I agree with the checklist, and that’s the main reason after the initially big anti-war march I didn’t go to any of the other anti-war marches. I don’t really trust the SWP on issues.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brown-defeated-over-gurkha-ruling-1676153.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/29/government-loses-gurkhas-vote

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1174653/Now-let-stay-Humiliating-defeat-Brown-forces-rethink-Gurkhas–news-comes-late-hero.html – even the mail are supporting the Gurkhas… Strange times indeed

Whatever the merits of ‘squaddism’, I’ve been in a couple of situations this century where fascists have tried to block marches (one a gay pride parade, one for an asylum seeker who killed himself) that I’ve been involved in organising. In those situations, going heavy on the security, just in case the police are not taking it seriously enough, is entirely reasonable. Ditto if (to take a non-hypothetical example) they’ve been making threatening noises about a Holocaust Memorial Day exhibition in a church, and turn up en masse nearby. Best to drive them out of town.

Bet the Tamils in parliament square are wondering what the point of protesting is. They’re STILL there in their hundreds, and still not being reported – guess they’ve got their work cut out for them competing for mainstream attention with non events like swine flu, etc. Nobody would even know if they had a platform of LTTE speakers.

I know the feeling!

I’ve always thought that is the interesting question.

If the idea is to demonstrate public feeling to the government, it is probably futile – the government will rightly rather trust its opinion polls and focus groups to tell it that.

If the idea is to intimidate someone, it is probably even more futile, at least in the UK, unless the marchers happen to have their own private army.

If the idea is to raise awareness of an issue amongst the general public, then probably either you don’t have enough supporters for a decent march, or the public is already paying as much attention as it ever will. With a few exceptions, if you need to attract attention, you need to do something that will grab attention even if done by very few people.

I am tempted to conclude that the majority of demonstrations are held in order to demonstrate to other demonstrators.

Guano: had been thinking about mentioning Seattle, but the article was too long already.

There is a bit of a myth about this actually. The ‘debates around the world about the issues’ at Seattle was on a proposal – supported by the Clinton administration and a number of European countries – to put a so-called Social Clause in the World Trade Organisation. Most of the people who were demonstrating that day were US-based trade unionists who supported it.

But the demand was vigorously opposed by southern governments, trade unionists and social activists, who feared that it would be used for protectionist purposes (which it would have been). Martin Khor of the Third World Network was one of the most vigrous and articulate opponents. I remember this debate at the time because I had the social, economic and cultural rights brief for Amnesty UK and also because my then girlfriend was Clare Short’s special advisor. Britain reversed its initial support for the social clause and blocked with the countries of the developing world instead.

This was the cause of the deadlock – not the protest outside – and the irony is that most of the demonstrators were calling for something that would have hurt poor people and was being vigorously opposed by the people on whose behalf they claimed to be acting. This debate was one of the spurs for the formation of the World Social Forum in Brazil a couple of years later.

Many protests that will not achieve anything are organised to keep an activist base busy and active, and also to try and recruit new people. With this attitude protests are organised without consideration. Its unlikely to change in the future unfortunately, but hopefully wider elements will get better at telling what is worth turning up to and whats not, and at turning up to organising meetings to stop everything being a hard left meeting-packers front.

Getting a message across is, of course, not always easy. The press will often go for the narrative about these mysterious forces who are out to cause trouble. But if you don’t have a strategy for getting the message across there isn’t much point in having a demo.

You’re normally more careful than that.

And having had my annual work review this afternoon – which decended into the usual 90 minute slanging match – I’ve had enough of SMART for one day.

Other than that, an excellent article.

I think that the main point of demonstrations is to motivate demonstrators, politically. It would be pretty outrageous if elected governments made policy on the basis of how many people could be persuaded to turn up on march. (I appreciate that some will disagree).

Squaddism v the BNP/NF/BM etc.. People should be protected from fascist thugs. Kenan Malik’s discussion of how he and some mates sat around in shops that were being targeted by racists is heartbreaking. But there’s a difference between that, and actually going out to look for fascists, for the sole purpose of having a ruck. I don’t think that you can defeat, electorally, a fascist party by beating up their activists.

Finally:

” Trying to win broader support for the Palestinians or Tamils, for example, is probably not helped by having speakers from Hamas or the LTTE”

The problem is, the purpose of STWC is winning broad support for Hamas; rather than supporting the Palestinian cause. They’re very closely tied to Hamas/MB and Jamaati factions. That’s their politics.