Geoff Hoon: Bit of a Twat

When we heard that Geoff Hoon, Secretary of Defence/Minister of War was coming to the University we thought it was too good a chance to miss. Although the turnout on our part wasn't great, about 10 of us turned up to have our say. The bulk of our efforts went into flyering the crowds outside. We also waved some placards around. Our efforts were surprisingly well received (at the very least, nobody threw anything) and we attracted the interest of the student magazine Impact who took photos and asked why we were there. Hopefully we'll get a mention in the next edition.

We gave out perhaps a hundred copies of the flyer, maybe more (we'd printed around 200). Considering I'd knocked them together in a hurry the previous day, I was quite proud of them and think they strike an appropriate, intelligent tone, but then what do I know?:

QUESTIONING HOON

Geoff Hoon has come to the University, ostensibly to 'answer your questions'. While we have no intention of preventing him speaking, we feel that with 'coalition' forces currently involved in a major assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, that his visit should not pass unchallenged. This being the case, a number of possible questions spring to mind:

' How does he respond to the charge that 'sending 850 British troops to reinforce 130,000 Americans can only be a political gesture, designed to ease President George Bush's re-election'? (Scotland on Sunday, 24/10/04) And further, does he believe that this justifies the five deaths the unit has sustained since the redeployment?

' Why has he refused to apologise for the invasion of Iraq, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it was predicated on lies, half-truths and omissions?

' In light of the recent report in the Lancet which estimated that 1000,000 Iraqis had died since the invasion of Iraq, does he not accept that the rhetoric about 'liberating' Iraqis is beginning to sound more than a little hollow?

If you think these are important questions we encourage you to push the Minister on them. You may also want to join our picket and/or get involved in the event below.

Below I appended details of the demonstration against a visit by Hone Office Minister David Blunkett to Nottingham which was supposed to be happening later that evening (the less said about which the better, as this turned out to be a false alarm) and contact details for the Peace Movement.

Surprisingly enough, we got into the hall where Hoon was to speak without difficulty, which was something we hadn't planned for. Unfortunately this meant that we then had to wait around for forty-five minutes until he arrived, because he was running late. He explained, on arrival, that his tardiness had something to do with British soldiers being dispatched to the Ivory Coast. He explained that they had been sent "I hope not to fight" but to evacuate British citizens in the country.

He began his talk with a brief account of his professional life in which he explained that he had been in his current job for 5 years and a Foreign Office Minister prior to that. He also recounted how as an MEP he had been in Berlin when the wall fell. Unfortunately this anecdote was tarnished slightly by his assertion that young people like us couldn't conceive of a situation where a country was divided by a wall as Germany had been during the Cold War. In fact, as one questioner pointed out later and most of the audience realised as soon as he had said it, we hardly need to imagine this and need only look to the construction of the "security fence"/"Apartheid Wall" by the Israeli Government which is continuing apace.

He then opened up to allow people to ask questions. These came from a variety of perspectives, although none of us managed to get asked. They also generated a number of interesting responses on the part of the Minister. One was his acknowledgement that the limited attention focused on Afghanistan prior to September 11th was "a mistake", an unusual example of honesty (perhaps the only one of the day?). Later he asserted, in response to allegations by a member of the audience, that there had been no murders at Deep-cut Barracks and no cover up. Instead the various deaths at the barracks were suicides. Perhaps my favourite remark was his claim that "three and a half more people" voted for Bush than Kerry, obviously a mistake, but an amusing one nonetheless.

A number of questions were posed about Iraq, Afghanistan and the "War on Terror" more generally, many of them highly critical. These provided the most interesting insight into the real Hoon. I was struck by the fact that he seemed to be taking much of the criticism very personally. He seemed to see attacks on the policies he had pursued as personal attacks on himself. He based his arguments on assertions that "young people like you" would be the victims if he failed to act forcefully against terrorism. (A similar argument arose in the context of "Son of Star Wars", or support for Israel.) His dismissive, defensive attitude simply reinforced my view that he is in fact - as the title to this post suggests - a bit of a twat. Somehow he still seemed to get raptuous applause at the end, although there was a sizeable minority of people in the room who refused to clap, myself included.

On reflection, it would probably have been better if we had prepared some kind of action which Hoon was actually likely to see. Our activities did a good job of reaching out to those in the audience, but probably had no impact on the Minister himself, despite the fact that he, and the policies he has pursued, were ostensibly the target of our protest. This is something to think about for the future. Cabinet Ministers don't come often, but with an election coming up sometime next year it is inevitable that this will not be the last time one of the fuckers decides to show their face at the university. Next time we'll be ready. And we'll give 'em hell.

And so it begins..

The assault on Fallujah has begun. The attack opened with US forces taking the city's hospital (and, incidentally, according to the ITN lunchtime news arresting all "military-aged males", i.e everyone over the age of 14). The New York Times helpfully explains the motivation behind the move:

It was the second time in six months that a battle had raged in Falluja. In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw.

American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed. The hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties.

"It's a center of propaganda," a senior American officer said Sunday.

Rahul Mahajan provides a rough translation of what this means, "The hospital was shut down because doctors told people how many innocents were killed by the American assault, thus making it a military target. Any pretence of civilization is now gone."

There's a demonstration against the assault on the city this evening in Market Square from 5pm and probably in cities across the country.

Missed Me?

