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Huge April 29 mobilization demands: ‘End the Iraq War
now!’
by Christine Gauvreau / May 2006 issue of Socialist Action
newspaper
"Not only we do want the troops home from Iraq, we
do not want the maniacs to invade Iran! We are standing here with the
people of Iran," Cindy Sheehan declared at the press conference that
kicked off the massive April 29 March for Peace, Justice, and Democracy in
New York City.
Sheehan's focus on tying the hands of an administration
seriously flirting with military intervention against Iran was reflected in
signs and chants from many of the contingents that were strung down
Broadway from Union Square to Foley Square.
Daniel Ellsberg (who uncovered the “Pentagon Papers”
during the Vietnam War) called on government functionaries to leak the
plans and details of the government disputes over using nuclear weapons
against Iran. Together, speakers and marchers soundly repudiated the U.S.
government's crude attempts to demonize Iran as part of the buildup of U.S.
military action in the region and demonstrated the growing sophistication
and resolve of the ranks of the antiwar movement.
The decision of United for Peace and Justice to add a
demand about Iran about three weeks before the march helped to galvanize
last-minute enthusiasm for April 29 at the grassroots and contributed to
turning out at least 100,000 marchers.
Equally significant was the mobilization by US Labor
Against War of perhaps 10,000 trade unionists from throughout the Northeast
and Midwest. According to USLAW coordinator Michael Eisenscher, "the
trade-union contingent was the largest, broadest, and most spirited of any
in 50 years or more."
April 29 was certainly the first occasion in which the
results of several years of patient education and cautious organizing
around antiwar resolutions inside the house of labor were actually visible
to the movement as whole. The presence of a significant layer of labor
militants at the demonstration, coming just one month after the first large
actions of Latino workers and their families around their victimization as
part of the war at home, hinted at the potential for a more powerful
working-class response to the Iraq War in the near future.
Veterans Against the War spokesperson Geoffrey Millard
appealed especially to unionists and military families by demanding that
the billions more just allocated for war be diverted to care for the
injured veterans who have already been created.
The April 29 march against the war was called by a
coalition of groups including United for Peace and Justice, the National
Organization for Women, Rainbow Operation Push, Coalition for Climate
Control, and others. With the exception of UFPJ and USLAW, few major
organizations seemed to have actually tried to mobilize their
constituencies. Yet the demonstration attracted many first-time marchers.
One of the most inspiring aspects of the march was the
visibility of Latino activists and families, many undoubtedly feeling newly
empowered by the massive mobilizations around immigrant rights. Local
immigrant rights organizations carried large banners that clearly
established their presence and heralded their future leadership role in the
antiwar movement.
One of the most popular costumes at the march was a
T-shirt that proclaimed, "No Human is Illegal" in English,
Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. These shirts—which appealed directly to
marchers' sense of the deep connections between anti-Arab racism,
anti-immigrant racism, and the war—as well as the crowded Palestine
Solidarity tent at Foley Square, were visible acknowledgements of the
relationship between the war in Iraq and continued U.S. support for the
Israeli land grab underway in the West Bank.
While the demonstration was a clear expression of the
desire of the movement for big unified mobilizations, there was one very
visible political division on display between forces that consciously
identified with the Democratic Party foreign-policy initiatives and those
who are fighting for a movement independent of all the war-making political
parties.
The presence of speakers and signs promoting U.S.
intervention into the Sudan were a surprisingly prominent part of the
demonstration. Numerous printed placards proclaimed, "Out of Iraq,
Into Dafur!" Jesse Jackson likewise declared at the opening press
conference that today we are marching to bring the troops home, but
"tomorrow we march for the end of genocide in Dafur." Jackson was
promoting the April 30 march on Washington, D.C., at which righteous horror
about the genocide in Dafur was cynically
tied to calls for expanding the U.S. presence in the
region.
The decision of the April 29 demonstration organizers to
avoid holding a rally at which the diverse forces of the antiwar movement
could share a stage meant that Jackson's controversial call went
unchallenged and that considerable confusion about the role of U.S.
interventions in Africa has been introduced into the antiwar movement.
Jackson's intervention represented part of the larger threat to the antiwar
movement posed by those from the Democratic Party who want to entice the
antiwar movement out of the streets and into electioneering during the fall
congressional campaigns.
So far, United for Peace and Justice has failed to
project a calendar of antiwar activities for the summer and fall months
that are genuinely independent of the war-making political parties.
Upcoming regional antiwar conferences are projected as skills workshops
that will, in fact, organize activists into Voters for Peace campaigns.
While ostensibly non-partisan, these campaigns will certainly devolve over
the autumn into "get out the vote" initiatives for Democratic
Party politicians who continue to oppose immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
On the other hand, many antiwar activists will
necessarily spend the summer educating about the need for an independent
antiwar movement and pointing to the example provided by the immigrant
rights movement—which overnight has managed to show that the power of
working people is most effectively manifested in massive actions in the
streets.
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