Interview with Mike Zmolek, US Anti-war Organizer

NNEWAI was formed after a conference in February 2001, is that right?

Mike Zmolek: Actually the first National Organising Conference on Iraq took place in 1999, when groups working on Iraq sanctions, no-fly zones, from a number of different angles. But the national network wasn't formed until a second conference. It just took a long time to resolve the differences so that we could form the network in February 2001.

ML: So that was obviously before the bombing of Afghanistan and the start of the War on Terror. Were the people involved coming out of the anti-sanctions community, rather than broader peace organisations?

MZ: Definitely the sanctions community.

ML: How did the shift from campaigning about sanctions to the war on terror work? Certainly in the UK one of the problems with the anti-sanctions community working with the anti-war community, was that the former were quite divided - particularly the Iraqi community in the UK - about the legitimacy of the war.

MZ: Well, I mean, we really didn't have much interaction with the peace movement at that time; I myself was not coming out of the peace movement, I was coming out of student politics, in Canada actually. I had a history with the anti-apartheid movement back in the 80s, but I didn't have a lot of experience of groups like the War Resisters League and so forth, who weren't really doing Iraq. One of the problems was that there just wasn't a lot of attention being given tot the sanctions, and when you looked at the general scale of the devastation that sanctions were causing, it was curious why the peace movement in general wasn't picking it up.

But even some of the major national organisations that were working on it, the American Friends Service Committee, the American Anti-Discrimination Committee, it was difficult to get them to work together. That was the initial discussion - how do we all work together.

ML: So you started with a loose coalition of groups. Some of the discussions about grass-roots anti-war organising in the UK have involved the issue of whether it's too dominated by the old anti-sanctions groups, or whether it's too London-centred, or whether it's trying to set itself up against some of the socialist groups. Was there a problem with people feeling that one part of the movement, or one geographical centre, was dominant? How did you overcome those kind of organisational difficulties?

MZ: [laughs] Well, in a way we didn't ever overcome them, because we never really dealt with them. I'd say there were three or four main groups working on sanctions. Two of them were new groups that were specifically dedicated to Iraq, formed between 1995 and 1998. The first was Voices in the Wilderness, born out of the Catholic Workers Movement, based in Cathy Kelly's office in Chicago. They're were doing great work - delegations and so forth - they still are, they're very dear to my heart. They were the people who formed the Iraq Peace Team, who risked their lives during the recent shock-and-awe bombing and were present in Baghdad throughout.

Then there was the Education for Peace in Iraq Centre, formed by a former Gulf War veteran, Erik Gustafson, who set up shop in Washington DC to lobby on the Hill. Anyone who knows Washington politics knows that it's extremely difficult to bring a progressive perspective to Capitol Hill, trying to work the halls of Congress. So he took a lot of heat for his allegedly moderate line, but on the other hand did a lot of very important work.

So you can see already some of the different perspectives between those two groups.

And then there was the International Action Centre, which formed, after 9/11, the International A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition, which was bringing a socialist and communist perspective. And they were certainly the most strident on the sanctions issue. But like a lot of other national organisations they were jumping from issue to issue, so they weren't just focussing on sanctions. And there were some questions about the accuracy of some of the information they were disseminating.

And the fourth was the American Services Committee, which started the Campaign of Conscience.

So when I went to the conference in '99, I felt, along with a lot of others, very confused about these different groups and their different programmes. Why couldn't we just have one major campaign on the sanctions. Obviously we'd be stronger if we unified.

ML: And the way in which that unified organisation works is as a decentralised network rather than a centralised coalition. Could you talk about the benefits and rewards of working like that? And also whether you felt you were organising in that way in reaction, say, to the way in which A.N.S.W.E.R. organises, or some of the other national groups.

MZ: Well, A.N.S.W.E.R. wasn't around when we formed in February 2001, it was still the International Action Centre, which nominally remains part of our coalition, but really we don't have a lot of interaction with them. But I would say, by and large, the thing that happened in February 2001 was that while a lot of groups sent representatives to the conference, they never really put much time, or money, or resources behind our network. And I think, looking back, that was probably because they could see from the outset that this was being organised by the grass-roots, a network formed by the grass-roots groups that were popping up all over the country, working on sanctions.

