Performing the ‘War on Terror’

Abstract

From 15 to 16 February 2003, an estimated 10 million people in over 800 cities worldwide marched to protest against the second Iraq War. The largest anti-war protests in history, these rallies clearly demonstrated a global lack of popular support for the Iraq War on an unprecedented scale. Yet, unlike the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the governments of the American-led ‘Coalition of the Willing’ ignored the performing bodies of the 2003 anti-war demonstrators. In the mainstream media and scholarly commentary, the resistance movements were described as impotent and atrophied. The performative strategies of 1960s-style peaceful protest proved ineffectual models for the twenty-first century. The failure of these protests prompts the question: what is the relationship between politics and performance today?