March 20th 2004 in Bristol
by - 28.03.2004 16:42
On Saturday 20th March upwards of 200 people demonstrated in Bristol as
part of the Global Day Of Action Against war, which saw demonstrations in over 300 cities around the world. Around 150 people also travelled from Bristol to London to join the demonstrations there.
Big Ben, London, March 20, 2004
REPORT: 20th March Bristol Demonstration
As people gathered at midday, in the centre of Bristol, the Red Notes Choir lifted everyone's spirits as we waited to see how many people would come. By 1:00pm it was clear that we weren't going to be witnessing another landmark event like last year, when up to 4,000 demonstrated in Bristol on the outbreak of the invasion.
Our high spirits, which came from knowing that these protests were part of a fully globalised event, we're contrasted with a feeling that these protests were not enough, and as the Bristol Demo wound its way up Park St and Whiteladies Rd for a protest outside the Territorial Army Centre, and then back down to the Vigil for its 3:00pm start, many of us couldn't ignore the question of where we go from here.
It is important to recognise that a direct comparison with 20th March 2003 is not necessarily a good one, and neither is a direct comparison with 15th February 2003. 15th Feb 2003 was planned, organised and leafleted some 6 months in advance, and 20th March 2003 was publicised for nearly a year under the header of 'STOP THE CITY ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR'. Saturday, by comparison, was publicised for only 6 weeks or so.
While it's important to take this into account, it's not good enough to look towards what are still technical differences between campaigns. It is also not good enough to blame it on the rain, or demo fatigue, or some other convenient set of reasons which enable us to ignore the possibility that we have lost, and are losing, some of our momentum.
While our networks continue to grow at every level from our own communities to the international, there should be a very real questioning of what we can hope to achieve, and the extent to which, not just A-B demos, but the very act of protest politics itself should be our main tactic. Demonstrations will always have a central place within any movement, but what exactly it is our movement is, is a very different question.
To an extent there are built in limits to this movement. We have defined ourselves as anti-war movement, and as a result, no-matter how much we try and overlap with issues of the environment or the wider economic and resource crisis, we are hemmed in as a single-issue movement. And while it has been important to focus on Iraq, this has also led to a further narrowing beyond the already narrow brief of opposing the 'war on terror'.
While the Global Demonstrations of 20th March 2004 were an impressive and landmark exercise in international co-ordination, they also exposed a potential weakening beneath the surface, which must be addressed and debated and understood. Unless we do that we will slowly but surely dissipate as all movements have done which have gone before us.
James Venables
(In A Personal Role)
Bristol-Stop-The-War
PS: There were a couple of impromptu speeches from Margaret Jones, one of the Fairford Five, and Mario Novelli of Colombia Solidarity Campaign (see links below for more info).
IRAQ WAR ON TRIAL IN BRISTOL
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13612/index.php
"Well, in Bristol there is a lesson in 'making a difference' unfolding. A lesson that will soon become a mass-media storm. The five Bristolians who broke into the US airbase at Fairford to try to stop the bombing are due for trial soon."
COLOMBIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
Read More:
http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk
"The greatest mistake of all would be to believe the US wants peace in
Colombia. On the contrary, in the name of counter terrorism Bush is
pushing the country ever deeper into war. US policy is driven by the
need to break all resistance to its geo-strategic project of the Free
Trade Area of the Americas. It is a policy of aggressive pacification, not peace."
As people gathered at midday, in the centre of Bristol, the Red Notes Choir lifted everyone's spirits as we waited to see how many people would come. By 1:00pm it was clear that we weren't going to be witnessing another landmark event like last year, when up to 4,000 demonstrated in Bristol on the outbreak of the invasion.
Our high spirits, which came from knowing that these protests were part of a fully globalised event, we're contrasted with a feeling that these protests were not enough, and as the Bristol Demo wound its way up Park St and Whiteladies Rd for a protest outside the Territorial Army Centre, and then back down to the Vigil for its 3:00pm start, many of us couldn't ignore the question of where we go from here.
It is important to recognise that a direct comparison with 20th March 2003 is not necessarily a good one, and neither is a direct comparison with 15th February 2003. 15th Feb 2003 was planned, organised and leafleted some 6 months in advance, and 20th March 2003 was publicised for nearly a year under the header of 'STOP THE CITY ON THE OUTBREAK OF WAR'. Saturday, by comparison, was publicised for only 6 weeks or so.
While it's important to take this into account, it's not good enough to look towards what are still technical differences between campaigns. It is also not good enough to blame it on the rain, or demo fatigue, or some other convenient set of reasons which enable us to ignore the possibility that we have lost, and are losing, some of our momentum.
While our networks continue to grow at every level from our own communities to the international, there should be a very real questioning of what we can hope to achieve, and the extent to which, not just A-B demos, but the very act of protest politics itself should be our main tactic. Demonstrations will always have a central place within any movement, but what exactly it is our movement is, is a very different question.
To an extent there are built in limits to this movement. We have defined ourselves as anti-war movement, and as a result, no-matter how much we try and overlap with issues of the environment or the wider economic and resource crisis, we are hemmed in as a single-issue movement. And while it has been important to focus on Iraq, this has also led to a further narrowing beyond the already narrow brief of opposing the 'war on terror'.
While the Global Demonstrations of 20th March 2004 were an impressive and landmark exercise in international co-ordination, they also exposed a potential weakening beneath the surface, which must be addressed and debated and understood. Unless we do that we will slowly but surely dissipate as all movements have done which have gone before us.
James Venables
(In A Personal Role)
Bristol-Stop-The-War
PS: There were a couple of impromptu speeches from Margaret Jones, one of the Fairford Five, and Mario Novelli of Colombia Solidarity Campaign (see links below for more info).
IRAQ WAR ON TRIAL IN BRISTOL
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13612/index.php
"Well, in Bristol there is a lesson in 'making a difference' unfolding. A lesson that will soon become a mass-media storm. The five Bristolians who broke into the US airbase at Fairford to try to stop the bombing are due for trial soon."
COLOMBIA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN
Read More:
http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk
"The greatest mistake of all would be to believe the US wants peace in
Colombia. On the contrary, in the name of counter terrorism Bush is
pushing the country ever deeper into war. US policy is driven by the
need to break all resistance to its geo-strategic project of the Free
Trade Area of the Americas. It is a policy of aggressive pacification, not peace."