We Are Many Page #4

these protestors in no doubt

as to whose side they're on

and who they're against.

I feel that I speak for, um,

a growing number of people in this country.

I think if you stopped anyone now on the road

and asked them what they think,

they'd say "No."

I've always been, uh...

quite passionate about CND.

Uh, it kind of sort of goes back

to coming from a family

of conscientious objectors.

So I did what little I could,

in the sense of I could

just talk about it in the media,

express myself.

There was a moment where it felt,

well, we might be able to intervene.

Inspections, not war.

War is not worth dying for.

Inspections, not war. Inspections, not war.

The Iraqis are real people.

The majority of them are under 18 years old.

They're lovely, nice, wonderful people,

and we don't want to see them killed.

February 14th. That would be the day

the Security Council would hear

from the inspectors in Iraq

responsible for the UN inspections.

So important is this event

that all the main foreign ministers

of the United Nations are here,

including America's Colin Powell.

They've insisted on turning up

because this encounter could even determine

the fate of the United Nations.

The chamber of the Security Council

had never been

as full of cameras

as they were in those days.

We walked into this room and looked around.

It was just full of cameras.

How much, if any, is left

of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction

and related prescribed items and programs?

So far, UNMOVIC has not found

any such weapons,

only a small number

of empty chemical munitions.

We have to date found no evidence

of ongoing prohibited nuclear

or nuclear-related activities in Iraq.

As I have just indicated, a number of...

What the inspectors actually said

was very, very unequivocal.

"We have seen no evidence."

They would not, they did not,

provide the US with any excuse to go to war,

and the Security Council knew it.

When the two branches of the march meet here

in Piccadilly Circus tomorrow afternoon,

Eros may well be witnessing

the biggest peacetime demonstration

in British history.

The day before,

the Evening Standard and the Mail

and all the others had a double-page

spread about the march route,

what are the ideal clothes

to wear at a demonstration,

and you suddenly realized

we'd become the mainstream.

Saturday's demonstration

against the war on Iraq

is expected to be the biggest peacetime

rally ever seen in this country.

There will be other protests

from New York to Tokyo.

In the course of the seven weeks,

we must have distributed well

over a million pieces of literature.

All of us became aware that

this thing was gonna be big.

There is a large number of people

that are gonna be on this demonstration

that have never demonstrated before

in their lives.

Middle England are coming out

in their thousands on Saturday,

and that is what is going

to make a difference.

Tonight, final preparations

are underway here in London

for the anti-war rally tomorrow.

It's being billed as the biggest peace

demonstration in recent years.

The rallies of February

15th followed the sun.

They started in the South Pacific.

After that it was New Zealand,

and after that it was Australia,

it was Sydney.

They came from everywhere

and from every walk of life

to walk for life and for peace.

It was an extraordinary display

of people power.

So many voices with one simple message.

No war! No war!

I remember getting on the train

to go into the rally,

and the train was absolutely packed,

and you realized something huge was happening

and it was just a complete cross-section

of liberal concerned Australia.

And then it was North Asia and South Asia.

And then after that it was Malaysia.

It was Indonesia, it was the Philippines,

it was India, it was Pakistan.

And then across Russia.

And then down into Africa.

This is a war about the oil reserves of Iraq.

And then across into Europe.

Roma was full of different marches,

and we found another enormous march

coming against us,

and we don't know who they are.

And no, they are us!

And then there was the huge protest in Spain.

In Barcelona was something

that we couldn't imagine.

It was no march because, in fact,

all passage to the Grcia

was occupied by people.

It was full of people.

All over Spain it's around five million

people going into the streets.

So it was the biggest demonstration

in the history in the Spanish State.

You're reading all of the wire reports

increasingly from all of these cities,

and you see France, Paris.

Here in France,

everyone is united against the war.

The people, the politicians, the newspapers.

Hundreds of cities.

All of a sudden, this sea of humanity.

And then... we had London.

I thought I was on the wrong march.

I did. I thought this must

be for something else

because there were all these families,

people with pushcarts and babies

and people I'd just never

seen on these things,

and the outpouring of rage from the people.

It was so beautiful.

Really passionate and eloquent and beautiful.

People crying out and shouting.

This proposed war by Britain

is historically unpopular,

and the mother of all focus groups

has descended on London

to bring that fact home to Tony Blair today.

And then the march began,

and we were millions.

It seemed we were millions.

A million people in...

on the streets of London.

There hadn't been a demonstration that size

in anybody in the government,

let alone in Parliament's recollection.

It was... It sort of shut you up.

Virtually everybody I know was on it.

I wish I'd been on it.

I should have been on it.

People like my son and my granddaughters.

He, not being a political activist,

and he was texting me saying

"This is fantastic."

"He can't go to war now."

And it was beautiful.

Many say they've never known

an atmosphere quite like it.

Could that be in part

because so many were moved

to protest for the first time?

I'm not a demonstration

type of person, actually.

I mean, it may well have been the first

demonstration I ever went on.

I think the world's going mad.

I just feel it's got to be stopped somewhere.

Anybody who could come came,

of my lot. And family, I just...

A couple of phone calls, and I should think

we must have been a dozen.

And they loved it and were very proud.

This was the future of humanity,

and people felt it.

That's why they came.

I managed to get friends of mine,

that I never considered for a moment

would come with me, to come that day.

I hadn't been an activist before.

I hadn't protested anything before.

There was a sense of "Come on,

come with me, come and join me."

"We can do this together."

I was very enthusiastic

that this was going to do it.

This was going to stop the Iraq war.

If Blair cared about democracy,

we wouldn't be doing this march

because he would be representing his people.

What Bush and Blair are actually planning

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