Demos make a difference

1 February, 2003

On last September’s 400,000 strong anti-war demonstration in London, I was asked by an excited 15 year old: “How can Blair go ahead with the war now? With so many people against him?”

Gently, I broke the news. It would take more than one demonstration to stop this war. But I also assured him that, contrary to what he’d be hearing in the months to come, mass national demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people most certainly do make a difference.

Sometimes, they make a dramatic difference. In November 1969, nearly one million people gathered in Washington for what was, until the protest in Florence last year, the largest ever anti-war rally. Publicly, Nixon attacked the protesters; privately, as we know from published memoirs and documents, the size of the demonstration dissuaded him from deploying nuclear weapons against North Vietnam (Kissinger regretted that he “yielded to public pressure”). As it turned out, every individual who attended that demonstration made a difference, an important one.

In the decades since then, mass demonstrations have played decisive roles in Moscow, Prague, Jakarta, Belgrade, Paris, Buenos Aires and elsewhere. In Britain, the mass demonstration against the poll tax was a turning-point in its downfall.

For the most part, however, mass demonstrations do not achieve immediate visible results. Their importance lies in their impact on the overall political equation, an equation that is always changing, and may be changing more rapidly now than usual.
They are an indispensable barometer – for the media, the political decision-makers and the anti-war movement itself. Depending on what they see at these demonstrations, all of them make adjustments. The media and the political decision-makers, however, like to deny it.

People who’ve attended the anti-war actions of the past year have been frustrated by the scanty media coverage, but one effect of these actions has been to shift the media construction of the debate. Partly as a result of mass demonstrations, it has come to be accepted that there is substantial anti-war opinion and that the questions raised by the anti-war movement must be addressed. Opinion polls in themselves aren’t enough; in determining the potential cost of pursuing a war policy, politicians distinguish between passive and active opposition, and the big national demonstrations remain the best indicator of the turn from one to the other.

At mass demonstrations, the anti-war movement comes together at its broadest and most diverse. They offer the highest degree of visible unity around the most urgent demands. Most importantly, through them, individuals become part of a movement. Protesters return home, talk with others about the experience, and in some cases become organisers in their own communities. Thus mass demos act as a springboard for future actions – local and national. They’re not the whole of the movement, but they’re at the core of its dynamic.

The unprecedented global actions on 15th February – now planned for 60 cities in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the USA – will illustrate the widening gap between pro-war leaders and their own peoples. Because of Blair’s role as Bush’s chief international advocate, the demonstrations in London and Glasgow will take on particular significance. People in the USA will note the size of our demos in Britain (despite the best efforts of the US media, news of previous protests has filtered through). Given that some 80% of Americans are said to be opposed to the US waging war without international support, the bigger the demonstrations on 15th February, the weaker Bush’s hold over the US public.

The political caste has a vested interest in denying that mass demonstrations or protest of any kind makes a difference. They are professional gate-keepers, and they want to secure the precincts of debate and decision-making – especially foreign policy – from the intrusions of the anonymous unwashed.

But the issues of war and peace cannot be the preserve of politicians, generals, academic experts, chat show panellists, leader-writers or columnists. Indeed, previous human experience suggests that the run-up to war is precisely not the time to hand over debate, no less decision-making, to this minute fraction of the community. For 99 per cent of the population, protest politics – not least mass demonstrations – are the only mechanism for taking part in democratic debate, the only hope of influencing a decision that has a bearing on their future. In this sense, mass demonstrations are democratic facilitators. To the extent that politicians seem to ignore them, the democratic deficit is seen to widen.

Of course, to make a difference, demonstrations have to be large and diverse enough. Whether this one will be depends a great deal on the efforts people make between now and the 15th. Because one other undeniable fact of history is that demonstrations do not build themselves.