From: "Peace News", 9th March ,1968
No doubt some of. ‘nine whe.on. March 17 will be demonstrating as militantly
as possible for the complete and final victory of the N.L.F, in South .
Vietnam wofild be prepared to go and fight for the Vietnamese people if the
call went out for an international brigade. But we wonder how many ?
There is a ring of inauthenticity about-a call for complete solidarity
with the Vietnamese people that asks the mass of supporters simply to
shout raucous slogans from the safety of the horde, to interfere with pass-
ing motor traffic no doubt, and to break through a few police cordons.
Moreover, it is deceptive and verging even on contempt to suggest that a
shouting "militant" mob in Grosvenor Square is in any way equivalent in
courage or moral stature to the guerrilla movement that is fighting for
liberation in Vietnam.
A true assessment of the predicament and courage of those Vietnamese who
are resisting the American occupation of Vietnam demands of the English-
man an appraisal of his own responsibility for the war and a willingness
to consider and take equivalent risks to those of the guerrilla fighter.
Any one of us who can say that he is willing to sacrifice his liberty
and even his life to do the maximum possible in this country to make the
Americans withdraw from Vietnam does have the right to claim that he is
in solidarity with the Vietnamese guerrillas. But Peace News does not
recommend that individuals in Britain should adopt over here the tactics
- —s x
™,. . of the NLF; nor do we recommend that people in Vietnam itself should join the Front.” “Gur position ideally is that the NLF should cease fire unilaterally and that the United States should withdraw unilaterally. (To call for a cease-fire by America is to recognise her right to be in Vietnam.) + (Our. emphasis)
However, as pacifists like A.J.Muste and the crew of the Paoenix have discovered when they visited Vietnam, we have no right to call on the NLF to cease fire, We are too much responsible for what the Americans are doing in Vietnam to be entitled to condemn the NLF when they resist with violence. Pherefore we call for American withdrawal from Vietnam and must do all in our power to make that withdrawal possible. Does a huge, slogan-shouting unruly march to Grosvenor Square make American withdrawal more likely ? We don't think so. What we look to are attempts to dramatise British involvement in Vietnam - ovr hovercraft, nerve gases, electrical instruments, training facilities in Johore, rest and recreation centres in Hong Kong, troops in Thailand, military~sponsored research in universities, diplomatic support, historical responsibility - and to spell out that British dissociation involves the abandonment of and atonement for tkese functions. Moreover, we can best dissociate ourselves from British involvement by working for the withdrawal of American troops from this country and by encouraging American troops over here to desert and US draft resisters to stand firm. The proof that these efforts are not insignificant was the demonstration against the war by soldiers in the US army that we reported only two weeks ago. Not only, we fear, will the March 17 demonstration show contempt by its lack of dignity and commitment, for the Vietnamese who are fighting for their independence. But also we expect that it will show by expressions of frustration, ill-directed violence, and anga; the self-contempt in which many of the demonstrators hold themselves, It just isn't serious to suggest that a punch-up with policemen in London can help us to stop the Vietnam war, yet because people care about Vietnam and because they can't think of anything better to do, many normally sensible people will find themselves carried by the crowsl into scuffles with the police.
The frustration, this desperate irrational reaction to our inability to do angthing very much to stop a horrible war, is a form of self—contempt. For there are things that we can do to dissociate Britain from America and to help forward the pressures for American withdrawal. And we should get on with doing them.