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Anti-War March, London, 15th Feb 2003
As we walked through London, meeting up with friends and getting ourselves to one of the starting points, the atmosphere was really relaxed. Groups of people were gathering, milling around, waiting to catch up with friends or other members of their organisations - there was a really nice atmosphere, which is not something you can normally say about the centre of London on a Saturday morning! As we started to march (well, amble slowly) down Gower street we couldn't tell how big the march was at all (we later discovered it had been started early because of the sheer numbers of people), but the atmosphere and the crowds slowly started to build as more and more people joined from side streets, a sound system started up behind us and one of the many little groups of drummers started up - which is very handy for getting you moving on a freezing cold day! Everything was moving very slowly, which I took as a really good sign that maybe there really were the estimated million people. Every few minutes a 'Mexican wave' of shouts and whistles rippled up and down the crowd, in a completely positive and non-aggressive way. As I said, the atmosphere was fantastic and very peaceful. As well as a sea of placards from the organisers of the march - CND ('NO'), Stop the War Coalition ('Not in My Name') and the Muslim Association of Britain ('Don't Attack Iraq'), and the Daily Mirror ('Stop the War') - there were hundreds of home-made banners and placards. The messages were funny, serious, political ('Make tea not war', 'Down with the sort of thing', 'No war for oil', 'US tough on Iraq easy on Israel') but all got their message across clearly and simply - we don't want this war. 'We' being probably the most diverse crowd I've ever seen - families, old, young, seasoned protesters and many, many more who had never even considered marching before. As we approached Piccadilly, where the two marches converged, someone held up a cardboard sign telling us that 2 million people were marching. It might have been a bit over exaggerated, but it spurred us on even more, and as we reached Piccadilly circus the by now enormous crowds erupted in spontaneous shouts and cheers and we really did believe that a million people had come. By this time we had been marching for about 4 hours, the first marchers had reached Hyde Park hours ago.
What made the whole experience more inspiring still was the fact that knew this was happening all over the world. Only when I read the papers on Sunday and Monday did I realise just what a huge scale this was on - estimate6 range from 6 to 10 million - 600 protests in all, across every continent (researchers in Antarctica even joined in!). Some of the most amazing were Muslims and Croats marching together in Bosnia, and Turks and Cypriots in Greece. There were also protests in the Middle East, and across America (we need to remember that it's the American government that are for this war, not necessarily the American people, who have a deep rooted and longstanding protest/dissident movement which we rarely hear about). But, does it make any difference? That's what everyone I've spoken to since has asked me and I have two answers. To Bush and Blair and their plans for war - no, I don't think it does make a difference, they know what they're going to do and I personally don't think anything will stop them. However, I'm a big believer in more subtle change, nearly everyone I've spoken to who saw the march on TV was affected by what an incredible sight it was, everyone wants to know what it was like and everyone is talking about it. People who previously thought that marches were full of trouble causers (there was one arrest on Saturday, I saw 3 vans of riot police backing away from a peaceful protest outside the American embassy, it being obvious that they really weren't needed) have suddenly realised how wrong they were. And they now know because this time they went to see for themselves, or that nice family done the road did and told them all about it. Tony Blair may have chosen to more or less ignore the protests by insisting that they will not delay preparations for war, but he can't ignore his voters forever - and there were an awful lot of them out there on Saturday, inspired for the first time in their lives to publicly show their disillusionment and disappointment.
As for me, more then ever I feel inspired and determined to do more for this campaign, and many others - which to me is one of the main purposes of a march like this. There may be no change in policy, but it certainly looks as though there is a change in, not just public opinion, but what people are prepared to do to make that opinion known. Fewer and fewer people are happy just to shout at the TV anymore - please, join them." - Emlyn Hagan & Catherine Tonge
For More information why not check out these web sites? The Stop The War Coalition - http://www.stopwar.org.uk/ CND - http://www.cnduk.org/ US Anti War Organisation - http://www.antiwar.com/ The Muslim Association of Great Britain - http://www.mabonline.net/ Email us Your Opinions by clicking HERE
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