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Back to Schooldays
Rowson's Comment
Around the Block
News in Brief
Stop the War
Mini-march
Lysistrata Day
Fringe Festival
Straight to the Point
Time to Finnish
Day in the Nick
Starting Over
Readers Letters
Herbal Cleansing
Local Music
Tripping Out
Tippling at the Tup
Property
Housing Matters
Very Testi
Art Happenings
Vietnamese Food
Entertainment
Gardening
Marathon Man
Surfing N16
Man in North Bank
Xword

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‘Regime change could be starting a lot closer to home than Iraq.’

As an activist in Hackney Stop the War Coalition, my life is currently never without a dull moment. I have leafleted, postered, run stalls, put on film shows, demonstrated, lobbied and, in short, have spoken to more people than ever before in my life. The one thing that George Bush and Tony Blair can be credited with is the revival of my flagging social life.

Since becoming involved in the Stop the War Coalition, I have been constantly amazed at the reception we have been getting from people in Hackney and the range of people who have been willing to get involved in the coalition.

There have been vicars who have given over their church halls for Stop the War groups to meet, Kurdish and Turkish community centres who have let us use their facilities to put on teachins and meetings, printers who produced our publicity for free, the Arcola theatre who gave us the use of the theatre for a day and an evening, the many, many shops and restaurants who display our posters but, even more overwhelmingly, the sheer numbers of ordinary people who have been prepared to give up almost all of their spare time to campaign.

Teachers, school kids, housing workers, clergy, socialists, anarchists, trade unions, have all been active in Hackney against the war. This movement has united black and white, gay and straight, men and women – an astonishing feat for Bush and Blair to have inadvertently pulled off.

We have had parties for peace, pickets of petrol stations with placards saying 'No blood for oil’, stalls at shopping centres, road blocks and leafleting jumble sales. A
group of hardy and committed souls do a weekly cycle ride for peace around Hackney handing out leaflets, blowing whistles and making as much noise and commotion as it is possible to make while riding a bike at the same time.

A window on Flowers N16 shopfront

People have put up so many posters against the war that in some places we appear to have reached saturation point and it’s increasingly difficult to find a space that isn’t already filled with an anti-war poster. There are inspirational figures such as the 82-year-old pensioner who, in the run-up to the 2 million strong demonstration on 15 February, made an artistic arrangement of Stop the War posters forming a huge NO at Dalston junction. Every day he checked this out to make sure that the posters hadn’t come down and put more up where they had. Strangely, unlike most posters, which are put up and then taken down immediately by the council, the Stop the War posters seem to have a miraculously long life. I like to think that this is due to the active support of council workers.

As I am writing this, Bush and Blair have given up on the UN and an illegal and horrific war is underway. Millions of people throughout this country have made it clear that this war is not in our name. Tony Blair, who declares that he will bring democracy to Iraq, is not so keen on the will of the people here in the UK. The national Stop the War
Coalition is calling for mass civil disobedience against the war.

School kids have already set us a fantastic example, with thousands across the country walking out of their schools to demonstrate against the war. On the day the war against Iraq began, around 1500 people demonstrated in Hackney at midday. These were people from community groups, workers and overwhelmingly school students who then marched from Hackney Town Hall to Parliament Square to join other demonstrators from all over London. On Saturday 22 March, hundreds of people from Hackney joined the million-strong march against the war.

The anti war movement is fighting for a different world where there is peace, not war and where people come before profit. Tony Blair better look out – there are many people in Hackney, and millions more like us all over the country and the rest of the world, who are ready to show him what real democracy looks like. Regime change could be starting a lot closer to home than Iraq.
Contact Hackney Stop the War on 07979 066447.

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