Iraq War Protest Legacy to Arab Spring to Occupy

"We Are Many" shows how mobilization in 2003 set stage for Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

Dec 8, 2011 - On Feb. 15, 2003, the planet experienced the greatest single non-military mobilization of humanity in the history of the world. People in 800 cities (and Antarctica) marched to voice their opposition as George Bush’s countdown clock ticked away the days toward the threatened U.S. invasion of Iraq. Estimates of the total numbers of protesters vary widely but it seems plausible that 15 million took to the streets.

It turned out even worse than we feared. Eight years of war. More than 4,700 soldiers killed. How many Iraqis were killed. Infuriatingly, we don’t know, but 650,000 is a conservative estimate. And it cost $800 billion, more than we spent on World War II. What we could have done with that money.

The huge protests failed to prevent the war — and the day itself has been almost universally dismissed as a failure. But is that the end of the story? We Are Many, a new film-in-progress, makes a passionate case that to dismiss that day as a failure is to misjudge politics and misunderstand history. The filmmaker, Amir Amirani, aims to trace the story of that one day — the who, what, where, why, and how of it — and offers a new interpretation of its meaning and legacy. He ties Feb. 15, 2003, to a new kind of people power born with the 21st century and connects it to the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement. read more>>>

WE ARE MANY - Feature length Documentary Teaser from Amir Amirani on Vimeo.