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News :: Peace |
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Pro-War Hostility On The Rise, Peace Group Expands |
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by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-356-2205
Address: 606 W White St, Champaign IL 61820 |
26 Apr 2003
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War supporters are becoming more belligerent, even as numbers at their rallies have shrunk. Peace advocates say they will not be intimidated. This weekend AWARE begins simultaneous demonstrations at two separate locations. |
(Champaign-Urbana) Pro-war hostility seems to be rising even as the war with Iraq officially draws to a close, say local anti-war activists, who last Saturday faced the most belligerent crowd of counter-protesters yet. Still, the activists say, anti-war protests will continue as usual on Prospect, while expanding to include other locations as well.
In one incident last Saturday, a handful of counter-protesters attacked a passing car and broke a window, after the driver apparently showed them his middle finger. Witnesses said the attackers were screaming at the driver and threatening to drag him out of the car. Police were already on the scene at the time, and were called over, but arrested no one.
"Lots of people have shown us that finger over the last several months," commented one member of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE), the local group that organizes the weekly protests on Prospect. "But certainly no one from our group has ever assaulted anyone or attacked a vehicle out here."
In another incident the same day, a journalism student attempting to photograph participants received threats such as, "I'll kick your ass" and "I'll break your camera" from counter-protesters who shouted that she was from "the liberal media."
Amy Medlin, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, says she tried first to explain to the crowd that she was independent. But, Medlin says, several counter-protesters shouted at her and insisted that she had no right to take their pictures without permission.
Medlin says she then tried to explain that she does have the right to photograph anyone attending a public protest on a public sidewalk, and suggested that one of the counter-protesters get a policeman.
But when one of them did fetch Officer Beach, Medlin says, she was shocked at the officer's behavior. Instead of explaining the law or attempting to calm the situation, Medlin says, Beach shouted at her and threatened to issue her a citation, a charge he later denied.
A Pattern of Harassment
Local anti-war protesters have faced hostility ever since they began demonstrating on North Prospect against the US bombing of Afghanistan a year and a half ago. Then it was mostly heckling, and the occasional finger (affectionately known as "the half-peace-sign." But ever since their numbers began to grow, as the US edged closer to war with Iraq, so has the harassment.
"About two to four kids jumped out of a car on a Saturday afternoon and stomped in the top of my van," says one peace advocate. "I'm 51 years old and don't have any beefs with kids in town, so the inspiration for the act was puzzling. It was the investigating officer who, seeing the 'No Iraq War' sign in my window, suggested that the vandalism was in response to the sign."
Most of the vandalism has been mild, say AWARE members, and it usually hasn't gone beyond stealing anti-war yard signs. There have been several dozen cases of sign theft, activists say, and replacing the signs is getting expensive. But far more troubling is the vandalism of cars and homes.
One AWARE member, Lisa Chason, returned from vacation recently to discover a row of dead animals left in her front yard near her anti-war sign. "There was a rabbit, a squirrel, a skunk and a possum with a dead mouse in its mouth," Chason said. "It was disgusting."
Chason also said after Channel 3 News ran a story on vandalism directed at local anti-war activists, she discovered that a neighbor of hers has also been finding dead squirrels in his yard beside his anti-war sign, four in a week and a half.
Joan and Tom Nelshoppen, activists with the Progressive Resource/Action Center, had a large wooden dove in their front yard printed with the words, "No Iraq War," and later, "End Iraq War." But they say anonymous vandals attacked the display on several occasions, breaking off pieces of it and once pulling it down, before finally stealing it altogether.
Other activists have found slashed or punctured tires when they returned to their bumperstickered cars, sometimes in public parking lots in broad daylight and sometimes in their own driveways at night. One activist left his backseat full of anti-war signs overnight, only to discover the next day that all four tires had been slashed. One car was sprayed with sticky insulating foam that temporarily sealed the driver's side door and hood.
Another activist came home to find the lock to one of her outside doors filled with rubber cement.
Even at AWARE's public demonstrations on Prospect, there have been some tense moments. One day in October, a pickup truck left the road to drive up on the sidewalk where protesters were holding anti-war signs. The driver, Captain Brewer of Rantoul, who works at the nearby Tires Plus, yelled angrily at the activists before driving along the sidewalk and finally leaving. Police issued Brewer a citation for reckless driving but not before returning the following Saturday to issue citations, $75 each, to two anti-war protesters who were legally handing out leaflets to passersby.
AWARE members attempted to clarify the law over the phone with a series of police officers over the next few weeks, before finally securing a meeting with city officials -- who confirmed that protesters do have the right to hand out leaflets to passing cars.
In another incident, a driver stopped in the middle of the street and shoved one demonstrator after the protester says the wind caught his sign, causing it to touch the driver's car. Passing drivers have also tossed a few things at protesters, without injuring anyone, and management at Tires Plus has had several cars towed when people joined the protest for the first time, unaware that Tires Plus does not allow them to park there.
The Undaunted
But members of the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE) insist they are not going away. In fact, they're expanding this weekend. Instead of the single demonstration at their usual haunt on North Prospect near Marketview, the group is holding two simultaneous protests at 2pm: one on Prospect, and one just down the road on Neil St near Anthony Drive.
"We are delighted to have an opportunity to connect with those folks who may have missed us on North Prospect," says Ryan Rogers, one of the main organizers of the protest on Neil St. "We hope that more families will eagerly join us in our efforts."
Ryan says that other locations have been discussed for future demonstrations as well, to reach more new audiences.
Organizers say the idea of adding a new location is not new but came up some time in February when attendance at the weekly "Prospect for Peace" demonstrations climbed to more than three times its previous average of 30-50 per week from October to mid-January.
As national anti-war marches topped one million participants February 15, attendance at "Prospect for Peace" reached 170 in a blinding snowstorm that kept many in the twin cities homebound. Then in March, when counter-protesters first announced their "pro-America" rally, scheduled to begin just 30 minutes before the weekly anti-war protest in the same location, over 300 anti-war activists poured onto the sidewalks, overwhelming the 50-60 counter-protesters.
But the counter-protesters grew, too. Week after week, the "pro-America" rally hoisted gigantic American flags high overhead on cranes, blared patriotic music from loudspeakers, including speeches attacking peace advocates as deluded and led astray by "foreign puppet-masters," and generally harassed "Prospect for Peace" attendees. Heckling increased, and a few vehicles driven by war supporters began to circle around to pass along the anti-war line several times a day, shouting or waving flags on metal poles just inches from activists' noses.
By their second week, war supporters increased to match the numbers of anti-war protesters, finally surpassing them by the end of March. Then came the fall of Baghdad, and attendance on both sides began to thin out. "There's a sense that the critical period is over," said AWARE member Jeff Sowers and, for the anti-war side, a sense of disappointment that what was perhaps the largest preemptive anti-war mobilization in history was unable to prevent the invasion of Iraq.
And yet, attendance at "Prospect for Peace" was around 60 last Saturday, still above its highest point during its first three months. And, anti-war organizers point out proudly, around 800 local residents attended anti-war demonstrations over the course of a few months, and almost all of them gave AWARE their phone numbers or email addresses to be contacted for further events. Several have become active in planning new projects to oppose war and occupation.
New faces still show up every Saturday on Prospect, and with the new venue, a new set of organizers and new audiences are coming into play. War supporters, for all their expensive TV ads and corporate sponsorships, had about 60 last Saturday, too. In fact, the "pro-America" rally's numbers have decreased by around fifty percent every week since their third week, even as organizers insist that they have received promises for busloads of hundreds of war supporters from the surrounding area.
Meanwhile, a new message is beginning to coalesce in opposition to the US occupation of Iraq and the chaos in Afghanistan. The US has imposed martial law in Iraq, after all, and is busily setting up a "friendly" government that tens of thousands of Iraqis are already in the streets opposing. Terrorist groups are experiencing a recruiting windfall. Thousands of Iraqi civilians did die, as predicted, and many more, mostly children -- face death from hunger, disease and pollution in the aftermath of war, according to UNICEF. The Afghan government still has been unable to establish the most basic operations, and the Administration is already rattling its sabers at new enemies.
In short, people are reminding themselves that the US government's bellicose foreign policy entails much more serious consequences than heckling, vandalism and a few crude threats.
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See also:
http://www.anti-war.net
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