So by the second conference in 2002, it was becoming pretty clear that this network was to be a network of grass-roots, not necessarily bringing together the grass-roots groups and the national groups. And all of this time I was trying to figure out how we were going to find a vehicle, a form, to work both at the grass-roots and at a national level.

ML: And what are the basic organisational tools that you use to do that? I know you have a face-to-face meetings, conference calls, a lot of internet infrastructure. What have you found works best?

MZ: I'd say that the face-to-face annual meetings are key. That's where people form relationships, get together in a room, share ideas, come up with new campaign ideas, really set the tone and the agenda for the coming year.

It's been a real struggle to keep momentum moving after the conference, but what I would say is that the residual benefits of the conference are probably greater than you can see. People make relationships, then they go off and work on their own projects, and they don't necessarily report back to the main group about what they've been doing. We're talking about fairly heterogeneous set of groups, all kinds of different projects going on, different perspectives that are brought to the conference. That heterogeneity is not necessarily reflected in the three or four campaigns that are chosen to work on.

ML: I'd like to talk about that heterogeneity, and about the political choices you have to make when you build a network. I know you're dealing with a very broad political spectrum - people calling, for instance, for the pull out of troops from Iraq for often quite opposed reasons. NNEWAI has recently organised a 'Patriots for Peace Day', and I imagine the constituency to which that is intended to appeal is broader than the core of the network. Have you been comfortable with the sort of compromises and alliances you've made?

MZ: Yes, there was definitely some reaction to that that didn't go over too well. It was an idea brought up by a group in Denver, that really wanted to play the media, take advantage of the moment, posture that the true patriots, the true supporters of the troops, in terms of their predicament, is us, not the people putting them in harm's way. There were a fair number of people who called in with comments that this is not the way we want to go.

I would say definitely that the network is in the progressive, more left movement, and not necessarily what we would call liberal. [laughs] By the way, I don't know about in the UK, but in the US the term liberal has kind of lost its proper meaning. If you go back to 19^th-century liberalism in Britain it seems to have little to do with the way the term is used today in the US.

ML: But generally you've felt comfortable with the political spectrum of the coalition? MZ: Yes, generally I've been comfortable. The core group, you know, of solid people, are pretty agreed with where we stand politically, and don't have any major disagreements. And if people walk in the door and they find enough of them, they're free to leave. But we have expanded the network from 75 groups, a little over a year ago, to over 300 or so. Obviously, for a number of those groups we haven't really figured out where they are politically.

ML: Your point about the 'Patriots for Peace Day', and the broader constituency you were aiming at there, brings me on to the question of the media. Obviously the focus of your work is grass-roots, but I know your media working group organises letter-writing campaigns, op-eds, and so on. Can you talk a little about the US media, how you've been perceived, and whether you've tailored your message, as in the 'Patriots for Peace Day', to appeal to a media which is perhaps less sympathetic to the anti-war movement than in the UK?

Well our network really got behind with the media initially. We had a media working group that issued one press release and then everybody kind of went home, and all the other working groups were like 'what happened to that media group?' [laughs]

But getting out to the media at a national level was never really our focus. It was all about sharing ideas at a local level, and if local groups are doing media, then great, and finding ways to assist them. We've talked about getting a media kit together; we do have something on our website, pointers for media. And we did have a campaign earlier this year, a last minute thing before the war, trying to complement what the national groups were doing by getting people to do local press conferences, since a lot of the national groups were doing plenty of work on the national media.

However, in my office I started getting a lot of media calls in the build-up to the invasion, to the point that one of the main thing I was doing was giving radio and newspaper interviews. But it's been really hard to be organised because our resources and our time is stretched so thin, so we really haven't had a concerted media campaign.

