Contested Terrain

The Case for DIS-unity in the Anti-War Movement

The Case for DIS-unity in the Anti-War Movement:
Why there must be a clear break between those who support Iraq’s genuine civil resistance and those who support reactionary political Islam.
A Discussion with Bill Weinberg

While the majority of Americans are increasingly opposed to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the anti-war movement has been growing smaller and smaller. This has prompted a renewed call for “unity” within the movement, but is the problem simply that we are not united?

Many in the anti-war movement lend support to forces in Iraq that suppress the rights of women, workers, national minorities and GLBT people because these forces, presently, oppose the occupation. Is unity around a narrow and reactionary anti-imperialism the ground for building a mass anti-war movement or the development of a positive future for the people of Iraq?

In Iraq today, progressive, democratic and secular groups like the the Iraqi Freedom Congress and the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq are struggling against both the occupation and terrorist reaction in an effort to build a non-sectarian and multi-ethnic society. Can we build a new kind of anti-war movement based on solidarity with these struggles, as well as demanding the immediate end of the US occupation? This would be a movement that the majority of Americans can relate to because they share the aspirations of Iraqi workers, women and other ordinary people for freedom.

Bill Weinberg is an award-winning journalist, author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico (Verso 2000), and editor of the on-line World War 4 Report. He is currently working on a new book on Plan Colombia and indigenous struggles in the Andes. He also co-hosts the weekly Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, an anarchist variety show, Tuesdays at midnight on WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York City.

This presentation was given at The New SPACE, (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education), on Monday April 9, 2007.

It was co-sponsored by The National Organization for the Iraqi Freedom Struggles.

Watch the talk here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1567350575569708686&hl=en

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 3:35 pm and is filed under U.S., social movements, iraq, anti-war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.