Dan sent me this by email, but hasn't posted it here. As he suggest, it may be of interest to anyone who was wondering what Milan Rai's been up to since he spoke at Nottingham Uni:

An anti-war protester has been arrested outside the Foreign Office in Whitehall in a dramatic visual protest against the imminent attacks on Fallujah.

After climbing onto the side of the Foreign Office building next to the gates of Downing Street, the protestor stencilled “Don’t Attack Fallujah, Black Watch Out” onto the wall and splashed it with fake blood.

He was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.

Shortly before being detained, the protester, Milan Rai, said:

“Today is a day of fear for the people of Fallujah. They need our active solidarity.”

The protest comes as the anti-war movement mobilises against the massive assault planned on Iraq’s cities.

On Sunday, a protestor scaled the gates of Downing Street and remained for 45 minutes, while others blocked traffic in Oxford Circus.

Around 500 people including Professor Stephen Hawking gathered in Trafalgar Square last night in a Naming the Dead ceremony to remember those who have died in the Iraq war.

Similar ceremonies took place in other town centres around the country.

An emergency demonstration against the looming attacks in Iraq will take place in Parliament Square at 2pm on Sunday 7th November. A funeral procession will proceed to the Cenotaph to lay white flowers for those at risk.

For those of you who don't know there will be demonstrations across the country when troops begin the assault on Fallujah. In Nottingham there will be a demo at 5pm in Market Square.

Vote and/or Die

By the time I finish writing this, it may well be accurate to say that the day of the US Presidential Elections, which have so dominated politics this year, have finally arrived. To my mind, this is a good thing, if only because it means the whole affair will soon be over. Many of my friends and fellow activists have got very worked up about the election insisting that a Kerry victory is vital for the survival of the human race or that a vote for Nader is the only way to express opposition to the occupation of Iraq and the duopoly of power. I happen to think it's all pretty irrelevant.

Regardless of who ultimately emerges victorious little will change and I certainly wouldn't want to be living in Fallujah over the coming days and weeks. This has done little to stop the shrill cries of those positioning themselves in the Kerry or Nader camps (insofar as people living thousands of miles from the States with no ability to influence the elections can be considered within candidates' camps). Zeynep Toufe's poston the election is a breath of fresh air and I endorse everything she says, with the caveat that as a non-US citizen I acknowledge that it's a bit rich for me to start telling people who are how they should vote. You really should take the time to read it in full, but for the lazy among you, the following passage is particularly important:

To everyone who is voting for Kerry because they are against Bush and the war, I say: what's more important than your vote is that you get out there and fight tooth and nail against the Kerry administration which is certain to be belligerent, perhaps in finer, more refined ways than Bush.

To everyone who's voting for Nader thinking that's the correct way to stand up to the two-party duopoly I say: the duopoly is quite happy if all you do is show up on election day, vote for Nader and become relatively dormant until the next election. In fact, the real work is between elections.

Now go and read the rest.

Democracy in Action?

A few weeks back, Canadian activist and blogger Justin Podur suggested a "people's referendum" on the occupation of Iraq in which people would be asked if they believed that troops should leave. As a model he pointed to a referendum on the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) in Brazil, organised by the Landless Peasant’s Movement (MST). Apparently 10 million people voted in this, with 98% expressing opposition the FTAA. Podur concedes that there is nothing comparable to MST in the west and that the idea has potential pitfalls, but argues that it is a potentially powerful campaigning tool. I refer to this now, not just because it is an interesting idea which merits greater comment than it seems to have received, but because I took part in something along these lines over the weekend.

Nottingham Stop the War Coalition organised a "ballot" on the withdrawal of the troops which they held in Marker Square. The exercise involved in encouraging people to express their support, opposition, or lack of opinion on the question of whether the occupying forces should be withdrawn from Iraq by marking a box next to their preference on a ballot paper. These ballots were then collected in a "ballot box" (in fact a cardboard box wrapped in black bags with a hole in the top). When counted afterwards, there were something like 230 votes in total (I forget the exact number) of which 90% were in support of withdrawal. The general consensus among those running the stall was that the event would be continued for at least a further week (if only to try and recover the cost of printing).

The idea seemed to interest people and considerable support for withdrawal was expressed, much of it apparently fuelled by anger over the redeployment of the "Black Watch". There were issues with people who oppose withdrawal refusing to participate, apparently because they misunderstood the idea, perhaps not unreasonably as it was obviously a "Stop the War" stall, the large banner behind us leaving nobody in doubt on that point. This will inevitably have skewed the results, but the 10% who didn't vote for withdrawal suggests that not all supporters of the war were put off and giving the whole exercise a degree of legitimacy. That said, there were questions about whether people were reading the questions and some people may have ticked the "No" box, thinking they were expressing their opposition to the occupation, when in fact they were supporting its continuation. The question could hardly be described as complicated and the only way I can see of surmounting this problem is improved communication between those manning the stall and those voting.

The real test of the whole exercise as a tactic will be what we are able to do with it to raise awareness. South Nottingham Labour MP and committed anti-war activist Alan Simpson (one of very few politicians I have any respect for) was supposed to make an appearance at the stall, but failed to do so. The media who had been contacted, were similarly absent. Nonetheless, there is talk of trying to make the final count into an event and using that to attract media interest. Even if we are successful in that regard, it still leaves the question of how we use the results we get at the end. Clearly, problems remain, but I thought Podur's idea had real potential when I first encountered it. I'm now more sure of that then ever.