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?:
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.
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 HOONBelow 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.
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?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.
' 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?
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.
posted by Disillusioned kid at 1:15 am
1 Comments:
The Question & Answer session was pretty disappoining. Hoon was given an easy time by the audience. Most of the questions asked were very tame, and follow-up comments to Hoon's tedious responses simply weren't critical enough. I can only put that down to lack of research on the part of audience members.
The entire session was completely devoid of historical context and perspective. No mention was made of Britain's past in Iraq, and little was said of America's role in the Iran-Iraq war. That was very surprising, and disappointing.
The anti-war faction present in the audience should have had Hoon by the balls. Instead, they let him win the day.
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