ML: And do you feel that there are certain things that you have to say in your message because the media is more dominantly conservative in the States? I notice that one of the major components of your message has been the cost of the war, which hasn't been discussed so much in the UK (partly because the US is bearing most of the cost). But do you ever feel you have to compromise your message to appeal to a much harder media market?

It's a good question. I don't think so. I assume that part of the reason we haven't got a lot of media calls since the invasion was because: there was a debate about whether or not to go to war, in the mainstream, between the reluctant Democrats and the Republicans. That opened the window of opportunity for anyone who wanted to comment, and that's where we got into the debate - and were not necessarily well received; often my comments, for example, would be misquoted or misconstrued. But I never felt like we had to compromise our message.

ML: OK. In connection with that question, one of the major tactical debates that's gone on in the UK within the anti-war movement, has been the question of the use of direct action and civil disobedience. Could you talk a bit about how local groups have received the idea of civil disobedience, whether you think it narrows the constituency to which you appeal, and so on?

You know, I think we haven't debated it enough, in the sense that we haven't had any kind of clear position within our network. I think that the core group has pretty good agreement, and in general people are pretty receptive to it. I think the problem is precisely message control, and what the message is, goes out to the media, and how it's shaped. And that's tied to how the action is done. You know, like if you're holding up traffic and people are trying to get to work you're going to get a pretty strong negative reaction from people, like, 'why are you picking on us?' Whereas if you're targeting the White House or something I think the message is much more clear. And of course it's been much more successful in San Francisco than anywhere else, they really shut down the city for a day or two in March. ML: And how was that received? It was pretty negatively received in the mainstream press around the country. In San Francisco itself there was a heated debate in the papers, because in the city in general there was, you know, a strong sentiment against the war, stronger than any other city. But then there was definitely a reaction as well. ML: And even if you're losing slightly on the media front, do you think there's a play-off with building the confidence and commitment of people, and obviously concretely achieving things through your action? I think it's difficult to measure. And I think civil disobedience tends to be much more successful when it's timed right, and it's local. I think at a national level the message very easily gets confused. It has a lot to do with the fact that the media is generally hostile to our message in the first place, so their reporting of it is always generally negative. They're going to use it as an opportunity to say, you know, 'these people are extremists, they're terrorists', and misconstrue the message. But when it's local, for example a group of people going to the local recruiting base and taping the doors shut or something, that tends to make the local community aware first of all that there is a group, in the community, that's doing something, and I think that can be a very successful strategy for getting people's attention and getting the issue into the papers. ML: So you think in some senses that the localism of grass-roots work helps when doing civil disobedience? Yeah, I think civil disobedience is a very useful tactic at a local level. At a national level it's much more difficult. ML: Connected to civil disobedience, I suppose, is the question of the abuses and derogations of civil liberties that you've had to work with in the States. My impression is that it's been much more severe than in the United Kingdom. Can you talk a bit about how that's affected how you've organised? It hasn't affected it much yet. I think after 9/11 there was definitely greater concern about civil disobedience. I was involved in the planning for the February 15^th march in New York, and there was a disagreement within that coalition, the United for Peace and Justice Coalition, about whether to march or not. It was decided by the organisers that we would not march because of the risk to immigrants, who might be, you know, if the police raided the whole march they could start picking up illegal immigrants and hauling them off. That was at least the principal reason for why we didn't march that was given by the organisers. But there was a lot of disappointment around that as well. And the police definitely made that very difficult, just to rally let alone march; we had people penned in cages and stuff. So there's definitely a heightened sense of concern about those kind of security issues for participants. But in general I don't think it's affected what we do all that much. But I really feel bad, I feel we're behind on issues of targeting and racial profiling of Muslim Americans. We haven't really had the time to take up the issue of the missing, the people who've just basically disappeared, whether it's been to Guantanamo, or to some prison in the US where they're basically being