This 2013 article, reflecting on the campaign against Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war, includes insights relevant to other anti-war campaigns and other countries.
Introduction
An evaluation by Justin Whelan of the campaign against Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war examines the efforts of anti-war coalitions and the broader movement.
This weekend (February, 2013) marks the tenth anniversary of the start of the invasion of Iraq, which occurred despite the largest protest in Australia’s history. It is worthwhile to look back on that time and ask ourselves why, given the unprecedented turnout, we didn’t stop the war.
On the weekend of February 14-16, 2003, more than half a million Australians participated in protest marches around the country against Australia’s involvement in the looming Iraq War.
This event – the largest coordinated protest action in the nation’s history – was the result of months of organisation and campaigning by coalitions of anti-war organisations and a reawakening of the once-influential peace movement.
One poll at the time found that 90% of Australians opposed the war without UN authorisation.
For a brief moment during that weekend in February, it appeared to many as if the peace movement might in fact keep Australia out of the war. However, Prime Minister John Howard resisted the pressure and on 20 March 2003 Australia formally invaded Iraq as part of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’. This coalition included armed forces from only two other countries, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.
What Went Wrong?
Strange as it sounds, activists themselves don’t often rigorously ask these questions. But we can learn a lot from examining how and why movements in the past have succeeded and failed.
Findings from such research does suggest a number of insights and conclusions for this campaign.
The anti-war movement benefitted from and contributed to a massive global uprising, the lack of UN authorisation for the war, and hesitant but ultimately real opposition from the Opposition.
The timing of the campaign – during the middle of the Australian electoral cycle when governments are least vulnerable to public pressure – reduced its chances of success.
The anti-war movement suffered from a lack of social infrastructure: for all intents and purposes there were no ‘peace movement staff’ in the country before 2003, and even in the height of the campaign the union movement allocated only one person to work on it full-time.
Researchers have demonstrated that coalitions need to mobilise and apply significant human resources in order to build enough power to win. The very wide and loose coalition helped to mobilise large numbers of ordinary Australians but constrained discussion and implementation of more disruptive tactics such as civil disobedience actions, strikes or blockades.
Despite the unpopularity of the war, there were no concerted attempts at large scale tactics of noncooperation or intervention, such as strikes or acts of civil disobedience.
Before the war began, there were only two cases of nonviolent intervention across the whole country – the famous scrawling of ‘No War’ on the Opera House by two individuals, and a Greenpeace action to place the Prime Minister under symbolic ‘house arrest’ in the Lodge.
Some union leaders in Western Australia did call for strikes to block the shipment of supplies, but were quickly silenced.
All other tactics could be categorised as ‘public persuasion’ attempts, such as street marches and lobbying of MPs.
It could be argued that movement leaders were constrained in their choice of tactics by anti-terrorism laws and the culture of hostility to radical politics in the wake of the September 11 and Bali attacks. But nonviolent conflict researchers have identified that the more ‘disruptive’ tactics such as widespread actions of non-cooperation or intervention are crucial to success, even in democratic contexts.
Crucially, there were no large scale tactics anywhere in the country between the uprising in mid-February and the start of the war, 6 weeks later. The movement failed to build on its success by continuing to apply pressure on the Government.
It appears that the unspoken strategy of the movement relied on mobilising large numbers to express their opposition to the war, with a consequent effect on opinion polls concerning the war, which the ‘democratic’ government could not ignore and would therefore back down.
False Assumptions
The assumption was that if enough people opposed the war, the government would not risk going to war anyway. This assumption proved false.
I say ‘appears’ because the most obvious problem for the anti-war movement is that neither of the two main coalitions actually developed a clear and coherent strategy for stopping the war.
As such, tactics seem to have been chosen on the basis of familiarity and individual group preference rather than as part of a coordinated plan. And that, ultimately, was the movement’s greatest mistake.
Partial Success
The movement did succeed in many ways:
- it created an environment in which 90% of people polled opposed the war,
- pressured the Labor Party to oppose the war,
- almost certainly restricted the scale of Australia’s involvement,
- indirectly but significantly contributed to all but 3 countries refusing to participate in the invasion and thus to the lack of authorisation for war at the United Nations, and
- perhaps most importantly it led to widespread agreement that the war was unjust.
Iraq was the first war in history to be declared unjust by the people and also by almost all Christian leaders in the West before it had started.
Final Thoughts
We will never know if mass disruption in the form of strikes and civil disobedience would have forced the government to bow to public pressure but we do know from decades of research into protest movements that two marches in each capital city in a four month period was bound to fail.
The failure to build on the success of the huge marches across the country on the weekend of February 14-16 – a failure driven by internal friction in the very large coalitions, by lack of human and financial resources, and by a lack of effective strategic planning – meant an incredible opportunity was lost.
As one anti-war organiser in the USA said, “how can we think we are actually going to overtake a mind-set of war by just waving some signs around?”
Access Full Resource
For a more detailed analysis see the author’s thesis – Not in our Name: An Evaluation of the Australian Anti-War Movement, 2002-2003
Explore Further
- No War Opera House Graffiti Action: An Interview with Dave Burgess
- The Vietnam War
- Australian Women Protest Conscription During Vietnam War [Save Our Sons (SOS)], 1965-1972
- Prophetic Witness Against the War Machine [The Peace Pilgrims and Pine Gap]
- Against Fascism and War: Pig Iron Bob and the Dalfram Dispute, Port Kembla 1938
- Why Campaigns, Not Protests, Get the Goods
- Activism and Campaign History: Start Here
- From Little Things Big Things Grow: Events That Changed Australia
Author’s Note
The author thanks Professor Brian Martin and Dr Ben Spies-Butcher for their feedback on this article. As always, any errors remain the responsibility of the author alone.
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