“Fighting” for Peace

From left to right: Chris Stone, Shabbir Lakha, Andrew Feinstein & Rita O’Brien. Photo by David Rees

Stop the War Coalition meeting, Tuesday October 29 2024, featuring Andrew Feinstein and Shabbir Lakha

The meeting was held in the Friend’s Meeting House in Canterbury. It was called “Fighting for Peace” and was organised by the Canterbury and Whitstable Stop the War Coalition. It featured Andrew Feinstein and Shabbir Lakha and was chaired by Rita O’Brien. According to David Rees, there were 51 people present at the meeting.

You can read about both speakers here:

Who Is Andrew Feinstein?

It was, I think everyone will agree, a very successful meeting, the most important outcome of which was to bring some hope into our discourse again. Both speakers were inspirational. One line that rang out was when Andrew Feinstein said words to the effect: “if you’d’ve told me in 1986 that apartheid in South Africa would be gone in four years, I would have fallen back on my psychology training and had you committed.” And yet that’s precisely what happened. Mandela was freed in February 1990. The apartheid legislation was repealed in June 1991, and there were free, multiracial elections in April 1994. The same thing could happen in Israel.

David Rees also took note of some of the things that Andrew said, as follows:

We are now living in a world where there is no international rule of law.

The edifice [of international law] that was built postwar to prevent another Holocaust has been destroyed to allow Israel to carry out a genocide in front of the world. We are watching it on our TV screens in real time, so no one will ever be able to say in the future “we did not know “

Keir Starmer may be a human rights lawyer but he has not one shred of human empathy.

The charge of anti-Semitism has been weaponised to fight the pathetic political battles of the right within the Labour Party. So the slur of racism has been used to discredit not only honest politicians but also life long anti-racist activists. But once the accusation of racism is used in a such a way it discredits any accusation of actual racism in the future.

We live in a post-truth world in which the truth is actually denied so that the biggest lie of all can be perpetuated and that is that Israel is not carrying out a genocide.

The new politics is one of ‘permanent austerity’ and ‘forever wars’.

Israel’s economy is on its knees.

The arms trade excels at only two things: firstly turning public money into private profit; secondly producing poor quality, crap products that are sold as being superb.

Following are reviews of the evening by Mary Sullivan and Anne Belworthy:

Mary:

At a meeting last night organised by Canterbury and Whitstable Stop the War, speakers Andrew Feinstein, a Jew and a former South African politician under Nelson Mandela and the Independent candidate who challenged Keir Starmer in the general election, gaining 18.9 of the vote and reducing Starmer’s majority, and Shabbir Lakha, an anti-war activist and officer of Stop the War Coalition gave eloquent presentations about the war on Gaza and the genocide perpetrated by Israel. Despite the grim situation in the Middle East, Andrew reminded us that campaigners eventually brought down the Apartheid State of South Africa and brought justice and equality for the oppressed indigenous population and that our efforts to support the cause of justice for Palestinians will prevail. Shabbir encouraged us to keep demonstrating in any way we can to continue the ‘fight for peace’.

Anne:

An excellent evening in Canterbury last evening by Canterbury and Whitstable Stop the War with Andrew Feinstein and a young excellent speaker Shabbir Lahka.
Shabbir was returning to Canterbury and knew it well as a student at the University. One of the audience remembered Shabbir leading small demonstrations then in support of Palestine and praised him for helping to start the huge support there is now.
Andrew Feinstein, ex ANC MP under Nelson Mandela and stood at our last election against Keir Starmer, is a wealth of knowledge on the arms industry world wide and explained so much of what is behind the people involved and the hidden corruption within.
Andrew lives in Holborn and St Pancras where Starmer lives and again had much to tell us about him and his sticky rise to Leader of the Labour Party.
A note of amusement was when he said, referring to the election, “For a frightening time I thought I had done it, and I thought did I really want to spend my time in that den of mediocrity?”

Monstrous Anger of the Guns

Andrew also bought copies of his new book for sale: Monstrous Anger of the Guns: How the Global Arms Trade is Ruining the World and What We Can Do About It.

The book is edited by Rhona Michie, Andrew Feinstein and Paul Rogers and features Jeremy Corbyn. You can buy a copy here: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745350363/monstrous-anger-of-the-guns/

An excerpt from the book is available to read here: https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/the-human-cost-arms-trade-in-gaza/

Thanks to Rita O’Brien for chairing the meeting, and to Mary Sullivan, Ian Jasper, Katie Plumb, Peter Forrest, Rory Heap and Chris Stone for organising it.

Canterbury & Whistable Stop the War Coalition group on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/751285226069689

National Stop the War Coalition: https://www.stopwar.org.uk/

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