The Radical Left and the Movement in Australia against the First Gulf War, 1990–91: Anti-Imperialism at the End of the Cold War

Abstract

The Gulf War in 1990–91 came at the end of the Cold War and at a time when the Left across the globe was reassessing itself as the Soviet Bloc collapsed. In this period of flux, the Australian Radical Left had also experienced a series of debates about its configuration, with several different attempts at unity, as well as reconsiderations about the relationship between the extra-parliamentary Left, the trade unions and the Australian Labor Party. After Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 and several Western powers, led by the USA and Britain, sought to intervene, Bob Hawke’s Labor government supported the coalition against Iraq. A movement against Western intervention in the Gulf and Australia’s involvement in the coalition was built, including sections of the Labor Left, the trade unions, the peace movement, students and the organisations of the Far Left. Most looked back to the decade-long movement against the Vietnam War for the framework for the anti-war campaign, but the Left, in all its guises, had faded in influence since the 1970s. This article will look at how the movement against the First Gulf War developed between August 1990 and March 1991 and how it reflected a fractured and weakened Left in Australia in the dying days of the Cold War.