held incognito under the Patriot Act. But at the same time it's very encouraging that the Patriot Act 2 that's been rolled out looks certain to fail, and it looks like the provisions of Patriot Act 1 are likely to be rolled back. So I feel like at least we may be moving in the right direction on that. ML: And do you think that this growing unease about attacks on civil liberties is because of campaigning, or because Bush and the war effort is less popular, or...where do you think the impetus for that is coming from? I'm not sure I know what you mean by that question. ML: Well you seem to be suggesting that there's growing opposition to the Patriot Act 2. Well, I mean the wording of it is far worse than the Patriot Act 1. It would allow the government to declare an individual a terrorist without proving any association to any organisation whatsoever. So they could basically just finger people and say, 'you're a terrorist' and off you go. But I don' t think it has a chance in Congress at the moment. ML: And where do you think that opposition in Congress is coming from? Well, it's definitely led by the Democrats, the progressive Democrats. I think the thing about the Patriot Act is that, draconian as it is, the government has been very reluctant to actually enforce it, implement it. I think it was more of a testing of the waters than anything else. And while it has definitely been used to target Muslim Americans and Muslim nationals, people from the Middle East, it hasn't been used anywhere near as extensively as it could be, if you read it and think about the implications. And I think they're very reluctant because they know that there would be a strong reaction. So I think their approach has been more selective, to target the most vulnerable groups, and see where it goes. And then, you know, there has been a pretty strong reaction. And I think that has made them - well I shouldn't say made the writers of the Act - but made the Democrats in Congress much more reluctant to go with it. ML: I guess what I'm trying to get at is whether you think there's been a lessening of popular enthusiasm for 'security above all else'; and if so whether you think that's just because of a general lessening of the feelings aroused by September 11^th, or whether that's because of active campaigning, or shifts at a party political level... It's kind of hard to say. But I would say that this recent crisis for the Bush administration around the reasons for the war has certainly cast a lot of doubt in the public mind on his whole motivations for going to war; I think there's a lot of confusion. However, I feel that the whole issue of the war on terrorism since 9/11 has really polarised the population. There's a real hard-core-right constituency that's going to basically stand by Bush no matter what. And if there were another terror attack I think that would polarise the population even more. I'm deeply concerned about that, because when we saw the outpouring of support for Bush after 9/11, which I thought was very uncritical and, you know, knee-jerk reaction, it was quite frightening for me, and I think it could happen again. And I think what would happen is that those who have learned the lesson would not jump to support the President, and those who haven't, would. And we'd see even deeper polarising of the population. And I'm afraid that's where we may be heading because I'm fairly certain that something will happen, that al-Q'aeda will strike again after the invasion of Iraq. ML: That kind of moves us to the final questions that I want to ask you, which are about the future of the anti-war movement in the United States and here in the UK. One issue that's weighing on the minds of people in the movement on both sides of the Atlantic is the opportunity created by the 2004 Presidential Election in the States, and the next general election in the UK. Do you see that as creating an opportunity for really moving the anti-war agenda forwards? Well, personally there's only one Democratic candidate that I'm really fond of, and that's Dennis Kucinich, but I have some doubts about whether he's a viable candidate, and certainly the media is saying he's not, and that's a huge stroke against him. Also Howard Dean is posing as a progressive when I don't think he really is a true progressive, and taking votes away from Kucinich. But I'm sort of optimistic and not optimistic. I'm optimistic that at this point I don't think Bush will win, unless something dramatic happens. A month or two ago I wouldn't have said that. ML: And do you think that Wesley Clark running for the nomination is a problem? I think it's important because Wesley Clark is essentially going to cut into Bush's support base coming out of the military, because he's really been so strident in attacking Bush's military plans. So some voices in the movement are pleased that he's running. Others are very critical because he's being portrayed as an anti-war candidate when he's technically pro-war. ML: So that's another example of someone dressing up in progressive's clothing, like Howard Dean? It is really interesting how much of the discourse is borrowed from the progressive movement without any credit, but really the substance of it is not progressive at all. I think the situation in Britain is different. My concern is that Tony Blair is going to split the Labour Party, by essentially doing what Bill