A lone campaigner for world peace shares experiences from his life on the mission.
He has camped outside the British Parliament for over seven years now.
In a Channel 4 poll last year, he beat Tony Blair to be voted the United Kingdom’s most inspiring political figure — Blair could muster only 8 per cent of votes while he notched up 54 per cent.
For those not familiar with Brian Haw, that speaks volumes about the popularity of this peace campaigner from the UK.
A former carpenter and father of seven, Haw began his protest at the Parliament Square in London on June 2, 2001, before September 11 and War on Terror became buzz words on media talk shows.
“My boy Peter brought me in his little Polo car,” he says, recalling the first day.
Haw’s campaign was originally directed against the United Nations-sanctions on Iraq. “Stop Killing Kids”, “Make Peace Not War”, “Let Iraqi Infants Live”, his posters read.
His banners and the slogans of “Baby killers” and “Tony B Liar” have been an embarrassment to the establishment.
Not in their wildest imagination could Haw’s detractors have imagined that he would last so long.
In fact, neither did Haw.
“Who could possibly dream I would be here seven years, day and night? I couldn’t,” he says.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have broadened the scale of his campaign.
And with the prospects of a showdown with Iran being discussed in some quarters, the campaign seems to have no end in sight.
“I am reading that the last thing he [George W. Bush, the president of the United States] could do is start a war with Iran,” Haw says.
“How many would die [in] a war with Iran? How many have died in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many more are going to die?”
The Parliament Square is an odd place to conduct an interview. A major London landmark with the majestic parliament building in the background, the area attracts camera-ready tourists in their droves every day.
It is also only a few minutes’ walk from 10 Downing Street, the British Prime Minister’s official residence, which makes campaigning there more difficult than it may appear.
Authorities have tried time and again to remove Haw from his spot on the square.
In 2002, the local council lost a court battle when it tried to persecute Haw for causing obstruction on the pavement. In 2006, the Scotland Yard used 78 officers to remove Haw’s posters and displays under the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA).
The Daily Telegraph ran the story with a headline: “Police sent 78 to quell lone protester.”
“[SOCPA] supposedly is to deal with the big, bad criminals. I mean criminals into drugs and [other big crimes],” he says, “[And] you know who they use it against? Peace campaigners.”
It is rumoured that SOCPA, which places restrictions on protests within the perimeter of the UK parliament, was passed (in 2005) in an attempt to undermine Haw’s peace campaign.
But Haw’s run-ins with the law have only made him popular. His is now the voice of the common man, the one on the street that everybody likes to see speak out against the rich and powerful. His is a true grass-roots campaign.
If Haw is enjoying all the attention he is getting, he does not let it show.
“I would really like to go,” he says. “Our soldiers say that as well. They would really like to go out of Afghanistan and out of Iraq.”
“Empires rise and empires fall, don’t they? ... There was something called the Roman empire, wasn’t there? It fell.
There was something called the British empire ... Stalin’s Russia! Gone! I liked Mr Gandhi’s [Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi] response when they asked him: ‘What do you think of British civilisation Mr Gandhi?’ [He said]: ‘It’s a good idea’,” Haw continues.
Referring to Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s novel about life in an authoritarian state, Haw says: “War is peace was one of his [Orwell’s] ironic statements, wasn’t it? And the Ministry of Truth.
"We have a Ministry of Justice now, we are told. And Jack Straw [former British foreign secretary] — that war criminal, that murderer, the one who said torture is okay, torture is fine — is in charge of the Ministry of Justice. Is it sick or what? Some of us want real justice.”
Haw has weathered a lot and dismisses talk on UK’s notoriously bad weather with an “I don’t like talking about the weather”.
“I do think when I am cold about that little girl in Pakistan walking in the mountains after the earthquake,” he says.
“She has just a few rags on her feet. She has no shelter, no food. She has lost her family. [She is] desperate to find shelter, some food to keep her alive. That little girl is as precious as my little girl who is safe home.”
With Haw, any topic, even about the weather, boils down to war. “British helicopters were bombing the people in Afghanistan ... at the time of the earthquake in Pakistan. So I think about that little girl when I am cold.
“Sometimes it gets very hot here. There is no shelter you see, no shelter at all. Gets a bit hotter in Iraq, doesn’t it? And we destroyed the water system. We trashed it. We wiped it out.
"That was criminal. And the people have been dying of [water-borne] diseases, cholera and typhoid,” he says.
To his critics in the government, Haw is like a bad headache that just won’t go away.
And the more the authorities have tried to suppress him, the more popular he has become — even leaving his mark on modern British culture.
In 2007, artist Mark Wallinger won the Turner prize for his recreation of Haw’s protest, entitled State Britain.
And when, during a raid, the police took away paintings gifted to him by graffiti artist Banksy, it sparked a controversy.
There has been a West End play about Haw called The State We’re In and, earlier this year, the peace campaigner was invited to participate in a debate at the Oxford Union on fighting for the Queen and country — although he rarely ever leaves the Parliament Square.
“There is a lot of drinking that goes on around here — a lot of drinking,” Haw says about the Parliament Square. “Last night there was somebody wanting to fight me.
And he was supposed to be into the Buddha, you know, ‘peace’. He came here and wanted to fight me. Because he had been sent by this government.
They paid him to come here and give trouble. Agent provocateurs, you have heard of these, of course?”
Haw then describes having been woken up at 5am by young men drinking. “I stick my head out of the tent to tell them off.
"They throw beer at me, all over, before they run away. Jolly nice eh?”
It is not just the random vagabonds that have given Haw a hard time. “The politicians, they are the biggest drinkers,” he says.
“I have seen them drunk. Sometimes they want to fight us when they are drunk. Aren’t they heroes? They couldn’t fight us. They are cowards. They send other people to do the fighting, don’t they?”
Haw’s life, in his view, is like being in a “goldfish bowl”, under the constant gaze of everyone.
He has met the world at the Parliament Square — from politicians to celebrities to tourists. Once he met a man from Afghanistan who had come with his children to see him.
“He tells me they know all about me in the mountains in Afghanistan. No telephone, no television, cut off from the world. On the roof of the world they know all about us,” he says.
“And what he can’t get over is [that] I love his kids like my own,” Haw says, adding that the death of his first-born when he was only twelve hours old was part of the reason that brought him to start the campaign.
Some distance away, a young army recruit is walking down the square. “Stop killing kids like that [one] in the uniform,” Haw says, pointing to the soldier. “Our government is killing our own children. And using them, aren’t they?”
The conversation then drifts to Middle East peace. Haw says he has a suggestion for bringing peace to the region.
“One of my biggest suggestions would be to turn off the oil taps. And then we won’t have the oil to fly out our bombers to bomb you.”
Given the fuel crisis, his advice, though, may not probably go down too well with the West.
Haw views the Parliament Square a bit like the Bard saw the world — as “a stage”.
“The audience are passing by as if they were on conveyor belts. But we are not the [actors], we are the ones that are real. Everybody else is [acting]. Some are [playing] politicians, some commuters.
"Many are [acting as if] it has nothing to do with [them]. But it has to do with me. That is why I am here. Because I am responsible for what my country does,” Haw says.
“I am, aren’t I?”
Syed Hamad Ali is a writer based in London.
