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London Speeches: George Galloway & George Monbiot

Daevid McKnight | 20.11.2001 22:39

Transcripts of speeches given at London Stop the War demo by George Galloway and George Monbiot

I've been transcribing some of the speeches from the London demo. Here's the first two.


George Galloway MP (Kelvin, Glasgow)

Those of you at the front should know that there are still thousands of people streaming into Trafalgar Square. There may be 100, 000 people on this great demonstration. Brothers and sisters, comrades and friends - Peace be with you!
And to our Muslim brothers and sisters on this great rally, my congratulations to you on this holy month of Ramadan.
The first day of Ramadan in Afghanistan was marked by an American bomb smashing through the roof of a mosque in Kandahar killing 11 Muslims. And they say this is not a war against Islam.
Yesterday Mrs Bush took to the airwaves and I understand this week Mrs Blair intends to do the same. They drew on the heartbreaking analogy of the American women on those airplanes leaving messages on their answering machines from their mobile phones just before they died. Well, Mrs Bush and Mrs Blair, just because the Afghan woman doesn't have a mobile phone, doesn't have an answering machine it is no less tragic for them.
On Monday and on Wednesday in the House of Commons we will be being asked to butcher Britain's parliamentary democracy and civil liberties in the name of an anti-terrorism Bill.
Well, we tell Mr Bush and Mr Blair that there are terrorists around. One of them is coming to London soon. His name is Ariel Sharon!
And we're telling Mr Blair that we are standing shoulder to shoulder with the world's biggest terrorist state - the United States of America!
Who have left pools of blood, oceans of blood all over the world for half a century or more.
And we will not be going into the lobbies of the House of Commons to turn Britain into some kind of Banana Republic dictatorship!
The reality is that until justice prevails in this world there will be no peace or security. Until there is justice for the Palestinians, until there is justice for all those suffering under imperialism around the world, there will be no peace.
My last point is this. Two days ago I was in Iraq. Every single month in Iraq more children are laid in their grave, massacred by sanctions than were killed in the atrocity in New York on 11th September.
Justice not vengeance.
Thankyou very much.

George Monbiot, writer and campaigner

There are 100, 000 people here! And they thought that it was all over, Tony Blair thought he'd seen the end of us. He's hardly even seen the beginning!
Two days ago they told us it was the end of history - all over again - well history seems to be ending about once a year for the last twelve years.
But we're here to show that it hasn't ended yet! Their final solution, their formula for total global power does not work, cannot work and will not work. And it will not work because we stand between them and their plans. We're standing here today and in one way or another we will be standing here everyday until we live in a world which is built on the principles of justice not on the principles of war.
They say that this is a war for civilisation. But all they have done is replace the murderous stagnation of one regime with the murderous chaos of another. If that is a victory for civilisation then I'd hate to see what defeat looks like.
Now, I don't know whether or not we'll be able to affect the outcome in Afghanistan but what we are actually faced with now is a far bigger battle than that. Cheney and Rumsfeld and other members of the cabinet in the US have identified 40 or 50 nations which they say might be next in line. What this means unequivocally is that there are people in Washington who are preparing for a Third World War. The campaign to try to stop them will be the biggest challenge that our generations will ever face.
Now, before I came here today I was worried that we would not be upto that challenge. I was worried that there wouldn't be enough of us, that we wouldn't have the courage, that we wouldn't have the guts. And I came here today and I'm not worried anymore. We're here in such numbers that no-one could've dreamed of. Instead of being on the run we are now on the offensive, we are the people who have got them on the run and we will keep them on the run.
We're gonna need a great deal of courage over the next few weeks. We're gonna be vilified, spat upon, many of us may even be imprisoned - but the fight for justice has always been like that.
And let me tell you that the challenge we are confronting now is one of the biggest challenges anyone has ever confronted. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the world depends on the people who are in this square. So don't give up - whatever they throw at you, whatever they say to you, because let me tell you, if we don't do it, nobody else will. Thank you.

Daevid McKnight

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. Nice one! — Rested
  2. Top speakers, top demo.... — chris