class War in north London, early on Sunday evening. The original intention of the meeting had been for participants to discuss a class-based response to the war, following on from an exchange of ideas and experiences in the first part of the meeting.

News of the bombings arrived about 30 minutes into an open meeting called by No War But the Class War in north London, early on Sunday evening. The original intention of the meeting had been for participants to discuss a class-based response to the war, following on from an exchange of ideas and experiences in the first part of the meeting.

As we received the first reports of bombings, the 60+ people gathered had to think on our feet, and after a number of suggestions the meeting decided on an immediate response.

So within the hour we regathered at Oxford Circus, giving us time to improvise a couple of banners. By 7.15 we set off, marching from Oxford Circus down Regents Street, with a loud vocal “No War But the Class War” chant. We crossed over Piccadilly Circus where our presence encouraged some passers-by to show their support. Some motorists beeped their support too, despite us holding them up behind our march. It was only as we headed down towards Pall Mall that we were joined by the police.

Crossing over Trafalgar Square, where a number of leftists were beginning to arrive the procession continued down Whitehall. The meeting declined to join the vigil that was assembling across the road from Downing Street outside the MoD, and decided to assemble on the road in front of the gates of Downing Street and blocking the traffic instead. The cops by now were getting a bit alarmed, as our quick response had taken them totally by surprise. We continued our chanting as we could see the press pack opposite No.10, waiting for Bomber Blair to justify Britain’s terror campaign.

There was an amusing moment, and one which characterises how the left sees it’s relation to everyone else, when a Socialist Party member told us all shut up as our collective voices were drowning out her megaphone!

The group moved on from Downing Street, sensing impending encirclement by cop reinforcements, pissed off we’d disturbed their cosy night in front of the telly watching Heartbeat.

We seized the initiative, our group enlarged by others who joined along the way and moved off down Whitehall, sometimes surging forward to keep in front of the cop vans. We passed the statue of Winston “Warmonger” Churchill and everyone cheered and applauded a lone guy on Parliament Square, holding his own anti-war vigil opposite Parliament. The police by now were clearly getting a little more than concerned as they had no idea where we were headed. Neither did we! Several options presented themselves – the war criminals statue, Parliament, Channel 4, the Home Office… the spontaneous nature of the event, and the need to keep the group moving, one step ahead of the cops, did mean that decisions had to be taken on the hoof.

We took a right off Victoria Street, into a narrower road that took us up towards the Home Office and behind Scotland Yard. In retrospect this might have been a mistake. The police, unable to overtake us in vans jumped out and tried to run past us to get in front. Again another surge up the road followed, but about half a dozen cops managed to form a line which most of us could easily breach, pushing past them. There were a couple of skirmishes as people tried to pull themselves away from cops who had grabbed hold of them. One unlucky person was grabbed and held on the floor by cops and arrested a few minutes later. A second line of cops assembled as we approached the far end of the road, and waited for our approach; but not before we managed to make a few ant-war comments to the 5 armed Scots Guards who took refuge behind the iron gates of their barracks on seeing our arrival.

By now however numbers were dwindling. It was clear that as we dissipated, there was uncertainty about the best tactic: stay together and risk further police responses, or to file away in ones and two’s to regroup in a more visible public space. In the end both were used. A small group stayed together at the bottom of the road, while others gathered at the tube station and exchanged information.

Most of the us decided to call it a day at this point. We were by now outflanked by the bill, numbers had dwindled, and the sense of purpose was waning. One group went back to Downing Street, while another met up in central London to discuss the events of the evening.

WAS IT WORTH IT?
Some comments were made after about whether we should have stayed at Downing Street – as the evening wore on, more people started to arrive for a picket outside the MoD – or been better prepared beforehand. It was also felt that the lack of a focus to move on to after we left Whitehall (or the lack of communication about one) was a bit problematic. In addition, keeping ahead of the police, and surging forward at particular times, left some people unable to keep up and separated from the main body of the group, which did have a negative effect on the inclusive spirit which up til that point had been absolutely brilliant.

These are definitely issues that we need to think about for future events. On the whole however, for me, it was a really successful response in lots of ways. The fact that a large group of people (many of whom did not know each other before the meeting), were able to mobilise within an hour, taking to the streets to march through central London in the pouring rain to Downing Street, to refuse to stand behind barriers, to obstruct the traffic, and then to take the initiative so as not to be corralled by the cops says a lot about the strength of feeling and the whole dynamic of the mobilisation. This bodes well for the future.

An anti-war response that actively demonstrates its’ opposition, and challenges sanctioned dissent, is absolutely necessary if an effective opposition to the war can hope to be mounted. This is not a call for separatism: all strands must pull together to challenge in whatever way we can this attack on the working class of the middle east, Europe and the US.

