Can we Stop the War

I spoke in Trafalgar Square today. I spoke my mind in front of over 200 people -- against the impending war on Iraq. It was not planned for but it happened. Let me tell you how.

It was Friday and after listening to the radio news in the morning, I had checked my stored diary of events on the Net. In the afternoon I washed the pans in a hurry and did not even bother to set the house in order. After all I had an appointment to keep. Shrugging into my jacket and I grabbed my Himachali cap and my scarf and rushed out of the house. I was running late I had to reach Trafalgar Square by 6pm. I calculated I had an hour to reach as I trudged down Goodge Street, dodging people near Piccadilly Circus Station before I spied the Spire of St Martin in Fields.

Once there I caught my breath and looked around the steps of St Martin’s’ which was flanked by camera people, so I knew I had reached my destination. ’Is this where everyone is gathering for the vigil’, I asked the few people huddled together at the base of the church. Blue eyes under a black French beret nodded vigorously in affirmation, ’There are not many people about,’ she said glumly, ’so I guess this is it.’

For the last eight years, I have been on the other side of the fence. Being a journalist I have covered countless marches and protest rallies in my home country, India. But here in London, I am completely free. To be more precise I am jobless. I could have of course sat at home and read Isabella Allendes’s House of Spirits or chatted with my Kirgiz friend next door, but for me this peace vigil was important. Over the weeks my discontented mutterings against America and President Bush have slowly been rising in pitch and passion. And with no journalistic output, I decided my energies would be better equipped screaming slogans with other peaceniks or holding candles with hoards of others.

And it certainly felt good to part of the crowd, which slowly grew. ’Oh Tony Benn is here’, someone said and I noticed an oldish man with a red scarf rise slowly from the step to talk to the people around. ’Can you speak louder, we can’t hear you’, a nameless voice shouted. I hedged forward and a shove from behind found me standing right in front of Mr Benn.

’I didn’t come here prepared for a speech you know. I came in solidarity with all those who have grouped around the world to protest against the impending war on Iraq’, he said softly. ’And this gathering here in London is very important, as important as the rally in Amercia, and other parts of the world, because if we are heard and if the man at No 10 knows that we are standing here, then there is hope that he will back down and not give the moral support that Mr Bush is so desperate for and thereby avert a war.’ I felt a thrill of sorts, could I, or could we together actually prevent a WAR.

Yesssssssss.

There was jostling from behind and then the ubiquitous friendly London bobby made a not so friendly appearance. ’You are blocking the pedestrian path, move on, move on’, the pair shouted in tandem. And so we found ourselves being herded towards the heart of Trafalgar Square, between the fountains, facing Lord Nelson’s back. I realised the crowd had swelled, no longer were there a few dozens, there were at least two hundred odd people, all shapes and sizes, I even spotted two nuns in their habits, which reminded me of my days at school.

As we regrouped, people began taking out candles from their handbags, and pockets, lighters were shared and the disparate group became one, after all we had so much in common, we had all forgone other commitments, social and otherwise to come together and rub shoulders all in the name of peace. I found myself flanked by an old couple holding hands together, with placards hanging from their necks. ’SAY NO TO WAR IN IRAQ’, read one. The woman’s eyes met mine and we smiled in unison, ’ He is 78 you know’, she said looking at Mr Benn’.
’Really’, I whispered in admiration.

I was later to know that Tony Benn had for long a representative of the radical left in Parliament. An aristocrat who gave up his peerage, Benn is know for taking up causes, specially in the name of peace, and had for more than five decades haunted rallies at Trafalgar Square, a place which sees the beginning or end of most rallies in London.

’Is anybody here from the Middles East, any one from Iraq’? Not a man to hog the limelight Tony Ben was looking for other speakers and soon the heart of Trafalgar Square resembled a University classroom and we got a crash course in Middle East politics, from within the crowd. There was a man from Jordan, another women from Iran. ’I gotta say something’, drawled a man holding his candle in the air. ’Which country are you from’, asked Benn. ’I am from America, from Chicago’, said he. ’And I want to say there are thousands of Americans who are against the war in the States, but the gang in White House, the hoodlums there are not listening and that is why it is important for you here in London to protest to ensure that Mr Blair does not give support to him in this immoral war.’ Ya Ya went the crowd. Then there was a man from Pakistan, who talked of the instability in his country, which had been caused by the US; someone mentioned Cuba and then another talked of North Korean missile threat. And then suddenly I found my voice coming to my ears. Before I realised, I was talking. ’I think the definition of a rouge state has to be redefined. I think dictatorship has to be redefined. How come America can get away with a war that no one can justify, a war that they are planning at any moment, without getting a mandate from the UN, without waiting to see whether Iraq even posses the horrific weapons which no inspector has proof of yet. Is this what civilisation is all about?’

I saw people nodding in agreement as I went into my monologue, releasing the steam that had been building up for so many weeks.
The old woman next to me smiled encouragingly. ’I absolutely agree with you my dear’, she whispered, I am Leslie and where are you from’. ’I am from India’, I said. ’Oh India, well my Hal has been there when he was a young boy’. I looked up at Hal who had been standing ever so quietly next to me, listening intently with eyes closed to the discussion going around. I smiled at him. ’He’s blind my Hal, but he does like to come here’, said Leslie. ‘Doesn’t look blind to me, I said, he seems to see far better than Mr Blair’. So Hal, when were you in India’. He turned his ears towards me, smiled and said, ’Oh my father was in the British Army and I was there in the north west province and then Hyderabad and I have very fond memories of Kashmir, of Baramullah.’ We got chatting, even as the crowd started petering off. ’Will you be coming to Parliament on Tuesday,’ said Hal. I wasn’t sure, but they promised to watch out for me, should I change my mind.

Waiting to cross the road, I caught the eye of my neighbour. He smiled at me. ’Could you direct me to the Strand please’. He pointed the way, as I crossed the road he turned to me and said, ’So will you be going there on Tuesday to Westminster?’ I realised he must have been part of the peace group. ’I am not British you know, so I don’t know how much sense it makes to protest there as I don’t have an MP to talk to. ’No, you should go’, he said. Looking at the hesitant look on my face he said,’ Listen, I will be working on that day, so why don’t you go as my representative, OK?’ I smiled at him and then nodded. Coming to another fork in the road, we parted, waving and smiling at each other. Strangers, yet friends, united by a common cause.

As I walked homewards, I wondered whether ordinary people like us, who had gathered at various points around the world – from Manila to Moscow and from Rawalpindi to Tokyo – could make any dent in the larger scheme of things being perpetuated by Messers Bush and Blair.

It was then that the images of thousands of faceless, nameless people came to my mind – people who changed the course of history. It was after all the Americans who came out on the streets in thousands, which led to the end of the Vietnam war. And Was it not the thousands of faceless people who gathered at the Revolution Square in Bucharest in December 1989, who eventually brought down Ceausescu’s cruel regime. It has been done before and I have no reason to believe that it cannot be done again. So, wherever you are, get together, congregate in your town square on the 15th of February. You don’t have to give a speech, be a silent spectator, but be there to cast your vote against this unjust war. And you just might change the course of history.