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Make a difference
(Paul Foot, The Guardian, February 12, 2003)
Saturday's anti-war demonstration is vital because it could change the whole course of politics. . . . I wrote here several months ago of the importance of demonstrating against the war. There can be no doubt that the vast demonstration last September altered the government view about the opposition to war. This was not a barmy army, but a vast array of anxious people. Official catcalls of "appeasers!" and "pacifists!" were replaced with more presentable arguments. Now the stakes are much higher, and so is the mounting tide of outrage. . . . Why is Britain the first to rush to the aid of the United States adventure? Why are our troops going to the Gulf when even the troops of countries whose governments are ostensibly in favour of the war are tactfully held back? Are there any depths to which the government information and intelligence services will not sink in their campaign to halt the irresistible rise in hostility to the war? . . . And above all what can people do about it? How can voters respond when their sheepish representatives can't even debate the matter in parliament? These are questions that are no longer restricted to a small coterie of people who are "interested in politics". . . . It seems suddenly that everyone is interested; everyone except Julie Burchill and Ian Duncan Smith is shocked and everyone wants to do something about it. On Saturday, the cliché will become the truth. . . . The eyes and ears of the world will be fixed on the London streets and on Hyde Park. The size and fury of the demonstration will have an impact on real events the like of which I have not experienced in a lifetime of protest. Hyde Park will once again host a demonstration, like that of the Reform League in 1867 or the suffragettes in 1908, that can change the whole course of politics. Go to it.

posted by LoZo 12:23 PM