Because our open meeting was interrupted, we decided to rearrange it for this Thursday evening – see bottom for details. A No War But the Class War group has also also been formed in Brighton. Come along, bring ideas, experiences. Don’t bring dogma.

On a final personal note, one last SWiPe: I said above there is a need to come together as part of a larger movement. I was also present to witness the appalling lack of democracy displayed by the SWP controlled Stop the War coalition at their founding meeting two weeks ago. As has been noted a few times already on Indymedia, the committee was stitched up and decided before any input could be given. The kind of inclusivity displayed here was evident towards the end where the chair directed us to brake into smaller groups: “trade unionists over here, students in that corner, muslims over there”!!!

It’s got to be said that if it is the intention that this coalition is to sanction and put a brake on imaginative initiatives such as last night’s mobilisation, I would have serious doubts as to whether Stop the War’s primary concern is to do just that – rather than as another conveyor belt into the Party. Others might consider these motivations too.

No War But the Class War OPEN MEETING
Thursday 11 October at 8pm
The Exchange
Sebbon Street
Islington, London N1 (behind the Town Hall)

We will also be joining the CND march this Saturday 13 October. Look out for our banners.
Join the discussion group:
 nowarbuttheclasswar-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Top Cat

Comments

Hide the following 11 comments

if this bit about the SWp is accurate, its a

08.10.2001 13:21

scandal what they're doing. is this literally true, that they segregated people according to those criteria ? What ? Faux-Socialist apartheid now ?
Now, they've been doing this in an informal way for years, usually separating the horrrid workers (in whose name they claim to act!) from the 'Nice Guys' (you know who !), but now a long running dingy show becomes positively murky...

f 2.8 / 1:60s


Petty France section 60

08.10.2001 14:11

A group of about 12 of us split off during the curfuffle near St James' Park tube station, dashed away from the initial line of cops and were faced with, about 6 more playing British Bulldog trying to stop us going any further. A few of us managed to get past the tag team but 2 further vans pulled up and managed to catch us.

A vaguely farcical discussion about whether we were section 60'd or not followed. I was grateful to all the legal information I'd been given in the past 6 months, which empowered me to refuse to answer questions under quite intimidating circumstances - when I was caught I was faced with 4 cops around a corner out of sight of the rest of the ativists and they kept poking me into a shop doorway.

When I refused to tell them my name and address and told them they only could search for weapons under the section 60 that they had erroneously told me was in force they told me to stop telling them the law as they knew it better than me but did back off a lot, and moved me back into the crowd.

About 15 mins after we were first stopped we were told we could leave in two's. Of course we just waited for each other a few metres away. We then had an honour guard of two police vans, who amusingly felt the eed to leap out of their vans ahead of us reaching any gate to stand in front of it. We decided that in the absence of a better plan we might as well return to Downing St.

At the vigil I got talking to two middle aged women from East London who'd been at home when the news of the bombing had reached them. They were part of no group, but felt the need to do something, and so had made their way to Downing St, where they were given leaflets from some Socialist group. They ripped off the branding leaving just the large "Stop The War" headline to hold up.

We later found out that during the initial St James' Park scurmish an arrest had been made. A pacifist activist whose hand had been broken the previous week was singled out perhaps because he was less able to run away. He was assaulted and pinned to the ground, apparently charged with resisting arrest, though there is much confusion about what his arrest was for.

There was overall the usual police approach that even if they couldn't find a legal excuse to bother us they were sure we were doing something wrong and so would treat us as criminals and hold us until what we had actually done could come to light.

I was actually told, in answer to my question of why I was being held, that it was whilst enquiries were made as to which police officer I had assaulted! They also kept asking me what I was doing, why I was there, and where we were going. Of course I refused to bite and satisfy their fishing exercises.

See you all at today's vigil.

ginger


meeting?

08.10.2001 15:04

what time will the meeting be going on till, i would go, but i'm going to see propagandhi @ the mean fiddler.

jimmer
mail e-mail: japoulte@hotmail.com
- Homepage: http://www.sykotik.org.uk


Motorists Beeping

08.10.2001 16:54

You were holding up motorists, and they were beeping?

Are you *sure* they were expressing their support?

Tom


Motorists

08.10.2001 16:57

You were holding up motorists, and they were beeping?

Are you *sure* they were in support?

