Exclusive Interview with the Vice Chair of "Stop the War Coalition" London—Part 1
Stop the War Coalition believe that any war will simply add to the numbers of innocent dead, causing untold suffering, political and economic instability on a global scale, increasing racism, and resulting in attacks on civil liberties.
"Stop the War Coalition" was formed on September 21st, 2001 in London. Their aim is to stop the war currently declared by the United States and its allies against what they call 'terrorism', after the attacks in New York on September 11, 2001.
The aim of the campaign would be best expressed in the name they chose for its logo which is "Stop the War Coalition".
The Coalition mentioned- in a statement about its activities in the UK- that it has organized massive demonstrations in conjunction with the ‘Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Muslim Association of Britain' against wars lead by the US in different places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Recently, the coalition raised a slogan "Don't Iraq Iran" which is another campaign to end the occupation and sufferings in Iraq as well as to stop the attempt to attack Iran, meaning "don't transform Iran into another Iraq!"
Moqawama.org had an exclusive interview with the vice president of the coalition, Chris Nineham.
Q: Would you like to introduce yourself? Your position?
A: I'm Chris Nineham, vice chair of the " Stop the War" coalition. The chair is Jeremeh Colben , he's a member parliament. Basically there is a committee of about 15 people.
Q: Can you explain who you are? And what is the coalition about? When did you start? What's the reason of establishing it?
A: We started in 2001 , we were setup 2-3 weeks after September 11th, because a number of us realized that after the attack on 9/11 , it was almost certain there will be a very bad response from the West.
We were very frightened and we predicted that they might do stupid and dangerous things, which is exactly what they have done. So we also took the view that the majority of people in Britain would be against war, retaliation, attack, and again that turned out to be true.
One of the most remarkable things about the last ten years in Britain is that fairly consistently, the majority of the population has opposed what the government has been doing in terms of foreign policy, this has been a huge majority for bringing the troops outside of Afghanistan.
There was a majority against the Iraq war for almost the whole period from 2001 till now. We represent the British opinion, the problem is that the parliament doesn't represent the British opinion and raises questions on many others. That's why we've been campaigning ever since to try and stop our links with Washington, break the link between British foreign policy and US foreign policy, stop supporting and participating in these wars , and that's what represents the opinion of the majority of people in Britain.
Q: So you have your head office in the UK, what about other countries?
A: Yes, we have some contact with the anti-war movements in Europe and America ,We've also had a record of contact with people in the Middle East; we supported the Cairo conference which was kind of a conference of anti- imperialists that was taking place regularly in Cairo. We supported various initiatives including two or three conferences in Beirut involving various anti-imperialists forces, also Palestinians, and oppositionists from Iraq. We also were in contact with a quite famous ex-MP from Afghanistan called Malaya Julia, who's leading the anti-occupation activism in Afghanistan. So we do our best to make this kind of contact whenever possible.
Q: Who shares exactly your ideas in the society? Are they educated people? Politicians? Who's the majority? Which level or Sect in the society?
A: Well, in terms of the actual coalition, formally speaking, it includes most of the trade unions in Britain, a number of MPs, mainly labor party, but there's one green party MP who supports us. We do have a lot of labor party members, we have members from the Muslim community , we have a big input for the Muslim community from various different elements , we have people from the old peace movement and pacifist movement and we have people from the left like myself, and a lot of people from the socialist left . On ground, it's very mixed. We went on big demonstrations, we have people from every walk of life, we have a lot of trade unionists, students, school students, we also have people from the professional classes.
Obviously, there were a few rich people, but the majority of the working class, but there were also a significant number of managers, professionals, doctors , lawyers and those kind of people and some celebrities like pop stars and film-makers.
So it was a very broad coalition and this is why the government hates us so much, it's because this coalition represents the majority of people in this country and that's the truth. So in that sense it's very powerful.
Q: When do u find difficulties in most of your actions?
A: The big strategic difficulty we have is that there's a democratic deficit, I mean people talk about Britain as being the birth place of democracy and that the British parliament is the mother of all parliaments. But actually, especially on foreign policy-also on a lot of other issues- the parliament doesn't represent the British people, it has its own way, and represents much more the interest of the rich, the establishment and so forth.
There's a gap between what happens in Westminster street in London and what most people actually want, and that's the big problem we have to overcome and actually are trying to force the government to do what the people want to as opposed to doing what essentially there kind of ruling elite want . That's our big strategic problem.
Q: But they are being elected by the people?!
A: That's after they are elected. Have you been to Westminster? It's like a castle, it's like a different world, when you enter this place it's like you're taken into a different kingdom, the kingdom of the privilege. It's so easy for that experience to actually change your whole way of thinking and the way of acting, you earn 70,000 pounds as a minimum which is 3 times more what most people earn.
