A life changing experience

Friday, September 22, 2006

Writing this from a windowless room in the Days Inn here in Manchester. Thirty years ago they would have built council houses, now they build these chain hotels and student residences.

Much excitement for the big day tomorrow. Lots of press, the peace camp has been a big success. We spend our morning planning the speakers' list, dealing with the press, organising the stewards' meeting, phoning the London office to hear that the train has sold out.

Police are all over the city centre as they prepare for the big security shutdown for the Labour conference.It's not hard to see how it's come to this: Tony Blair has to be protected from the people who voted for him nearly ten years ago but are now moved to demonstrate against him. How the political climate has changed when politicians have to be protected from the people in this way.

I noticed the amazement at John Reid being heckled in Waltham Forest earlier this week. It has been described as rude, which kind of reduces politics to a dinner party. It doesn't strike me as rude or wrong for those in public life to be challenged in a robust fashion. Or for people who defend illegal wars and colonial occupations to be confronted by people who sound angry.

What is surely wrong is for politicians to be surrounded by a sterile area into which neither protest nor criticism can encroach.

Anyway, that isn't going to work for them tomorrow when the streets of Manchester will be filled with our protest. There'll be no hiding place from the sight and sound of the demo.

I did a meeting last night at Manchester university where freshers are just turning up for the new year, with Malcolm Kendall Smith and Yvonne Ridley. Malcolm went to prison for several months for refusing to serve in the air force in Iraq; Yvonne was a Daily Express journalist captured by the Taliban during the Afghan war, who later converted to Islam.

I thought as they spoke on how much this war has changed all our lives, and how many more Iraqis, Afghans, Lebanese and Palestinians have had their lives changed for the worse. Five young Muslim women came and spoke to Yvonne and I afterwards, all concerned at the attacks on Muslims and keen to demonstrate. Another young woman was almost in tears when she thanked Malcolm for the stand he has taken. Yvonne and I talked afterwards about how women are the backbone of the movement.

The movement has achieved a tremendous amount; without us this wouldn't be central on the political agenda, and without us Blair's crisis wouldn't be terminal. The message tomorrow to Gordon Brown is 'don't even think about going along the same road, or you'll find yourself in the same mess.'

9/22/2006 01:55:00 PM | Permalink