That massive anti-war protest was ten years ago today.
While reading numerous articles and facebook statuses I've been thinking about the whole anti-war movement and the impact 9/11 had on the anti-globalisation/anti-capitalist movement which a number of us were involved with at the time.
How a movement where direct action, self-organisation and solidarity were fairly common got sidelined by the need to prevent a major conflict from breaking out, but then how the organisational forms and practice was marginalised by the established left who were able to take control of the new movement.
One thing that stands out from that period which I've seen a lot of people not really mention was the Fairford days of action and the Stop the War Coalition's approach to them. I can vaguely remember the action on the day the coaches were stopped being promoted by a lot of people, but the StWC calling a demonstration in London on the same day to reduce the number of people going.
Anyway, lots can be said about that whole period!
I spent the day of the protest in school. My school was Catholic and not very political. Yet post 9/11 the idea of the war had entered our collective consciousness. In the weeks running up to the march some students had been handing out leaflets about the war and had got into arguments/fights with students who felt that being anti-war was 'unpatriotic'. The school had been trying its best to keep a lid on it.
On the day of the march there was a lot of talk of students leaving at lunchtime to go down on the march. The school put a stop to this by simply locking all the gates and entrances. Threats went round that any student leaving the school grounds would face repercussions.
So I don't have any memories of the movement or the big march. On the other hand I can basically trace the beginnings of my active involvement in politics back to 9/11 and the war, so in a way it's responsible for me being an active Anarchist in the here and now. It marked the beginning of my trajectory out through democratic socialism, radical socialism and syndicalism into Anarcho-Syndicalism.