Who's raising their voices in opposition to war? Angela Long looks at the disparite groups with a common cause
Christian churches of a fundamentalist bent used to display signs outside their buildings, posing the difficult question, "What think ye of Christ?" After the ignominious dismantling of the Shannon Peace Camp and the sight of many polished heels in the air as Official Ireland ran in a dozen directions to dissociate itself with attacks on a big, unoccupied American aircraft, the question this weekend should be rephrased for Ireland in 2003: what think ye of war?
Let's set the old chestnut of "our cherished neutrality" aside for the moment. Polls show most Irish people are not enthusiastic about George Bush's planned attack on Iraq. (Seventy-three per cent, in an RTÉ survey, said they did not support a so-called pre-emptive strike against Saddam Hussein. Figures across the board have been about 65-70 per cent.) For many, it is the nature of this particular campaign, the suspicion that it is political expedience, that makes it undesirable. But for others, a minority, it is war itself, any war, that is the enemy, and this feeling motivated first Mary Kelly and then the five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement, to take hammers to the jet parked in its hangar at Shannon.
Shannon is the complicating issue in an argument that could be a purely moral decision, made with the luxury of distance, to condemn the American war out of hand. Surveys on whether or not the US should use Shannon to refuel military transports are split down the middle.
There is an official Irish Anti-War Movement, but, there is also a looser and wider anti-war movement in this State. This day week, a mass protest, coinciding with similar ones all around the world, will take place against the proposed war. Irish organisers estimate at least 10,000 people are willing to stand up and be counted. Who will be there and, in more ways than one, where are they coming from? There remains a popular notion that "peaceniks" are unwashed vegetarians in scratchy clothes, often students or dropouts living off the State and the hard-earned taxes of the rest of us, or the generosity of their long-suffering parents.
A church hall in north Dublin on Wednesday night told a somewhat different story. It held about 120 people who had come out in cold February darkness to express their opposition to the proposed war against Iraq. There were a few young "student types", but the majority, in their warm dark winter coats, were aged between 30 and 50. One little group of older ladies and gents sitting in a cosy circle looked like they would have been more comfortable at bingo, but they came to hear Denis Halliday, former UN official in Iraq, continue his campaign of lectures around the country about the devastation which a mass bombing would cause.
The Fairview gathering was one of dozens of meetings, up and down the country, which are taking place to oppose the war. Other events, such as a midweek screening in Lahinch, Co Clare of a film by campaigning journalist John Pilger about Iraq, drew 50 people, not insignificant in the context.
The Irish Anti-War Movement, one of the lead players in organising next Saturday's march, reports membership is booming. Its spokesman, Richard Boyd Barrett, a member of the Socialist Workers' Party and veteran of many campaigns, says: "I have never seen anything like it. The level of opposition is unprecedented." There have been 40 public meetings across Ireland in the past few months, attended by several thousand people.
Writer and theatre director Peter Sheridan is spokesman for the newly-formed Irish Writers Against Wargroup, which is staging a literary protest about the war in the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin next Wednesday. He says he was in Rome at the end of January, watching CNN in his hotel room, when he noticed something odd.
"We knew our son was going to a protest in San Francisco, so we paid attention when that item came up. But all they made was a passing reference, that organisers were disappointed at the turnout. Then we came back and read in The Irish Times that a total of 200,000 people had attended two marches in San Francisco, and our son confirmed that."
Sheridan was furious. "I thought, the time for silence is over, they are already manipulating us."
He found that fellow writer Conor Kostick had been thinking along similar lines, and they started contacting people, drafting a common position, and organising events." The group also includes Jennifer Johnston, (who is co-ordinating a literary world protest in Northern Ireland), Theo Dorgan, Roddy Doyle, Brian Friel, Brendan Kennelly, Katie Donovan and Margaretta Darcy.
"We will be marching under our own banner on February 15th," Sheridan says, "and I think this will be the biggest anti-war demonstration ever in Ireland."
Iain Atack is well-qualified to comment on anti-war activity. A committed Quaker and expert on the history of non-violent resistance, he is director of the Peace Studies course at the Irish School of Ecumenics (affiliated with Trinity College), and also chairman of AfrI. Atack reckons the turnout in Dublin next Saturday will tell us a lot.
"The peace movement, meaning the broad coalition of activists, has been quite successful in generating debate and discussion on the issue of refuelling [at Shannon]. I think they have got to people. The pressures on the Government are strong internationally, so you have to reckon with the forces that are lined up behind the US. But what you can do as a peace movement is keep the pressure on, demonstrate that the Government can't take silence as consent. The moral argument is being made, a genuine concern for the impact on Iraqi lives of this proposed war."
Many of the groups lining up against the Iraq war (see panel) are the same as those opposed to the Nice referendum, and the fright they gave the Government the first time around has gone down in history. Some peace campaigners criticise the way neutrality, a big issue in the Nice votes, has been sidelined, or newly interpreted, as in the straight assertion by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, on RTÉ radio this week that Ireland had never been neutral in a military sense, only in a political sense.
"Neutrality is an emotive issue," says Atack, "if not as an active policy, then as a value that people hold on to." He also voices a wider and more long-term concern: what would it mean for multilateral agreements and international organisations if the United States proceeds to war without a fresh UN resolution to endorse it clearly?
