just a request of clarification as all I have been able to hear about the demo in London is from corporate media (i am currently living abroad):

italian state-channel news started a report on this demo by saying there was a 'large islamic fundamentalist presence': is that an overstatement, a pile of crap, or a completely unfounded pile of crap?

Wouldn't be surprised if this was completely unfounded as over here they manage to make the UK news agencies seem unbiased, however am curious to know from people who were actually there, with a view of posting something on indy Italy.

Thanks for any clarifications
F

It depends what you mean by an 'Islamic fundamentalist'. You don't know someone if a fundamentalist unless you have a discussion with them about their beliefs.

There were many Muslims there, yes. There were many Palestinians there, yes. There were many people from middle-eastern countries there. However, there weren't any actions done by any of these groups which, I would say, warrants calling them 'fundamentalist' - they were certainly all 100% peaceful as far as I am aware.

Though Muslims have every right to be there - maybe even more so than non-muslims, don't get the impression that the protesters were mainly, or even signifcantly comprised of religious groups (Christian or Muslim). They were a significant minority, not a majority- not by any means.

Hope this helps.

Solidarity from London

I would say that about a fifth of the march was muslim, the chants I heard from the muslim secion were "George Bush, terrorist, Tony Blair, terrorist". The whole thing was peaceful, I think the 'fundamentalist' description is pretty meaningless. A muslim woman wearing a hijab spoke from the platform saying that the march couldn't be dismissed because all communities were there, united. And that was the feeling on the march, I spent most of the march in the main muslim bloc, and everything was very friendly. There were also muslim people dotted throughout the march. It was a fantastic day, I heard a muslim guy interviewed on the news tonight, being asked if there was a jihad, and he said it was a peaceful jihad of all communities against the bombing of Afghanistan.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I don't think there was a big fundamentalist presence on the march. It was a march against US fundamentalism.

The Mail on Sunday focused exclusively on the alleged presence of Muslim fundamentalists in its (very brief) coverage of the event. It's hard to see how they discerned these fundamentalists' presence.

Apparently there were two attempted flag burnings (which I didn't see) but these were not generally representative of the mood of the event, even if those responsible could be accurately described as fundamentalists.

The report in the MoS referred to a scuffle over the microphone between the CND representative introducing the speakers and a man who was presumably a Muslim. It implied that this was an attempt by extremists to hijack the event. Perhaps they interviewed him afterwords and discerned his views, but certainly from the audience it wasn't clear what he represented, as what he said wasn't heard.

It is also interesting to note the quoting, after the event, of a pre-march police estimate of 3000 protestors, rather than the genuine (and possibly conservative) post-march police figure of 20000.

I think the thing that the corporate media picked on was a group of pro-Taliban muslim protestors who got to the front of the crowd at Trafalgar square and attempted to interrupt the speakers by chanting pro-Taliban slogans in Urdu. A couple of Muslim clerics on the platform attempted to silence them.

That group was miniscule but quite vocal, but in no way characterised the rest of the protestors. It was an incredibly broad based march: there were Left groups, Women's groups, kids and older people, LGBT groups, playgroups, a couple of Mennonite churches, a Jewish Group Against Zionism, drummers, mimes and thousands and thousands of ordinary people with nothing in common except that they don't want this war.

The big question is what we do next: the 50,000 people who took the touble to come to London on Saturday are just the visble tip of the huge amount of people who don't want war, don't want any more suffering and are sick of the lack of accountability of Tony Blair and his government. We have to reach those people locally, and build for the demo in London on Nov. 18th. I want to see two or three coaches from my city, Plymouth, on that day, making our voices heard for peace and justice.

Without having any depth of knowledge on Islam, or the languages in which some protestors were chanting, I can assure you this was the largest demo I've ever been on and I saw no signs of trouble from anyone whatsoever. I would even praise the police for being so low-key (were they just underprepared?)...

Yes someone did try and grab the mic but he was moved back and Carol Naughton appeared (publicly) just to find it amusing.

At the one minutes silence a number of people started chanting but I don't know what group they were from...

It was brilliant when our coach (Merseyside) pulled infor a stop along route. At the same very point were the coaches from Manchester and Birmingham Mosque - everyone simply seemed very excited and good-natured.

The whole day was just an amzing experience of unity...

The loud if small group of Islamists on the plinth were chanting pro-Taliban slogans in Urdu. They kept repeating the Urdu for 'Long Live the Taliban' (I don't know how to write this down but it's something like Zandarbed Taliban). There was a banner saying Taliban Lions of Islam in the crowd in the Square.

It was a great march. But it's not politically feasible or desirable to that any unity with these forces will endure.

Andrew