Clinton did - borrowing from his conservative opponents and co-opting their agenda, and basically dividing his own party. The Democratic Party was definitely divided on the war, and you could say that's partly the result of the Clinton era pushing the Democrats to the right. So on the one hand seeing Tony Blair get caught in the trap of his own making is nice to see. But he's in the Labour Party, and the history of the Labour Party is pretty good from a progressive point of view, and it's very disappointing to see the Labour Party leading us down this path. ML: So my final question - and I guess I'm hunting for sound-bites a bit here - is, as far as the next six or twelve months are concerned, what should the central demands of the anti-war movement be? Should we be calling for the removal of troops? Should we be calling for reconstruction funding? Should we be making political demands at all, or simply educating ourselves and preparing ourselves and others for the next phase in the War on Terror, which will inevitably come? [laughs] I'm afraid that's a hard one to make a sound bite out of, because my response is that since the invasion there's been a number of dilemmas we've been confronted with that's made it really hard to articulate a coherent message that everyone could get behind. For example, the issue of whether or not the US should be paying for reconstruction. If you look at it from the point of view of what the US has done to Iraq, destroying Iraq for the past 13 years, you would say absolutely, we owe Iraq a lot. However, that's compounded by the fact that a lot of money is just going to US corporations who've got the contracts, which is another issue in its own right. And then there's the problem of the domestic economy suffering, Bush's domestic policy, which, he doesn't really have a domestic policy, and funnelling money out of the US economy at a time when schools are suffering, healthcare's suffering, and so on. So that's a big debate. I think we're finally arriving at a point where a way forward is becoming clear, in the sense that I think we do have to get behind some kind of United Nations oversight of the process. In the struggle between the US and the UN at the moment it's clear that we have to support the UN role. However, our organisations' main line - we had a big debate about it at our conference - is that what we want to put in front of pushing for a UN role is Iraqi self-determination and the right of Iraqis to decide their own future. That perhaps can be seen as a bit naïve in the sense that there does have to be safety and stability and some form of real democratic process in place before that can be achieved. But, I mean, it goes back to the contracts issue: why aren't local Iraqi firms, or local firms even in the region, being brought in to help the reconstruction, rather than contracts just to Americans. So it's a big issue, but I think it's clear is that what we're opposing is essentially US imperialism and war profiteering. ML: So you think that Iraqi political and economic self-determination is as good a rallying-call as 'end the occupation', which is the focus of many of the national organisations here in the UK? Well I mean there's definitely some criticism of the United Nations and its role in places like Somalia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. The United Nations is not a perfect organisation. But I think the sense is that the US is stuck right now, and really can't get out of the mess it's created for itself without the United Nations, and that for Iraqis to practice some form of self-determination they do need outside assistance, and the UN is the best organisation to come to their aid on that. So that's a fairly complicated answer...[laughs] ML: No, that's very helpful. Is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to talk about? Well I could go on about grass-roots organising and how difficult it is. My personal commitment to it is because first of all it's the way to practice democracy. To have people working at a local level, and trying to find a way for them to have a voice in planning what goes on at a broader level. Within our movement in the States, why our network formed is because we were sitting around waiting for the national groups, who each had their own constituency and their own agenda, to kind of get it together and start moving forward on some campaigns, and they just weren't doing that. So we got frustrated and said 'OK, that's it, we're going to go ahead and form a group'. And I think that movement actually comes from the grass-roots. Movement doesn't come from top-down, it comes from bottom-up. So it's really important to have an organisation that, whether or not it's able to get to the negotiating table, and sit down with some of these other national groups and make big decisions, it's still really important to have a group that supports what it's members are doing; gets them together on a regular basis face-to-face; enables them to build relationships and share ideas; and in general provides a means for them to feel that 'we're part of this movement, we've got our own organisation and we feel like we're here with people and we're supporting each other'. That really can move things forward. ML: Mike Zmolek, thanks very much. The website of National Network to End the War on Iraq (NNEWAI) is at www.endthewar.org Interview by Michael Lewis