This morning on Democracy Now, the last headline Amy Goodman read was:
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the historic wave of global protests against the war in Iraq. Tens of millions of people took to the streets in hundreds of cities around the world to say no to war. The BBC said the protest in London was the largest in the capital’s political history. Protest sites included Australia, Johannesburg, Tel Aviv, Syria, Tokyo, Bangladesh, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Brazil, East Timor, India, and even the South Pole. At least half a million rallied in New York City alone 10 years ago. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq would begin just over a month later.
Now, what's the takeaway from that in the way Goodman phrased it? It's clearly that there were these massive protests and the war still happened. Therefore, such protest is ineffective. I think this is a stinky, rotten, sickening notion.
I've spent some of the last couple of weeks helping to organize a "The Feb. 15 Call for Global Protests for Democracy, Solidarity and Justice." The statement actually addresses this notion:
The invasion of Iraq still began after the 2003 protests, but the violence wreaked by Bush was more limited than the U.S. government inflicted on Vietnam a generation earlier. Our vigilance was part of the reason for that. Had we acted sooner, we might have been able to avert the disastrous invasion. The lesson is we need more global protest and solidarity, not less. Indeed, had we continued vigorously protesting, we might not have seen the years since 2003 show a lack of accountability for the war makers, even as conscientious whilstleblowers are prosecuted.
After the 2003 protests, the New York Times called global public opinion "a superpower". And the antiwar movement never tried to do anything like it again. Instead, there were a series of protest in D.C. They all took place in the late summer or fall of 2004, 2006 and 2008. Of course those were all election years. The "movement" had become defunct and had in effect melded itself into helping the Democratic Party, in effect leading to the current situation with a pro-war Democratic administration and no vibrant movement. That has to change and it changes in part by crossing national boundaries.
But it's very threatening to do that. If you have global protests, you are making common cause with others around the world and than can feel threatening, especially for people in the U.S., who do, or have convinced themselves they do, enjoy privileges based on being "American". But the alternative is largely to be increasingly marginal within the U.S. political sphere, which would be a tragedy, because there really is a world to gain.