War! (Stop the) - Annual Anti-War Conference 30th Nov

As Voltaire famously said - 'it is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets', and put in some kind of context the Stop the War Coalition movement must represent the low bassoonic rumblings of dissent.

I'm approaching the point in my life - rounding the corner fast on to my mid-20s - whereby the sparks of discontent have been fully fanned into a bonfire of righteous anger. This is the critical conversion point in most people's lives, the time at which the inherent systematic injustices and societal failings suddenly become crystallised into clear and unavoidable sight, and the realisation becomes actual that the world maybe isn't quite so simple as it not so long ago appeared.

It is akin to the point at which, having lowered yourself slowly into the swimming pool you suddenly find your toes no longer touch the shallow end and if you've not yet learnt to swim then you'd best do so very quickly.

It's at this mid-20s marker-point, true for all figures from Guevara to Hitler, that you believe you see can clearly for the very first time; the safety barriers of adolescence have been lifted, and the true adamantine nature of the world is unveiled. Radicalisation attains its insidious foothold in extreme examples of these quarter-century psychological states; as well as a burgeoning resentment of the ruling political elites, the elder generations who belong to a fusty and out-dated order, and a strong conviction that if only you and the current generation could seize the nettle, real and actual change might be affected.

Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons' is probably the archetypal text regarding this; the timeless frictions that persistently afflict generation after generation, being handed along like the baton of nihilism in a relay race of conflicting moral philosophies.

Its this same sense of changing conscience that demands certain books be read by a certain age. Both 'On the Road' and 'The Catcher in the Rye' struck me as works of existential genius aged 16/17, yet appeared almost suffocatingly narcissistic on re-reading them whilst in my early-20s.

All this puts me in a place in my life where I feel compelled somehow to engage actively in a political sense. I'm well aware that in this era of chronic apathy towards politics, I would be eagerly ensnared by one of the myriad dragnets if only I'd raise my head from the sand, but my problem is that I'm completely unsure as to which net to allow myself to be ensnared by.

The crux of my problem is that I'm just too cynical. At this post-ideology 21st century trough, I've gorged on the anarchism of Chomsky, the apolitical futurism of Ballard, and the demolition humour of 'The Thick of It'.

Even if there were a genuine left and right wing in the UK anymore, instead of this morass of centrist populism in which Cameron, Miliband, Farage and Osborne squirm over and under each other like flaccid reptiles, the flaws of taking so one-sided a stance across the board are just too salient to be ignored. Party loyalty is like the class system - an anachronistic fallacy which Britons manage to perpetuate ad infinitum by the very intensity of their obsessive stubbornness.

And so on a Saturday morning whim I trotted off to the left wing Stop the War Coalition's Annual Anti-War Conference at the Emmanuel Centre.

Immediately on entering, I got the haptic confirmation that I had passed into leftist territory - the accumulation of Marxist literature on book stalls, the musty scent of old assembly rooms and public buildings, the disheveled suit jackets punctured by CND badges and other iconography, the long trench coats absorbent of the chill from countless trudging demos', the tea served in styrofoam cups.

The first talk was entitled 'The new scramble for Africa' with Labour back-bencher Jeremy Corbyn and Explo Nani Kofi, whose words were rendered all the more poignant after he informed the audience that within the last few days both his father and brother had died in separate circumstances. There was another, quite plodding, discussion about drones and the arms trade. At this point my attention began to snag on the hook of the problem with conferences such as these...

There was such an ineluctable sense of mutual agreement between everyone in attendance that I began to yearn for some semblance of opposition, some bone of contention to be thrown into the pit of smiling and nodding hyenas. I believe strongly that drone warfare is an abomination, but I felt the discussion was so plainly preaching to the acquiescent choir that it rendered the whole exercise virtually obsolete. Clearly there would have been benefit to have had someone with an alternate view, even if they would have run the risk of being strung up from the rafters by trenchcoats and flayed alive with coarse woolen scarves.

By the time of the mid-afternoon session concerning the Syrian war, I felt the whole hall to be in danger of slipping into a well-intentioned but over-powering hypnosis of groupthink. Imagine my satisfaction then, when a young Syrian man leapt to his feet, hijacked the microphone, in the process punching through the smokescreen of pre-determined deference that had descended. I felt an uneasy frustration as the volume of the mike was muted, and the audience began howling him down, before ratcheting up to pantomimic levels with slow clapping and foot stomping.

Surely the whole crux of any diplomatic breakdown is the failure of communication, the inability to listen and try to understand the opposing view? It was a shame that when the man was eventually afforded a modicum of hush, he was unable to string together even the semblance of a robust argument, merely proclaiming the three distinguished journalists on the panel to be Assad apologists, and was ignominiously bundled out of the hall.

Outside there had accumulated a small protest howling about the issue of Syrian non-intervention. I couldn't help but think two things: firstly, that it was baffling how anyone could be so aggrieved with the pacifist stance of the Stop the War Coalition that they felt they were worthy of protesting against; and secondly, why hadn't they been invited in to debate the issue in the interest of attaining a broader and more even-handed spectrum of views?

The closing speech of the day came from the Stop the War President Tony Benn, held up as a hero of the left and a national institution by some, and damned as the man who rendered Old Labour principles wholly unelectable in Thatcher's Britain. Regardless, by the sheer strength of his convictions and principles he has become a figure of immense inspiration and I was unsurprised to see him here being hailed as almost Pope-like.

Indeed, despite being 88 and only speaking for 5 or 10 minutes, he managed to express some of the most thought-provoking and challenging views of the whole day - that government, in its preparations for the centenary of World War 1, look set to shamelessly re-write history in an effort to turn the memory of one of most senseless slaughters in world history into a patriotic celebration in which everyone is encouraged to string up the bunting. To Benn, the sight of soldiers in full medals and regalia marching along Whitehall, firing salutes and fulfilling the militaristic pomp and ceremony is entirely misjudged and, ultimately, does little more than glorify the very concept of war itself.

As I left, lamenting the fact that we may never see politicians of Tony Benn's ilk again, I thought back to the penultimate speaker of the day, the 'left winger of the moment' Owen Jones. His speech was impressively rabble-rousing and stirring, with plenty of finger-wagging and grandiose gestures, but also infused with more than a little vacuous rhetoric about the "necessity for a new world order" which, to his mind at least, is eminently achievable. We were entering the halcyon, yet shallow, jacuzzi waters of Russell Brand.

Despite this, I felt frustrated that someone like Jones would apparently not consider entering politics himself. God knows we could do with more people of his intelligence, idealism and oratory skill.

Perhaps herein lies the heart of the problem with modern politics - that the intelligentsia and commentariat believe the grind of politics to be well beneath them, and are instead content to carp to the auditorium from their balconies of influence. Whereas, the political class is made up of people who, despite perhaps not having that same intelligence, idealism or oratory skill, crucially do not see politics as beneath them; they are unconcerned with the cries from the balcony in their scramble to get onto the stage.