'They stretched as far as the eye could see'
Date: February 15 2003
By Martin Flanagan
How big was the rally? Impossible to say, if you were trapped inside it.
The organisers said the people stretched as far as the eye could see either way down Swanston Street. Greens senator Bob Brown, one of the early speakers, said the crowd was estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 when he spoke. And more were coming. Those around Melbourne Central Station were asked to move.
People on the escalators inside the station could not get out.
Who was there? It might be easier to say who wasn't. There were grandmothers for peace, Muslims for peace, doctors for peace. There were trade unionists, who had their own march, banners flying, down La Trobe Street. There were Quakers, Kurds and schoolkids. There were people dressed as weapons of "mass distraction", a troupe of actors in white with blanched faces and a sprig of leaves in their mouths slow-marching through the crowd.
The crowd was overwhelmingly young. This was not the generation politicised by the Vietnam War, although one of the major personalities of that era, Jim Cairns, had a message of support read out.
Everywhere there were placards - "War takes lives, peace takes brains", a painting of a Madonna holding a dead baby with a halo around its head and the words, "Who are the first victims of war?" A woman carried a small pink sign reading, "A village in Texas has lost its idiot".
The first speaker, trade unionist Michelle O'Neil, began by saying, "We are at the start of something. Our rally this afternoon is the first of a series of rallies that will spread around the world over the next seven days. We are part of the largest ever organised protest in the world. Ordinary people are standing up to say no to George Bush and no to the war on Iraq. This is the real Coalition of the Willing." The applause was frequent and enthusiastic. Another placard declared, "War is so last century."
O'Neil was the first but not the last speaker to say, "We are here to oppose the war against Iraq, regardless of what the UN Security Council says."
Damien Watson, the co-ordinator of the Victorian Peace Network, also spoke in strong terms. "We need industrial action and civil disobedience," he said. "We're going to need to take action everywhere we can."
The biggest applause was for Senator Brown. "This is George Bush's war," he said. "This is Tony Blair's war. This is John Howard's war. This is not Australia's war. Our Prime Minister was never given a mandate to go to war with the people of Iraq . . . we must turn the Prime Minister's minds from the Bush White House to the feeling of the people of Australia."
The first half of the meeting took about an hour and finished at 6pm. The organisers had planned that people would then march to Federation Square. No one moved. No one could. There was also the possibility that a sudden movement could produce mass injury, particularly given the number of small children in the crowd.
Nearly an hour later the crowd had finally begun to move.
>From the back of the truck that had supplied the sound system for the speakers and was positioned in front of the State Library, the crowd of people appeared to extend well down St Kilda Road.
The man who supplied the sound was shaking his head. Someone at Trades Hall had told him to expect 20,000 people. It looked to be 10 times that.