Clive Searle writes

If nothing else we worked him hard. George Galloway’s thirty six hours in Greater Manchester were a whirlwind of meetings (three), TV and radio interviews (five) and walkabouts (two).

After a tremendous start in Atherton, Lancashire on Tuesday night the focus for George’s whistle-stop visit turned to Manchester . George, along with prospective Respect candidate Kay Phillips, took to the streets of Cheetham Hill to meet and talk to the voters we hope will be campaigning for Kay in April. George and Kay both received a fantastic response which will be built on in the coming weeks as our campaign gets fully under way.

Next it was down to south Manchester and Rusholme’s famous curry mile where lunch has taken in the wonderful Falafel Palestinian cafe. With the Respect banner stretched outside many popped in the meet George and Ali Shelmani, our prospective candidate in neighbouring Moss Side ward.

Walking the 800m to our next meeting venue took well over an hour as George stopped for photographs, popped into shops or chatted with passers-by – in one case an Iraqi exile now working in the car wash along the main road.

We had planned a Five O’clock meting as a low key affair – a question and answer session with new Respect supporters. In the event 69 people – some met on the way to the venue – arrived at the beautiful Luther King house chapel in Rusholme.  Here George and Ali spoke of the connections between poverty and urban decline in Manchester and the wars and occupations of the Middle East .  With questions ranging from Libya to the odious John Gaunt of Talksport, George set out the case for Respect and a new left alternative.

But the best was truly kept for last – at the Saffron restaurant in Cheetham Hill that evening. Over 150 gathered in the banqueting hall to discuss ‘5 years of destruction in Iraq – 60 years of oppression in Palestine .’  Organised by North Manchester against Wars the meeting was an inspiring example of the Stop the War Coalition at its best. Chaired by Kay Phillips the audience listened too Andy Burgin from Stop the War outline the successes of our movement 7 years on from  its formation.  The irrepressible Rae Street from CND spoke of the challenge of nuclear disarmament 50 years after the fist Aldermaston Marches . Then Jackie [my apologies for not writing down her second name] a comrade from United for Peace and Justice in the States, took us through the developments in the ‘heart of the beast’.

But the most powerful contribution of the evening came from Anas Al-tikriti  of the British Muslim Initiative.  Anas gave us the most devastating critique of the sudden step-change in Islamophobia, which we have witnessed in recent weeks. If the Archbishop of Canterbury is to face such hostility and gutter insult when he muses about Islamic law, how likely was it for young Muslims to feel a full part of ‘British society’? The message that young Mulsims would take from the press and the politicians was that ‘they would never be full citizens, never fully trusted.

Islamophobia alongside war, he argued, was the recruiting sergeant for alienation and terrorism – at home and abroad.

Finally,  George Galloway delivered a powerful and moving speech attacking the devastating legacy of the Iraq disaster. A county where agriculture , writing and the alphabet , libraries, and a system of law were first invented had been destroyed, cut to shreds, on a pack of lies.

He spoke of the million Iraqi dead – raising an image of an Old Trafford where the bodies were piled high and then higher still until the top could not be seen – of the two million refugees outside of Iraq and the two million displaced inside . That figure, in Britain , would equate to 13 million dead or driven from their homes. Yet when you add to that bald number to the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters maimed and injured or mourning for their lost relations,  then you see a see the reality of a country destroyed by greed and hubris. Damaged almost without hope of repair by imbeciles who claim it is not their fault that God put America ’s oil under somebody else’s country!

Not surprisingly, by the time George finished many were in tears.

The contributions from the floor were of equally high quality. Everyone who wished to had their say. A  young woman pleaded that we reassess the concept of ‘security’ – to look at it not through the eyes of the  military  but as a way of meeting human need – the human security of homes, clean water, a healthy life.  Another spoke of how in the Cheetham  of the 1930s it was the Jews in who suffered racism, then it became the Irish and now the Muslims. “Who’s next?” he asked, “unless we stick together.” 

A short report like this cannot do the many contributions from the floor the justice they deserve. But they were powerful contributions no less important than those from the top table width=’100%’. Our comrade from America suggested that it was unlike any meeting she had attended before – and she may well have been right. I think many people in the room will remember that night for years to come.

It certainly gave a renewed hope as well as impetus for those of us who believe that if they want war without end’ then we will need to be a peace movement without end – until we defeat the warmongers once and for all.

So a big thanks to all the speakers and to CND who helped build the meeting alongside North Manchester against Wars. Thanks again for Saffron for the use of their banqueting hall. And thanks to everyone who came and a reminder that you can book coach seats at www.mancsagainsttanks.org . Hopefully meetings like this across the country will help build the March 15 World Against War demo in London .  We’ll see you in London .