February 15, 2003 Anti-war Protest - International Coordination

International Coordination

The February 15 international protests were unprecedented not only in terms of the size of the demonstrations but also in terms of the international coordination involved. Researchers from the University of Antwerp claim that the day was possible only because it "was carefully planned by an international network of national social movement organisations."

Immanuel Wallerstein has spoken of the international protests as being organised by the forces of "the Porto Alegre camp in reference to the emergence of global social movements who had been organising around international events such as the 2001 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre." Some commentators claim this is an example of "grassroots globalisation", for example one book claims that "The worldwide protests were made possible by globalisation ... But make no mistake—this was not your CEO's globalisation. The peace demonstrations represented, not a globalisation of commerce, but a globalisation of conscience".

The idea for an international day of demonstrations was first raised by the British anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance (GR) in the wake of an anti-war demonstration in Britain of 400,000 on September 28. At the time GR was involved in planning for the Florence European Social Forum (ESF) and brought up the suggestion at an ESF planning meeting. According to GR's Chris Nineham, "There was considerable controversy. Some delegates were worried it would alienate the mainstream of the movement. We, alongside the Italian delegates, had to put up a strong fight to get it accepted."

The proposal was accepted and at the final rally of the ESF, in November 2002, the call officially went out for Europe-wide demonstrations on February 15, 2003. This call was firmed up in December at a planning meeting for the next (2003) ESF which took place in Copenhagen. This meeting was attended by delegates from many European anti-war organisations, the US group United for Peace and Justice, and representatives of groups from the Philippines. The decision was taken to set up a Europe-wide anti-war website and to commit to spreading organisational coordination both within and beyond Europe. An email network connecting the different national organisations across Europe, and eventually also the different US groups, was set up.

In December 2002, the Cairo Anti-war Conference pledged to organise demonstrations in Egypt and the International Campaign Against Aggression on Iraq (which came out of the Cairo conference) sought to co-ordinate more demonstrations across the world. Around this time, the US anti-war group ANSWER called for actions in North America supporting the proposed protests in Europe.

Another important platform for the spreading call to demonstrate internationally occurred at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil which took place at the end of 2002. European delegates sought to popularise the plan for the increasingly international demonstration. They met with some success, including the organisation of an anti-war assembly which was attended by almost 1000 people.