On Saturday (08-10-2011) exactly ten years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the ‘Stop the War Coalition’, CND and MAB held a lengthy mass rally in Trafalgar Square demanding an end to the war.
My fifteen years old daughter who actually decided to take part in the rally, soon she heard about it. Someone from the age of five years who has been to many anti-war demonstrations, see it as part of her responsibility to participate. Even more encouraging was the fact that on the same day around noon she arrived back from abroad after a weeklong school trip. I picked her up from the airport and although she was exhausted after eight hours of travel, we went direct to Trafalgar Square.
Billy Hayes, rapper Lowkey, Lindsey German, Bruce Kent, Julian Assange John Pilger, Tony Benn, George Galloway and Jemima Khan were the speakers at the anti-war rally.
School students, artists, academics, politicians, campaigners, political groups, musicians, trade unionists, writers, families and military families all took part in that rally. Films shown on the giant screen, music performance events and art installations were to be seen.
But the surprise and shock for my fifteen years old was that there were, unfortunately, not many people as there should have been. She kept asking, as someone who took part in previous demonstrations, where hundreds of thousands of people attended; why were there only several thousand people to show their support for the campaign this time around?
It was difficult for her to understand the ignorance of people who actually knew that since the war started 10 years ago, more than 550 British soldiers had been killed -382 in Afghanistan- and many maimed there in Iraq where hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed. And, of course, the reality that the NATO attacks on Libya still continues.
Some of the people from the rally marched down Whitehall, led by veteran peace protester Hetty Bower which was also to highlight the many conflicts around the world and Western countries involvement in those wars.
However, as we walked up to Piccadilly Circus on the way back home my daughter has seen more shoppers on the roads than taking part in the rally, which left her thinking why many people do not bother to make their protest against the war especially, if everybody knows that still more than 100,000 NATO troops remain deployed and tens of thousands of innocent people have died.
Well, perhaps, I have to explain to her that we have all became apathetic due to the media coverage on our television screens of 24/7 news coverage. And something has to be done to change that.
Copyright Semra Eren Nijhar – All rights reserved
Semra Eren-Nijhar 