Q: To whom do u address your calls "stop the war" in general?
A: Towards the mass population. [We do this] to mobilize the mass population because we believe that it's only by getting millions of people into the streets that you can actually affect the political agenda. So, indirectly the call goes to the government but we believe that you can actually affect the government only by mobilizing the population.
Q: Has any other country listened to your call and did something about it?
A: Well, that's an interesting point, if you look at the history books now; one thing that comes very clear is that actually, we came very close to defeating the government back in 2003 over Iraq. Just before the war started, the government was panicking about the war and they very nearly decided not to go for it , decided that they will pull out of the invasion.
We were very close. There were 2 million people in the streets, politics came to us standstill , there was a political crisis in Britain which was largely caused by the massive mobilizations. So we came close to stopping them.
I think in the period after that, it was very disappointing that the war went ahead and obviously it was a disaster for the people of Iraq. But I think that over time, we damaged Tony Blair, in fact Tony Blair resigned in 2007, but made his resignation statement in 2006 when he came out and supported the "Israeli" attack on Lebanon; that was the moment which he was forced out because of people in Britain.
In Britain, when "Israel" invaded Lebanon, there was a 100 thousand people demonstrated in the streets against "Israel", and it was this demonstration that finished Tony Blair off. Although obviously the wars continue, now they're talking about attacking Iran which would be a disaster; nevertheless, I think we've made it difficult for the government to pursue these wars.
During the past, war had been of a success for governments in Britain; nowadays when they think about war they have to think of it as a loss, they have to think about it as a problem for them.
In my opinion, that is a serious achievement because it inhibits them and holds them back from planning any wars, so I think we have made an impact.
Q: How are the British people responding to your calls for action, and what are the means that you use?
A: Well it depends on the issue. If people feel that there's a threat of another war, like over Iran, if people feel that an attack on Iran is imminent, then we will have big demonstrations, so it depends on the level of threat. When it comes to mobilization of people, we use every mechanism we can, posters, leaflets, the media, the internet, facebook, twitter, and telephones. It's a strategy that encompasses the whole spectrum of different media, but we also have local groups in most areas, cities and towns, also we have groups that help public meetings, communicate and mobilize themselves.
Q: Did the government try to stop you? Stop your calls?
A: It's difficult for them, they have tried a few times to stop us, but there is the kind of a real liberal regime (though superficial) in Britain which has been so over the decades and centuries. They tried to stop us march in "Hyde Park" famously because they said we were ruining the grass, but actually everybody realized that it was an attempt to restrict protest, which actually increased the size of the protest.
Q: The big question is, why do you want to stop the war? Some people argue that war might be beneficial for Britain in many aspects?
A: I think there's a deep feeling now a days that war is bad, experiences have been so devastating. Very few people in Britain say that war is good for the country.
Most people just think that war is bad, and they're right, because what possible gain could come to humanity from that unbelievable level of investment in machinery whose only aim is to kill and wound people in another country. It's barbaric; it's a sign of lack of civilization and solidarity. It's quite clear to me and to many others that it's possible for the human right to live very comfortably with prosperity for everyone.
If only the resources that exist in the planet would be distributed and planned to actually deal with people's needs rather than with the kind of ambition of a tiny minority of society. The only people who want these wars are the corporate heads, some of the politicians, the military, people on the top of the military, but no one else. A million people died in Iraq! You know, it's barbaric!
Q: What about the Arab uprisings, what do you see about the foreign intervention these?
A: We are completely against any Western intervention whatsoever in the Middle East because as far as we're concerned, many of the problems faced by the people across the Middle East have actually found their root in the history of France , Britain, the United States and some other countries.
Carving up the region, dropping the region of its resources particularly oil, trying to intervene and control the political processes, propping up dictatorships; the history of Western intervention in the Middle East has been obviously catastrophic. The British government has backed the Bahraini dictatorship, [Ali Abdallah] Saleh in Yemen; they backed [Husni] Mubarak [in Egypt] right up until the last minute. Both America and Britain backed Mubarak. Now they are still funding a billion dollars a year. The British government has sold 8.5 million pounds worth of military equipment; it's actually police equipment to the Bahraini ruling class just in the last months. The Western powers are against democracy in the Middle East unlike what they say, because they want to control the oil.
When they said they are going to move to Syria to help the Syrian people, they're lying. They are trying to make sure that the Assad regime opposition is friendly to them, loyal to the West and prepared to be a Western agent in the Middle East. Nothing good could come from Western intervention. The west is the problem in the Middle East. It's not the solution.
To be continued...
Source: moqawama.org
