A FRIENDLY MERGER:

A big day out in Leftistan: Old and new radicals joined forces to make the Stop the War coalition feel more like the start of something. (Euan Ferguson, September 29, 2002, The Observer)

It was nice to see things back to normal. There were reports, after last Sunday's countryside march, that the police, for the first time in history, had agreed with the organisers about the number of marchers. Yesterday afternoon, as London limped to a halt because of the massive anti-war/pro-Palestine peace march, we were back in happy and familiar territory: 'He only fell down the three steps.' 'What bruise?'

Scotland Yard said at 2pm that perhaps 40,000 demonstrators had turned up. I was halfway along Piccadilly at the time, at the head of the march, phoning a friend at the back, in a crush at the Embankment, and she hadn't even started moving. The Stop the War coalition last night claimed the total was more than 350,000; the police reluctantly moved up from 'four men with beards and a small dog' to 150,000, and the truth was, if anything, even higher than either, given the number of Londoners slipping in and out of the stream before sliding off to shops and pubs. It was a big, big, important march, and quite angry, and quite mixed. [...]

It was back to the old days, too, in terms of types. All the oldies and goodies were there. The Socialist Workers' Party, leafleting outside Temple Tube station by 11 am. ('In this edition: Noam Chomsky in Socialist Worker !'). CND, and ex-Services CND. The Scottish Socialist Party. 'Scarborough Against War and Globalisation', which has a lovely ring of optimism to it, recalling the famous Irish provincial leader column in 1939: 'Let Herr Hitler be warned, the eyes of the Skibereen Eagle are upon him.' Many, many Muslim groups, and most containing women and children, although some uneasy thoughts pass through your mind when you see a line of pretty six-year-old black-clad Muslim toddlers walking ahead of the megaphone chanting 'George Bush, we know you/Daddy was a killer too,' and singing about Sharon and Hitler.

All the groups, the old Left and the new radical worried world of Islam, merged for the most part very easily...

This last is apparently said without a shred of irony, as Mr. Ferguson seems oblivious to the fact that the Left and radical Islam have merged at least in so far as their hatred of the West--of democracy, capitalism, Judeo-Christianity, Israel, American leadership, etc.. The war they are trying to stop features the world's two great democracies--Britain and America--taking on one of its worst dictatorships, and the Left is siding with the dictator.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 29, 2002 10:36 AM