Remembering February 15, 2003: The Day the World Said No to War Phyllis Bennis - Al Jazeera
go to original February 18, 2013

Millions of people turned out across the globe February 15, 2003 in one of the world's biggest displays of anti-war sentiment against US threats to invade Iraq. (StoptheWarCoalition)

Ten years ago people around the world rose up. In almost 800 cities across the globe, protesters filled the streets of capital cities and tiny villages, following the sun from Australia and New Zealand and the small Pacific islands, through the snowy steppes of North Asia and down across the South Asian peninsula, across Europe and down to the southern edge of Africa, then jumping the pond first to Latin America and then finally, last of all, to the United States.

And across the globe, the call came in scores of languages, "the world says no to war!" The cry "Not in Our Name" echoed from millions of voices. The Guiness Book of World Records said between 12 and 14 million people came out that day, the largest protest in the history of the world. It was, as the great British labour and peace activist and former MP Tony Benn described it to the million Londoners in the streets that day, "the first global demonstration, and its first cause is to prevent a war against Iraq". What a concept - a global protest against a war that had not yet begun - the goal, to try to stop it.

It was an amazing moment - powerful enough that governments around the world, including the soon-famous "Uncommitted Six" in the Security Council, did the unthinkable: they too resisted US-UK pressure and said no to endorsing Bush's war. Under ordinary circumstances, alone, US-dependent and relatively weak countries like Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan could never stand up to Washington. But these were not ordinary circumstances.

Our commitment as a "second super-power" remains, and we must show the same defiance as we did ten years ago.

Read the whole story at Al Jazeera

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