Roger Cole, spokesman for the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, makes the point that although it upholds neutrality as just such a value mentioned by Iain Atack, it is not a pacifist organisation.
"We support the Irish Army," he says, "but right now we are at war, and it is going to be a catastrophe. Neutrality is dead. As long as Bertie Ahern is leader of this country we are at war. He is the first leader since John Redmond to lead this country into a war."
Cole will be chief steward of next Saturday's march, and points out that Carol Fox, who is speaking for PANA (Peace and Neutrality Alliance), will share the platform with Bishop John Kirby, the head of Trócaire, and Des Geraghty of SIPTU. The Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, Robert McCarthy, is also scheduled to speak. "That is one sign of the breadth of the opposition that exists," adds Cole.
Brendan Butler, Swords schoolteacher and co-ordinator of the NGO Peace Alliance, takes up the theme. "There has been a complete re-awakening of Irish people to the value of neutrality, peace and justice, and against war. There used to be a lot of that feeling here, but in the 1990s it dwindled right down. Iraq has forced us [components of the Alliance\] into more of a structure . . . If the Shannon Development Authority is allowing Shannon to develop in that way, relying on military operations, it is their fault. It is a matter of redirecting business in a more constructive way. [The business] is their right, but the only problem for the rest of us is that it affects perceptions of Ireland within the world, as a place that once stood up for human rights."
For a considerable number of people that argument is not good enough, and the economic damage that a moral stand could do to the Shannon region, in the first place, is not worth it. To those people, in particular the Taoiseach, Denis Halliday responds: putting jobs above lives is "revolting".
The Shannon peace camp people who faced an injunction from Aer Rianta this week agree they have no quarrel with the American people. But they have an evangelical sense of mission to encourage the Irish population to make their voices heard. Aer Rianta won the injunction, but as the camp had been abandoned the day before, it was something of an empty victory. Ed Horgan, a former army commandant and now a committed peace campaigner, says the withdrawal was "purely tactical". The camp is unlikely to reappear before next Saturday's march and plans after that will depend on US President, George Bush.
Horgan and his fellow campaigners were on a high at the end of the week, despite some bitter arguing within the wider peace movement over the hammer attacks on the US 737.
"We are flabbergasted at the success of the movement," he says, "and we get the feeling of huge support from the people of Ireland."
Caoimhe Butterly, the activist from Cork who was wounded in the West Bank last year, says there has been no proper debate about the war in Ireland, or about neutrality. "I think most Irish people, when [these issues are] presented to the Dáil would be able to decide if they support the sell-off of neutrality . . . What is the message we want to give out to the world?" She is now hoping to go to Iraq with a small group of fellow activists.
In the wider society, groupings representing millions of Irish people have spoken out against the proposed war. The trade union movement's leaders held a press conference on Thursday in Dublin, to express their opposition. David Begg, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, says he was there in a personal capacity. ICTU has not yet ratified the position but, Begg comments: "You could hypothesise that the conduct of the war itself, if it happens, is much more likely to do economic damage than any opinions that might be expressed by us."
Religious groupings from Catholics to Buddhists have lined up to voice opposition. Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate, Seán Brady, issued a statement a fortnight ago in which he said it was difficult to justify resorting to war against Iraq without an attack by Saddam Hussein. He quoted the Pope's statement to the Vatican Diplomatic Corps that "war is not always inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity".
The Islamic community of Ireland is united against the war and will have its contingent marching next Saturday. Its spokesman, Imam al-Hussein, says: "People have a duty to raise their voices, and their concerns. They must do better than the Government, which is afraid to speak out or receive the consequences."
The Jewish community is hard to pin down on the issue, although it should be noted that Saddam Hussein's vicious and visceral hatred of Israel would complicate matters for some Jews. The Chief Rabbi, Yaakov Pearlman, will say only "no comment".
Across the world "No War on Iraq" marches are taking place in at least 55 cities next Saturday. The idea for this day of action was conceived at the Word Social Forum in Florence last November.
In London, up to one million people are expected to take over Hyde Park, after the British government climbed down from its refusal to allow protesters into the park, claiming the grass would be damaged. On the island of Ireland, Belfast and Dublin are hosting marches. Marches are planned from Amsterdam and Barcelona to Vancouver and Warsaw. In some places, San Francisco and Australian state capitals, for example, the marches will take place on Sunday, February 16th.
What are the many and disparate opponents of Bush's initiative hoping to achieve, as a result of the march and of consciousness-raising across the board? Nobody is under the illusion they can stop the US from going in.
"Our end goal here is to force the government to stop the use of Shannon as a military airport," says Richard Boyd Barrett. "We have already rattled the Irish Government . . . The size of the movement is taking them by surprise. We want them to come out and oppose the war. If countries like Ireland did this it would inspire others. We are reaching a pitch and size that they can't ignore us any more."
• The Dublin march against the war in Iraq starts from Parnell Square at 2 p.m. next Saturday. It is organised jointly by the Irish Anti-War Movement, PANA, and the NGO Peace Alliance.
The Belfast march assembles at the College of Art at 2 p.m, and proceeds to City Hall for the rally at 3 p.m. Website for information: http://irishantiwar.org
• Caoimhe Butterly is speaking at Wynn's Hotel, Dublin, at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 11th.