Analysis of Shannon 1st March

Sunday March 02, 2003 17:27

by kev - personal capacity

Well, heres my analysis, I feel that the small numbers that turned out for both demos in Shannon, prove that the GNAW are, at best premature in their actions, and at worst completely wrong in the belief that Direct Action is the way forward for the anti-war campaign.

The fact that the numbers were so small proves this. At most the GNAW assembled 250ish, and the IAWM 900ish. The direct action initiave was a complete failure. I'm sure the GNAW hoped that 1000's would turn up and that they could get a sizeable amount of these people to attend their protest. However, precisely as a result of the publicisation of the direct action, and the spin by the media, the numbers failed to show. You can blame the media all you want - and I do too, for many things - but we all knew that this was exactly what was going to happen in this case. Its no use crying over something that was inevitable in the circumstances. But I still expected more than 1200ish altogether.

But they didn't, so the GNAW have to face the fact that the mass movement against war in this country (the 150,000 or so that marched in dublin)are more in-line with the IAWM view of how things should be brought forward - mass demos, community and workplace groups, strikes, walkouts and of course the all important role of the Shannon workers.

Even doing an anti-war stall in the city centre during the week, people were coming up asking "are you them violent ones" etc. This is not to say thats how I see GNAW, but this was a pretty frequent description of the direct actioners by the general public, or at least the general public on that day. The media has obviously played a role in this, and this cannot be helped. Therefore i see direct action in Shannon at this stage as a wrong tactic. But I assume many in the GNAW see it as a principle rather than a tactic. To me its not, there is a time for DA (water charges, bin charges, student occupations, to name a few).

I feel the attitude of many of those who post here is that the 150,000 people marching thru dublin was 'pointless because the government didn't listen'. Well I didn't expect them to in all honesty. This is why we must build the anti-war campaign. The attitude of some was the govt didnt listen, forget about building, lets tear down the fences. To me this is completely wrong and undermines the role of ordinary people in this movement - and isn't anarchy meant to be all about self empowerment? The actions a few can easily alienate ordinary people.

Now, on another posting 'Donnacha' stated:

"If fair weather friends are going to decide not to take part in a protest because they don't agree with another groups' tactics (that they can easily keep away from) then they're no value at all to any movement."

While I agree that the PANA, Shinners, Greens and Labour should not have caved in to the hype about violence, this is one of the most elitist remarks I have heard on the wire. so lets just say that a possible 8,000 people would have turned up at Shannon if there was to be no direct action - by this reckoning the 7,000 that didnt come are of "no value" to the movement??? Interesting logic there. Face it, many people stayed away because there was confusion about the issue, the media played its role, as did the pro-UN groups mentioned above, but so too did the GNAW and their tactics/principles. I went, but I knew what was the basic plan was, and I knew that the protest was important.

It has also been mentioned several times that the IAWM muscled in on the GNAW demo. I don't actually know the ins-and-outs of this, but were the two demos not decided without prior knowledge of either groups as to the others plans? (correct me if I'm wrong on this point). However, to my mind this doesnt really matter as had the IAWM not called a protest for the same day, the GNAW numbers would still not have been any more than those who turned up yesterday. And the same result would have occured.

Again, i say that the overwhelming majority of those involved in the anti-war campaign are at this stage not in favour of the tactic of direct action at shannon. To me, the 1st March demo proves this, and that further such actions which will be exploited by the media and the goverment will only undermine the movement.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, what is needed is not 'Direct Action', it is Mass Action with Direction.

(and I suppose - que vitriol)