UK report

Feb. 15: Dozens of rented buses took people from
Newcastle, Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland, and
Durham down to London for the huge march. About half
of our city's group (5 buses full) were folks in their
50s, 60s or older. Some of the rest were University
students, but there were quite a few working folks as
well. Despite the presence of the usual "Socialist
Worker"-peddling suspects, it was a very diverse
crowd.

As for the march, this one was a case of "believe the
hype": There really were 2,000,000 people there. It
was incredible. Lots of Muslim groups, affinity groups
of all sorts. Quite a few Iraqis as well (the papers
here said there weren't, but I saw at least 2 groups
and one family from Iraq--none of them supporting
Hussein, but all of them hoping their relatives would
be spared another war) as well as several Kurdish
groups.

The police were very low-key and polite, some even
flashing peace signs. As a result, it's my
understanding that there was only one arrest, of a
person who was drunk & disorderly.

Several buses also carried people north to Glasgow,
where Blair was addressing a Labour Party meeting.
They were kept well away from the hall.

March 17: Calls went out from unions and anti-war
groups to walk out the day the war started. Many
lecturers at the University where I work cancelled
classes. Most students were not aware of the plans,
though. A picket and rally was set up on campus,
fairly small. A larger rally occurred at the local
community college, where there was a mass walk-out.
A vigil in the town centre that night attracted
another crowd of around 70 people.

March 22: Rallies and vigils were held in pretty much
every city and town across England and Scotland, as
well as the big march in London. I went to a rally in
Newcastle. About 700 people gathered in a square to
hear speakers, who were boring "peace police" types
for the most part. After Northumbria Police refused
permission for the group to march up Northumbria
Street (a wide pedestrian street where all the shops
are), the rally was officially ended with an aside to
the group that a peace vigil would begin at the church
down the end of Northumbria Street in 15 minutes.
Although the police tried to bar the way, the group
eventually passed them by and peacefully marched up to
the vigil.

The police were, again, very polite. It's such a
change from the US--no riot gear, no guns, no pepper
spray at the ready, calm words, no verbal abuse. Very
civilised.

There are very few Muslims taking part in rallies in
the northeast from what I have seen, probably due to
the upsurge in racist attacks here lately. A pizzaria
run by an Iraqi Kurd family in nearly Redcar was
fire-bombed on Sunday, for example, and most of the
tabloid press uses a lot of abusive language about
refugees and Arabs. We have a lot of unemployment and
poverty here, and fascist groups like the British
National Party are trying to exploit it for their own
ends.

Reports are filtering in about police (or maybe
Special Branch) causing problems for people trying to
get to the vigil at the American air base in England
where the B-52s fly out to Iraq. A peace camp has
started there that is attracting a lot of people, but
busloads have been searched and sent away.
The news we get here is significantly different from
the US coverage: the footage of dead and captured US
soldiers ran here this morning, for example, but I
have read that it's being kept off US TV. We have also
seen a lot of footage of Iraqi casualties. The video
footage of the first night of major bombing in Baghdad
shown in the US (I've seen digital video on Fox's US
Web site) also appears to have been "cleaned up" from
what was shown here. And the reaction was also
different...my husband was in our local pub when the
bombing started. CNN was turned on and the place went
completely quiet. People were sickened, upset--no
shouts of "let's roll," no red white & blue hysteria.
Worry is close to the surface here in the
northeast--much like the American south, this is the
poorest area of the country, and so it's the place
where the soldiers come from. It's one of the few ways
out of poverty. Many of my students have family in the
army or navy. But rather than blind "support our boys"
patriotism, what I'm hearing is fear for their safety,
and resentment that they have been sent to fight
Bush's war. Far more people here are class-conscious,
too, knowing and saying that once again the poor have
been sent to fight the poor for the rich. You hear
this from typical people down at the pubs or on the
buses, not just from academics and ideologues. Gives
me hope.

So do the actions of you folks in the US. Keep up the
pressure!