Guest Post: Tristam Barrett - Why I Will Not March Again

And here we go. SUPPLY AND COMMAND proudly presents the first contribution of new Cambridge bureau chief Tristam Barrett. Tristam reports from recently held anti-war protests in London. This is an opinion piece and does not necessarily reflect the views of the S & C editorial board.

Why I Will Not March Again
Text and Photos by Tristam Barrett

I marched in the London demonstrations against Israel's actions in Palestine yesterday. I walked behind as a cohort of protestors was skilfully quadrilled by the Metropolitan police. I took photos of police and protestors. All were there, the usual rag-tag youths in green bandanas, "Stop the War"riors, even Orthodox Jews breaking the Sabbath courageously to manifest their opposition to what is now an invasion that has bifurcated the Gaza Strip. But as soon as I entered the throng, I stepped out. I will not lend my voice to support cries of "Down, down with Is-ra-el!"

 

Post-modern protest cannot rely on the support of the loyal cadres in the vein of traditional Marxism. It must be flexible enough to allow people to affiliate themselves to a cause for diverse reasons, none of which need be assumed in the final manifestation. The protests vocally confabulated entirely distinct issues; opposition to the present military incursion, destruction of Israel, international Muslim solidarity. Not only did this isolate potential allies – human rights activists, pacifists, liberals, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians and Israelis, me ­– even worse, it enabled those ten thousand voices that were heard in London that cold Saturday in January to be dismissed entirely.

Today's Guardian reported liberal Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto declaring: "The demonstration was easy to organise because most of the demonstrators want more than a ceasefire. Most of these people want the end of Israel.  Hamas are able to plug into latent anti-Semitism in the West. It breaks my heart." How can one disagree? It was easy to organise – I was at the demonstration; the demonstrators did want more than a ceasefire – I heard the calls. But Hamas did not organise these demonstrations and  I, at least, did not call for the downfall of Israel.

Whilst Dr Brichto's comments serve to underline the frailty of this quavering voice of social protest, there is another far greater issue to be addressed. Our political establishment readily absorbs such events with barely a murmur. The police are highly competent at channelling protesters peaceably through the streets of London. The media report on the protest. Our politicians absorb it and our public forget it. Absorbed and forgotten. We don't even have Gramsci's intellectuals to frame and to fight these battles with us. Without this, protest is meaningless – a mere event among others.

Events are born always already interpellated into the hegemony. In Palestine, where Hamas did organise demonstrations, the dead were enshrouded in green cloth and paraded through the streets. Bodies were interpellated as Muslims first and foremost, lost lives second. Papers in Gaza spoke of "a thousand martyrs". We, however, protesting the incursion into Palestine, we cannot allow our actions, our voice, to be interpellated in this way. There are lives at stake.

The largest demonstration ever organised in the UK – in opposition to the Iraq War – assembled a cast of national luminaries and international intelligentsia (including Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Mo Mowlam, Tariq Ali, Jesse Jackson, and Harold Pinter).  Despite having a clear message and strong support, the protests were allowed to be dismissed by then Prime Minister Tony Blair as "the price of leadership and the cost of conviction". Now, as then, the issue is clear. What is at stake is not merely the loss of civilian life and livelihoods through the illegal and unjust use of force, not merely the integrity of social protest, but our very politics.

In the meantime, as Dr Brichto heralds the Gaza protests as anti-Semitic, I walk through the demonstration detritus of Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch and look upon trampled placards marked MAB ­– Muslim Association of Britain.

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