Human shields in Iraq

By Bukka Rennie
March 08, 2003

Today is International Women's Day and women all over the world will be pouring out into the streets, raising the burning issues of the day and making demands on the world leaders. Foremost of the issues, of course, will be the impending war against Iraq.

When the much over-used term "globalisation" is used today it is usually in context of a string of negatives that arise out of the international market system as dictated by the objective demands of capital accumulation and how the undeveloped regions of the world are, as a result of the predominant socio-economic relationships, kept undeveloped and peripheral. But there are always two sides to the coin.

I said before in this column that what is interesting about the present and current, acute awareness of the modern global context is that more and more people have come to realise that "we are responsible for each other". In fact this is what I said after September 11 in a piece titled "War of the flea":

"If you take the view that all alleged enemies of America are 'non-people', infinitely evil, without any 'truths' of their own, and if the people in the Arab regions were to do likewise, seeing all US citizens as ungodly 'Ugly Americans', then the whole world will never progress beyond this point.

"We need at this time, particularly after Tuesday's (Sept 11) debacle, to recognise and pay homage to each other, even to the 'fleas' and the 'mole-crickets' of the earth. They are people too!

"Globalisation means exactly that. No one must be excluded and marginalised. No longer is anyone innocent. We are all responsible for each other, we are all responsible for the sustainability of each other's human presence.

"There can no longer be any one group or any one nation policing the whole world for the sake only of its particular and specific political-economic interests. That will no longer be tolerated. There can no longer be 'power', super-power, without morality."

One cannot help but be proud to have written such lines back then. That was the lesson I thought had to be drawn from September 11. In short, a kind of "Earth nationalism", after all, to quote Fatboy from Diego Martin, "we are all Earthlings!" And really, it is a flip-side to what is normally discussed under the heading: Globalisation.

Wishful thinking, you say. Certainly not. A number of women have left England, France and other parts of Europe and have gone to Iraq to stand as human shields between the people of Iraq and any invading force of US and British military might.

That is the ultimate act of social responsibility and commitment to the peace process and to the peaceful and equitable development of all and sundry.

These women are to be commended in the highest way, even moreso if perchance they come to die there. As their stance becomes more known and more highlighted, their numbers will indeed multiply.

That is the kind of world in which we live today despite all the rot and the grime and the dirt and the cowardice that are so readily discernible.

As Bush and his sidekicks, Powell and Blair, rattle their sabres and are bent on a ridiculous war - that will be as easy to them as "swatting flies" and after which their generals will lay claim to being military geniuses - however, the anti-war movement is building rapidly across continents as millions and millions of people have taken to the streets to express their horror at what is being planned.

The self-mobilisations on the ground are catching on like wildfire as people use the Internet to post anti-war Web sites that clearly state their intention to frustrate at every turn the war efforts of Bush and Blair.

According to one report immediately after Day 1 of war, "acts of non-violent civil disobedience across some 23 cities of America will be geared to disrupt domestic military activity, block traffic in business districts, tie-up commerce and at the same time there will be a co-ordination of the dissemination of anti-war messages."

One US peace activist expressed the opinion that the world will see "the most significant outpouring of US opposition to the Government since the time of the Vietnam war."

Once the war commences, such responses of people's power will sweep the world as trade unions, NGOs, religious groups, environmentalists, students, unemployeds, business leaders, politically progressive minorities, spearheaded in most cases by women's organisations, will take to the streets.

All the major industrial cities of Britain and the US will see major disruptions. In like manner the pro-American Arab regimes will be put under untold pressure from below, particularly as the Iraqi henchmen are now escalating the disarmament programme as outlined by the UN resolutions, removing thereby all rationale for war.

On the other hand we are also seeing a resurgence of the Bandung Solidarity of the late '50s-early '60s, given what has come out of the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement last month and the tough words of the Malaysian PM and chairperson of the summit, who demanded that "war be outlawed!"

Next week: How the world will punish warmongers.