Tom


info please

09.10.2001 01:22

Any one tell me of any class based groups in the Bath or Bristol area involved in somthing a little more direct than candle lit vigils, (i'm not dissing vigils) send me info would be well appreciated.

ewok
mail e-mail: funk_acid@hotmail.com


some sorts of comments are not helpful

09.10.2001 02:52

It would seem that a small number of people seem hell bent on slagging off socialist organisations, be they the swp or whatever. Perhaps the energy of these people would be better spent actually taking part in real politics in the real world, instead of spending endless hours on writing pointless messages in to the indi media site. It seems strange to me that a time when people of all sorts of different political backgrounds are realising that strength lies in unity, there are still those people that are so convinced of their superiority that they continue to act in totaly sectarian ways. Maybe these people would feel less frustrated if they tried to relate to people that aren't exactly the same as themselves. failiure to relate to new layers of people will mean that you remain isolated on the margins of a growing movment.

jay


support

09.10.2001 10:42

"You were holding up motorists, and they were beeping?
Are you *sure* they were in support?"

Yes! There were people cheering and waving and beeping along to the "No War but the Class War" chant, even a whole coachload of people joined in. Of course, there was the occasional cab driver trying to run us all over too!

I thought that this was a very good demo, organised at very short notice, it was lively and positive and autonomous - we went where we wanted, not into the pens to be controlled.

As for sectarianism - what do you call it when a lively demo marches down the street chanting "No War but the Class War", and is joined by a much smaller number of members of a Leninist group who immediately pull out their megaphone and start chanting their own organisation's slogan in an attempt to drown out such a "contentious" slogan and take over the march? We have enough trouble preventing the police from telling us what to do without the Leninist Left pushing us about too, thanks.

TACT1
- Homepage: http://www.temporary.org.uk


what were they chanting

09.10.2001 15:37

What on earth were these lenninist groups chanting that has offended you so much. It seems strange that slogans can belong to a particular group. Were they chanting "The only way to stop the war is to join a Marxist Lenninst Party?". I'm sure they weren't - i expect they were shouting slogans that could unite disperate groups over a simple stop the war statment. "No war but the class war" does not unite people. It seems that Brittish anarchists are divided as to their attitude towards the working class. One minute Trade unions and organised labour is a waste of time and part of the problem, and the next minute we should all be chanting "No war but the class war". Please make up your mind.

jay


Pulling together

10.10.2001 13:18

I attended the Whitehall demonstration on Sunday night. Unusually I spoke publicly against the attitude of somebody from "No War but the Class War" (I believe?) towards a policeman who was trying to get an announcement made to stop somebody's bike getting taken away as it was chained up "illegally". Calling the police "pigs" when they are not disrupting a demo stikes me a bit pointless at the best of times. On a demo such as this, where the focus - whatever the individual politics of the participants - was expressing shared outrage at the revenge attacks on Afghanistan, to bad-mouth the boys in blue with little provocation had the simple effect of distracting attention from the issue we all got out in the pissing rain to protest about. I'm not a fan of candle-lit vigils personally, nor am I a police apologist - rather, I am in favour of directing anger at the right targets and I agree that, on a global scale, this is a class issue (as usual). But focusing on the police seems to me a mistake - the most effective attitude is to ignore them, unless they act against us. Perhaps if the "pig" had simply taken the offending bike away, he could have avoided being abused by somebody who was not speaking for the demo as a whole, but happened to have the microphone at the time.

Anybody who is against this war is going to be seeing quite a bit of the police over the next weeks, months or however long. I was at a protest yesterday where a 5 minute silence was held. The cops can't cope with it - it makes them think. Abuse and violence - those are the things they're trained to deal with, a part of their role. Reasonable human beings, protesting against something that many of them may even feel queasy about - is not easy for them. Abuse and violence towards police will be a possible excuse for the removal of rights to demonstrate, if things get to that stage. Reasonable protest encourages others (the possible millions sitting on their sofas thinking "this is wrong") to exercise their right to demonstrate, and makes it much more difficult for the police to instigate erosion of this right. Whilst I also accept that people will demonstrate in their own way, I would like to see demonstrations that work towards shifting public opinion against the war, rather than against the demonstrators. The police, like the media, exist and are part of the current reality. How we deal with each has never been more important.

Ann-Marie
mail e-mail: amgreensmith@hotmail.com


It was the Revolutionary Communist Group

22.10.2001 20:38

It wasn't "No War but the Class War", who didn't seem to have any organised presence at the protest, but the Revolutionary Communist Group.

The police don't deserve any sympathy or "understanding". They are there to protect the capitalist imperialist state that is now waging war against the people of Afghanistan, and we see just how they will defend this state against any threat that it faces.

Who killed Harry Stanley?
The police killed Harry Stanley!

Who killed Roger Sylvester?
The police killed Roger Sylvester!

Gaol the killer cops!!

Ed
- Homepage: http://revolutionarycomunist.com