Toronto sets April 9 antiwar protest

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The call for mass anti-war actions on April 9, issued by the U.S.-based United National Anti-war Committee (UNAC), has been heard and answered in Canada. A Jan. 14 membership meeting of the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War responded with a Yes. It is proceeding to organize an outdoor rally, and numbers permitting, a street march in that city.

Members, supporters, and friends of Socialist Action started in September to urge the Toronto coalition to favour a broad demonstration to demand “Canada Out of NATO, NATO Out of Afghanistan Now!” The TCSW is an affiliate of the Canadian Peace Alliance. The CPA endorsed the UNAC actions slated for the U.S. East and West Coasts on April 9 and April 10.

A show of international solidarity with UNAC, and with other participating organizations, including in other countries as well, in opposition to the imperialist wars of occupation in the Middle East, is now posed.

... Antiwar (continued from page 1: “Support grows for April 9 & 10 antiwar mobilizations”)

mosques—including national Muslim organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Council of North America (ICNA), the Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), and the Islamic Leadership Council of New York—together with large numbers of young Muslim women and men, all gathered and agreed to a mobilizing plan for the April 9 demonstration.

Five thousand flyers were distributed on the spot, and participants pledged to get them to 50 of their associates and friends as the beginning of a campaign to use personal contact, social networking, and the newsletters of their mosques to reach out to the 500,000 Muslim Americans resident in the NYC area.

Around $10,000 was raised on the spot to support the demonstration building effort of the Muslim Peace Coalition, a recently formed organization with members in 16 states and a commitment to being part of the leadership of UNAC. A public panel of interfaith speakers was anchored by a keynote address by George Gresham, the president of SEIU 1199, who spoke out against discrimination and noted his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Islamic Leadership Council of New York also played a leading role in a large Jan. 13 New York City UNAC organizing meeting for April 9. ILC President Iman al-Amin Abdul Latif joined with 70 others—including representatives from local antiwar formations, student groups, Black is Back, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), the Al Awda Right to Return Coalition, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and dozens of other organizations—to discuss outreach for the spring antiwar action. At this meeting and subsequent New York City gatherings, the potential for April 9 was demonstrated in the plans for nearly a dozen community outreach centers and for the translation of April 9 building materials into Urdu, Hindi, Tagalog, Spanish, and Arabic.

The response of a large number of diasporic communities in the heart of New York City has been more than matched by the response of the antiwar grassroots nationwide. Nearly 400 organizations, representing activists in every corner of the United States, have endorsed the call for the April 9 and 10 marches.

The political breadth of that response is indicated by the fact that new endorsers include groups such as the U.S. Peace Council, Pax Christi, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Veterans for Peace, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the War Resisters League, the U.S. Palestine Community Network, Boston United for Justice with Peace, and numerous New York chapters of Peace Action.

A major endorsement of the April 9-10 actions, received just as we go to press, was that of the United Steel Workers Union, the largest industrial union in the country.

The basis for such breadth and united action was created by the fact that the April 9 and 10 bicoastal actions were called out of the large, inclusive, and democratic conference of over 800 that was held in Albany, N.Y., last July. The United National Antiwar Committee hopes to broaden the April actions even further by lending their endorsement to the call by the ANSWER coalition for local actions on March 19, the anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, and in this way urging a united national calendar of spring actions. Such local actions, UNAC believes, can be a powerful tool for building the national actions three weeks later.

Momentum for the national spring antiwar actions is building. Philly Against War, a UNAC affiliate, is reserving buses to the April 9 New York action, and planning a March 12 forum at the Friends Center in Philadelphia to help build the Several Socialist Action members from Toronto and Montreal attended the UNAC conference, along with 800 peace and social justice activists on July 23-25, 2010, in Albany, N.Y. It was the largest U.S. gathering of its kind in over a decade. It enjoyed the backing of 31 national organizations. With the assistance of the Albany-based Sanctuary Media, 17,000 more people witnessed the conference and many of its 30-plus workshops via video-streaming.

The convergence of major forces of the U.S. antiwar movement presents a challenge to the antiwar movement in Toronto, and across the Canadian state. In the wake of the revelations by WikiLeaks of the sheer ugliness and hopelessness of the Afghan military quagmire, with anger mounting over the money earmarked for the purchase of new fighter aircraft, leaks about war crimes condoned by Canadian military officials, and following the three-year extension of Canadian Forces’ intervention in Afghanistan by Prime Minister Steven Harper without even a debate in the House of a Toronto appearance by former British PM Tony Blair on Nov. 26, and particularly by conducting the highly successful George Galloway tours. The former British MP attracted international media coverage to the issue of the Zionist siege of Gaza, to the just struggle for Palestinian freedom, and to the popular legal triumph over the Canadian government’s initial bar to Galloway entering Canada. Antiwar coalition leaders seem convinced that now is the time to take the next step.

The call to action in Spring 2011 provides an opportunity to unite in the streets all opponents of Ottawa’s war policies, priorities, and actions. This is the occasion to invite and involve labour unions, the labourbased New Democratic Party, and all social movements that want to put human needs first. Now is the time to build support for the April 9 demonstration in Toronto, and to explore the prospects for similar actions all across the Canadian state. n For more information about the Canadian Peace Alliance, call (416) 588-5555, e-mail [email protected] or write to 427 Bloor Street West, Box 13, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1X7.