Resisting war and imperialism, defending democratic rights in Blair’s Britain

EVEN AS the British government and media were frantically trying to project the Taliban’s abandonment of Kabul as a long-awaited ‘liberation’ and a vindication of the attacks on Afghanistan, one lakh people took part in a vocal and angry march through central London on 18 November, reflecting both the widening base and the deepening politicisation of the anti-war movement here. The demonstration, called by the broad-based Stop the War Coalition, called for an end to the continuing bombing of Afghanistan, warned Bush and Blair against extending their ‘war on terrorism’ to other third world countries and vowed to resist the draconian attacks on basic civil liberties in Britain which are currently being pushed through parliament under the pretext of fighting terrorism. The march – the biggest anti-war demonstration in Britain since the 1970s – was an impressive sight with a large contingent of students near the front of the march carrying 50 foot high puppets representing Death and American imperialism, followed by a procession several miles long with hundreds of banners representing a wide range of groups and organisations, which took over an hour to enter Trafalgar Square where a massive rally took place. Many Muslim demonstrators who had come from different parts of the country were observing Ramzan and as the early winter dusk fell, the call to prayer was broadcast from the loudspeakers in the Square and dates were distributed as people broke their fasts, in a symbolic gesture of solidarity. At the same time, many people of South Asian origin chose to organise against the war along secular lines. Indeed, for them this was a way of demonstrating their opposition to what they see as the divide and rule policies of the British state. One of the most vocal sections of the demonstration consisted of Asian women’s groups marching under the banner of Asian Women United Against the War. Women involved in sustained movements against domestic violence linked up with anti-imperialist women activists demanding that ‘women’s voices must be heard’.

During the rally, speaker after speaker condemned the war being waged against the people of Afghanistan, linked it to the interests of global capital, and attacked Tony Blair for fascistically overriding parliament and all the structures of democratic accountability in committing Britain to the war. The new ‘emergency’ anti-terrorism bill was a major focus: as veteran left-wing Labour MP Tony Benn reminded the protestors in a powerful speech, ‘resisting this war means fighting American imperialism in Third World countries – it also means fighting to defend our own freedoms which we have won after a long hard struggle’. He pointed out that this will mean people can be incarcerated indefinitely without trial – similar legislation in the US will even allow people to be sentenced to death without a trial. And as in America, this will be applicable only to foreigners – British citizens will be exempt.

In order to bring in the new legislation, the British government is opting out of one of the fundamental provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights – the prohibition on arbitrary detention. It is the only one of 40 or so governments signed up to the convention to do this. Under the new powers, the Home Secretary will have the power to imprison a person indefinitely on the basis of suspicion: not of crimes already committed, but of what they might do. A major target of the legislation will be asylum seekers: in a culmination of a whole series of draconian laws which have sought to portray refugees from repressive regimes as terrorists and criminals, information provided by the very governments they have fled will be used to detain them in Britain. They will automatically lose the right to pursue applications for asylum. It is feared that, as is already happening in the US, those arrested will face abusive conditions and their detention kept secret even from lawyers and relatives.

The use of mass internment as a tool of repression by the British state is not new: it was used against the nationalist communities in the North of Ireland in the 1970s and more recently in Britain during the Gulf War when many Palestinians and others from West Asian countries were detained. This time the powers are more sweeping than ever before and will potentially target all Muslims living in Britain who do not have British citizenship. Meanwhile, a whole range of other repressive measures have been smuggled almost unnoticed into the bill, intensifying mass surveillance and curtailing freedom of information. To give just one example, it will become illegal for environmental groups to inform the public of the routes along which nuclear waste is being transported. Clearly, the new laws are designed to be used against all forms of popular resistance and dissent. From now on, we are all potential terrorists.

– Kalpana Wilson