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“We have been asked here if we have any permission to demonstrate on the Glasgow Green. I have replied: we, the representatives of the working-class parties, the true heirs of the Red Clyde, we have the historic and permanent right to express our views right here, with no additional legalisation!” — This is how George Galloway, the leader of No2NATO and the Workers Party of Britain, opened the rally launching the No2NATO Scotland.
As previously with the London conference, organisers have been refused of any venue they had tried to book for a meeting. Threats and intimidation have been mixed with surrealistic demands of ‘anti-terrorist requirements’ or impossible amounts of insurance.
“This is yet another attack on our freedom of speech, on the freedom of those who want to discuss the danger facing our country from an expansion of the terrible consequences of a war with Russia.” – Colin Buchanan from the Glasgow Against NATO Action Committee has commented.
In these circumstances, instead of a conference, an over two-hour rally was held, combined with the Free Speech zone, following the Glasgow Green tradition, as exactly there, John Maclean organised his first anti-war protest in 1914 and in 1917 the workers of Glasgow marched to the Glasgow Green to express their opposition to the imperialist, capitalist war and to show support for the revolution in Russia.
“Our meeting here confirms one obvious fact: NATO has no friends in Glasgow!” George Galloway emphasised. “Of course, there is a group of people misled by the false ‘nobility of the Ukrainian cause’. Others are driven by a blind hatred of Russia, the same as once held against the Soviet Union. Most, however, are simply misled, deceived about the true course of events in Ukraine, the history of the current conflict, and especially its most drastic, concealed moments, such as the fact that in 2014 there was a coup d’état in Kiev; that the legally elected , democratic president was overthrown; that parliament was terrorised by armed neo-Nazi groups to introduce the law denying 40 percent of Ukraine’s population the right to use their own native Russian language. Hardly anyone knows that any peace attempts, like the Minsk Agreements, constituting a compromise, guaranteeing the rights of ethnic minorities, were from the beginning treated as an extortion of time needed for armaments and preparation of further war, in which openly Nazi battalions such as the infamous AZOV are fighting on the side of Kiev. Their activity is part of the long tradition of Nazism in Ukraine, known from the mass genocide committed during World War II by the Ukrainian Nazis against the Polish and Jewish minorities, and against Ukrainian anti-fascists. These are all historical facts that you won’t get from the BBC or from politicians of any of the major parties!” George Galloway pointed.
Capital Against Commodities
No2NATO and WPB leader has focused on the systemic and global context of the current conflict. – We can observe the great war of capital against the commodities.
The wars that capital is losing, hallelujah! – Galloway has pointed. In his opinion, the real motives of NATO’s aggressive actions are related to Washington’s strategic interests. –
The United States cannot stand the thought of China-Russian cooperation, which is joined by others: India, Iran, even Saudi Arabia. The departure from the dollar in international transactions, a completely natural mechanism within which any country has the right to sell its own products for its own currency, is a deadly threat to liberal, global capitalism! This is how, thanks to the adoption of de-dollarisation by subsequent states, the time when Americans could harm, impose sanctions and invade anyone, anywhere in the world, ends. Let’s also look at it from our British perspective, understanding that America has really given us nothing. The US only helps in the economic suicide of the UK, and preferably of the whole Europe.
That is why there are protests everywhere.
In the BBC, someone may have mumbled that there are demonstrations in France because of the increase of the retirement age. Really? Does the generation of twenty-year-olds go out to fight on the streets for doubts about when exactly they will receive a benefit that in fact may be never paid by the liberal capitalism anymore?
No, these young people protest together with the elders against a complete lack of perspective, against the trap into which we are all being drawn into by the collapsing system of globalist capitalism, which uses an invariably aggressive imperialism to defend itself. Similar protests are also taking place in Germany and Slovakia, everywhere where the bankruptcy and impending failure of this system is perceived. Therefore, we are also organising ourselves, we are also protesting, but not as one of the next pacifist movements, God bless them, but we are fighting movement. Fighting against NATO before this Pact drags us into World War III – Galloway has concluded.
They don’t tell us the truth.
Participants of the rally actively expressed their opposition to the NATO policy and the Tory UK Government, holding banners “Glasgow against NATO. No to War, Build the Peace”, “Stop the War. Drive Britain out of NATO”, “No to War Powers. Resist the Surveillance State”, “Seek Peace – Non-Alignment – Neutrality – Gey out of the War-bloc!”, “No Money for WAR, End the Sanctions Now”, “Negotiations, Not More Weapons”.
“There is no other way to the peace than demilitarisation of Ukraine, she should never be a part of NATO and there should be no missiles bases pointed Moscow. How would Americans react if Mexico or Cuba have such missiles? We know exactly how, because we remember the 1962 Crisis, when Washington directly warned that such a closure of the threat to American borders leads to the World War 3. So, it absolutely ridiculous to support and fund the war which is obvious threat to the Russian people. And what is this war really about? It’s a war for a regime change in Moscow, which America wants. American want to dominate the world as they have done since 1990, invading country after county: Yugoslavia, Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. They seem to think that they have a right to do that and no one takes them to court. They puts charged against Putin, because he rescued children from Donbas, taking them to the peaceful area, but there are no criminal charges against Bush, Obama and others who launched wars of aggression repeatedly. In fact Americans are not prepared to see any other country standing against them. China is now powerful country with powerful economy, and Americans cannot accept that. So, this is not just a war against the Russians, but the last analyses attack the Chinese as well. Americans want only unipolar world they could dominated. There has been never a threat to the independence and existence and Ukraine, Russians just had to intervene when Azov and other Nazi-battalions have been prepared to attack Donbas and kill the Russian speaking people. They do not tell us that in media, they try to scare us with Russians just to hide that Americans want to keep the world for they own. And the UK is also responsible, not only following American line, but in fact being even more aggressive, That was Boris Johnson who has especially came to Kiev to tell Zelensky not to accept the peace deal which was near to signed. British are supplying tanks, jets, missiles, founding them all. Plus there are no talks of sending the European peacekeeper force to Ukraine. Instead we are to see the invasion of EU forces supported by America, what leads us directly to the nuclear war. That is why it is so important to start the peoples movement to do not let it happen, to stop this war, and to introduce peace deal which is democratic and recognises all the people rights to own language and culture.” Sandy McBurney said.
United Self-defence Front
Being a Pole living in Scotland I have been asked for a few words about noticed involvement of Polish Government in imperialist politics, I have emphasised the existential threat to our nation coming from being just a second line of the Western aggression against Russia. I recalled the historical and contemporary experience of Ukrainian Nazism, as well as the enormous economic burden resulting the decision to co-finance further fights in Ukraine, as well as from the mass displacement of millions Ukrainian to our country. “Only the cooperation and joint action of European nations, organising mass protest movements against NATO and war policy, such as in Scotland, England, Ireland and Germany, will allow us to effectively resist the catastrophe that is upon us all!” I have pointed.
As it had been planned, the rally has inaugurated the activities of No2NATO Scotland and similar actions are organised all over the Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland.
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Konrad Rękas is a regular contributor to Global Research.
All images in this article are from the author
