We Are Many Page #6

joined by 35 million people.

Stop the war!

Stop the war!

Stop the war!

We had the first global demonstration.

There were demonstrations

in what, every continent,

and 600 cities around the world

had demonstrations,

including a demonstration in Antarctica.

Saying this thing even happened

in Antarctica is like saying

it happened on the moon

or it happened on Mars.

I think Antarctica stills exists

as this sort of mythological place

to most people,

that it is the end of the earth.

And it's remarkable to people

that there are people there at all.

We knew that there was demonstrations

gonna be going on around the world

for February 15th,

and we knew it was gonna be really big.

And I had a subscription to The Nation

that was coming to me in McMurdo,

and I was reading a column

by Alexander Coburn,

and he was talking about the upcoming

February 15th demonstration.

He was saying, "Even in Antarctica

there's gonna be demonstrations."

I thought, "Huh? Who would that be?"

And I thought, "Wait a minute, he means us."

And so, I thought, "Well, we can't let

down the great Alexander Coburn,

so we're gonna have to do something."

And so we got this one together

in fairly short order.

Saying what you think isn't something

that's easily done down there.

First we were told no protest

at all would be tolerated,

and I think they were saying,

"Well, it's OK to be for peace,

but you can't be against the war."

"You do that, you'll go home in a box."

"Try that, you'll go home in a box."

I'm not sure I was aware

that you could actually lose your job

for stuff like this

until I actually lost my job

for stuff like this.

And, that said, even if I'd known,

I think I would have done

just the same thing.

If we could get enough people

who were willing to do it,

that just was hopeful to me,

and when we did, it was joyful to me.

And so we fervently hoped

that we could be part

of this movement that was going on,

this February 15th movement.

Just... we want this to stop.

We don't want this to happen.

- This is how we'd look.

- That's right.

And there was 70 of us

who looked just like this.

This is "Democracy Now."

The world says no to war.

Sites included Australia, Johannesburg,

Tel Aviv, Syria,

Tokyo, Bangladesh, South Korea,

Hong Kong, Thailand,

Puerto Rico, Brazil, East Timor, India,

and even the South Pole.

And when, the next day, The New York Times,

on the front page above the fold,

said this great truth,

"Once again there are two superpowers

in the world."

"The United States

and global public opinion."

That was huge.

Some of my friends in the anti-war movement

got rather puffed up about it.

I thought they were gonna do t-shirts.

"Second Superpower."

You know, there was a bit of that.

My view was, this is fantastic.

We worked for it.

It's not gonna last for long,

but it's a marker.

It was a big marker. Tremendous.

I think I made an observation

at a critical period

as our country was spooling up for war,

that there was another power out there,

and I think we live at our peril

in ignoring it

and certainly in denigrating it,

because that tends to be the next generation,

and that is the future.

I was actually overseas

when the big demonstration took place.

The whole of my family went on it.

My parents, my sisters.

There was a real feeling that actually

you could make a difference

because going to war was an absolute nonsense

and there had to be another way out of this.

I was trying my best to see

whether there was anything

behind the scenes I could do

to, you know, hopefully avert the war.

To an extent, Saddam Hussein

was now a cornered animal,

and an animal when they're cornered

is extremely dangerous.

With the build-up to the war,

the likelihood was that he was going

to end up being executed or killed.

And therefore I felt that

there was a reasonable chance

in trying to persuade him

that he should bow out

and go to another country.

We'd definitely had these conversations

beforehand,

and there definitely did

seem to be an alternative

than doing what we did.

I was fortunate enough

to know Nelson Mandela.

One power,

with a President who has no foresight,

who cannot think properly...

...is now wanting to plunge the world

into a holocaust,

and I'm happy that the people

of the world are standing up.

Nelson Mandela had spoken vehemently

out against the idea of the war

and against the invasion,

and so I felt that there was a chance

that if he came to see Saddam Hussein,

and if he agreed to fly out

on the same plane as Saddam Hussein,

that we might have a success.

Kofi Annan also agreed to go on the trip,

so we arranged a plane to go to South Africa

to pick them up to take them to Baghdad.

I can think of nothing that

Saddam Hussein could do diplomatically.

I think that time is now over.

The time for diplomacy has passed.

Sadly, the very week that they were due

to go to Baghdad to sit down

with Saddam Hussein,

bombing started,

and the visit never took place.

Now, whether the Americans or British

had discovered what was going on,

we don't know.

I mean, we had on purpose

not informed the authorities

because we felt they might

bring the war forward

if they knew this trip was to take place.

But I still think every time

he looks at the news,

he must think, "If only, you know,

if only it had worked."

It was that close to having a solution.

After the big march, February 15th,

it was clear that the waving of placards

wasn't going to be any good

and writing letters

wasn't going to be any good.

And I decided, you know,

I was going to do something,

and I was prepared to get arrested,

and da-dee-da-dee-da.

So my friend Dave and I

were talking about it one evening.

"Where would the most effective

place to paint a slogan in Sydney be?"

And I said, "Well, to put it bluntly,

it's on the sails of the Sydney Opera House."

And it was this sort of real sinking feeling

because, of course, he was absolutely right.

It was the, you know, the iconic place

that the thing,

that the message was inescapable,

and it was, you know...

I sort of swallowed three times

and said, "OK."

There I am, feeling very strongly about this.

Do I feel strongly enough to, you know,

probably to go to prison

for quite a long time?

He said, "I could well get deported

if we do this,"

and I said, "Well, ring me back

when you've thought that one through."

And sure enough, he rang me back.

Well, yes, I mean, the answer was yes.

It was this once-in-a-Iifetime thing

where if we didn't...

Even if we failed to stop it,

at least if the world could see

that the people didn't want

what was being done in their name.

With death-defying bravado,

the anti-war movement's protest

scaled new heights.

It was all very amateurish.

We had paint, we had backpacks.

We had great long paint rollers,

like three or four of them to join together.

We climbed up without any trouble.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes