By Dawn M. Sanders
Nearly 60 years provides just a snapshot into how the US war machine was challenged, the tightening of the noose on the throat of dissent and the gags on peaceful protest as the war machine has multiplied and gathered strength across regions, trickling down to communities everywhere.
On the 28th March, 2026 half a million marched against fascism in London – I was there at the Together Alliance demonstration, while bombs were flying across borders in the Middle East. So, with the current stand-off between the US, Israel and Iran, I can’t help reflecting how after 9/11, twenty-five years on and, no lesson learnt is paving the way for disaster.
Sitting at Whitehall at the Together Alliance march, the pushback against fascism was repeatedly recounted – from the Battle of Cable Street in London’s east end against the blackshirts and every successive incarnation of fascist/racist groups decade after decade in the UK alone – right up to today’s toxic brand.
So when I read this slice of history from the eastern side of the US, how a network of draft resisters, AKA the Buffalo Raiders, mainly Catholics, it stuck in my washing machine mind. Being of Catholic backgrounds wasn’t what grabbed me upon reading the story, it was simply during another time when the war machine of the US was raging under Lyndon B. Johnson, I came into being in ‘67 and at a time when resistance was not a risk or as intimidating as it now is.
Not only did a handful of activists pull off a carefully planned heist to destroy draft files for recruits, the operation was to slow the war machine and draft programme at the time of the Vietnam war, they did it in their underwear. These times of ubiquitous surveillance and peaceful protest being stomped out by an ever-increasing fascist all-encompassing regime, the kind of resistance seen back-in-the-day and the way it eventually succeeded, just would not happen now.
Not only has the American war machine multiplied across borders in a desperate bid for international hegemony (inevitably backed by the UK) the fascism and double standards haven’t waned, in fact they’re as gleaming as the metal of the bombs which fall on both Gaza and Tehran.
After World War II and the rise of the Cold War and involvement in several hot wars and scandals, the US Neutrality Act was constantly over-ridden by almost every successive president but at the very least it provided an element of reprimand and accountability for interfering in foreign wars – nowadays reprimand and accountability is little more than posturing.
At the time of starting this piece, being waylaid with the aftermath of a court hearing, a second one and the anguish which resonated, I can just about look at a broader political picture outside my micro-hell. The three-sided war of the US and Israel on Iran was fully underway and now we’re witnessing a lull, but to find out bewildering news, such as the pro-Israeli leader of Lebanon permitting the pounding of that battered, unfortunate neighbour to the north of Israel, was simply jaw dropping, as Hezbollah single-handedly struggles to defend its people and homeland, but very little makes sense in the political arena in the twenty-first century.
The longer the majority of ordinary citizens openly demonstrate dissatisfaction with encroaching fascism and control from the billionaire minority, the stronger solidarity is cemented in a kind of tug-of-war within communities at local level in a trickle-down kind of way – especially when, in any given town or city a ladder to put up a Union Jack, as a hallmark of the far-right’s campaign of division is a common sight.
At the Together Alliance demo last month, all the usual hype was there to whip up what turned out to be an electrically-charged, pulsating movement through the arteries of London right to the heart of power itself.
A lot of the speakers cited the same thing and speeches were almost identical, only that veteran trail-blazer, Diane Abbott, pointed out how the Labour party needed to stop mimicking Reform’s fascism and challenge it.
Thing is, so perplexing are the times we’re living in – there isn’t just division between right and left with the fence-sitting centrists somewhere in between, there are distinct divisions just on the left alone as we’ve witnessed, well, for those paying attention, with the formation of Your Party and the age-old factionalism that has tripped up what many of us have craved and waited for, for years – naturally, the right-wing-dominated media lapped it up.
Yes, there are distinguished and decades-old divisions on the left which has mostly crippled British left-wing politics more than has been seen in other parts of the world, but the simplistic right vs left playground politics we see playing out within the main parties, on our streets and villages is challenged by the blurred lines of pluralism and a more nuanced snapshot into the British electorate.
Divisions on the right of politics never attract the kind of smug lip-licking or scrutiny, as the right-wing-dominated media love to see the left fall all over themselves.
With home raids surging for people making a stand who have never been especially political; from pro-Palestine supporters to an awakening of anti-fascism, is there more to stand in solidarity for than divides us? I would have to say both, because someone experiencing the housing crisis or any of the multiple social ills in the west in particular, doesn’t mean they will fit neatly into any carved out category or stand dutifully on either side of the chalk line in the playground. This is most evident with poor, uneducated white Westerners who blame migrants for job losses or housing shortages, yet pander to billionaire politicians influencing their thinking.
There’s no straightforward answers here, but I do think the world has changed so rapidly from those heady days of protest against the Vietnam war to an encroaching dictatorship in the west that – solidarity is almost essential when realising the importance of fighting for that crucial cornerstone of democracy, which is protest itself.
In non-democratic nations a journalist can be killed for doing their job or asking the wrong questions and what we’re witnessing before our eyes is a darkening world where the only light is solidarity and pushback of the masses.
There was a lot of effort put forth by the Together Alliance campaign to keep it lit and for things not to fizzle out in the way it does when the crowds have gone and the streets of London have cleared. It has gotten to the point, with so many campaigns springing up pretty much weekly, replacing fizzled out ones or an answer to our rights and freedoms being ebbed away as the war machine and state apparatus clutching at desperate straws, clutches at our hard-won freedoms. It’s impossible to keep up with, or get involved in, the clamour to save our democracy and everything generations before us have fought long and hard for.
With so much shouting from so many platforms, making sense of the noise around us is exhausting and takes dedicated energy not all of us have, but we do need solid foundations to stay afloat, as AI threatens the fundamental need for human interdependence – the most solid foundation is solidarity itself.
