Social Movements Indaba
NOT IN OUR NAME!

Social Movements Indaba puts full support behind Anti-War marches to take place across South Africa on 15th February

No to US Imperialism! No War Against Iraq! No Blood for Oil! Free Palestine!

The member organisations of the Social Movements Indaba (SMI) from across the country, call on South Africans to raise their voices against the impending war on Iraq by joining anti-war marches and other actions taking place in various cities on 15th February under the banner of the Anti-War Coalition. It would be a crime against humanity if we remain silent while the US government and its madman President Bush, prepare to slaughter hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and plunge the world into a cesspool of capitalist violence, hatred and greed.

In raising our voices, the SMI, alongside many other progressive forces around the world, is very clear what the coming war on Iraq is really all about. At its core, it is about making the world ‘safe’ for US imperialism and the corporate capitalists whose interests it serves. It is about crushing the legitimate struggles for real political and socio-economic freedom waged by the poor and oppressed across the world, no more so than as applied to the struggles of the Palestinian people. It is about the global imposition of the barbaric capitalist ‘principle’ of profits before people.

Unfortunately, the ANC government’s public pronouncements of opposition to a war on Iraq are much murkier. Being against war means exactly that. It does not mean supporting a war simply because it is endorsed by a set of United Nations elites so comfortably ensconced, and so far removed, from those they claim to represent. Neither does it mean decrying the militarist unilateralism that the US government seeks to visit on Iraq while wallowing in the economic unilateralism that continues to be visited on the majority of South Africans.

It does not mean pursuing the capitalist policies of GEAR and NEPAD that deprive millions of Africans of the most basic human services and needs and then hypocritically attacking a US imperialism that is the engine behind the implementation of the same on a global scale. And, it most certainly does not mean making grand claims to an anti-war moral high ground whilst simultaneously allowing South African arms companies to export weapons components that will be used to maim and kill more Iraqis and Palestinians or allowing US and British ships, laden with weapons of war, to dock at South Africa’s ports.

The SMI, marching under the banner of the Anti-War Coalition, will be raising its voice against all those capitalists, of whatever hue and/or nationality, who seek to collectively, if differentially, hide behind the veil of ‘democracy’, so-called ‘human rights’ and false freedom in their deathly quest for money and power. With millions of others all over the world, we will be sending a message that is loud and clear – NOT IN OUR NAME!

For further information contact: Salim Vally on 082 802-5936 or Dale McKinley on 072 429-4086