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News :: Peace |
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The Rising |
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by Joel Warner
(No verified email address) |
23 Dec 2002
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Despite what politicians and the corporate media say, the antiwar movement today is as big as, if not bigger than, its counterpart in the '60s |
Colorado Case Study Being Repeated Across the Country
On Dec. 4, the Boulder Eight, in a small way, made history. The Boulder Eight, who also call themselves Collateral Damage, are an affinity group of 8 political activists from Boulder who decided stopping the impending U.S. war on Iraq was worth getting arrested.
At 10 a.m. on Dec. 4, the 8 protesters entered the Englewood office of U.S. Senator Wayne Allard, who voted to allow President Bush to use force against Iraq. The protesters-ranging in age from 19 to 52-told Allard's staff that they would not be leaving until Allard agreed to host a public forum on U.S. military action in Iraq. When Sean Conway, Allard's chief of staff in Washington, D.C., refused to schedule a forum for Allard that would deal exclusively with Iraq, the protesters resigned themselves to sitting in the office until Allard changed his mind.
At 5 p.m.-closing time at Allard's office-the protesters were given one last chance to leave the building. When they refused, 12 officers from the Arapahoe County Sheriff Department entered the office, frisked each protester, and led them away in handcuffs.
The protesters were released later that night. Each was charged with second-degree criminal trespass, and could face a $750 fine and up to six months in county jail.
For Ben Long, 23, a member of the Boulder Eight, the protest was worth the repercussions.
"It was a good action, and it was effective," said Long. "We're letting it be known that people in this area, and around the country, are willing to go to jail to stop the war. We're stepping [the peace movement] up to a new level."
Long, and others like him, are bringing the peace movement to a new level, one that hasn't been seen in this country since the Vietnam War. Activists all over Colorado and across the country are engaging in acts of civil disobedience and staging large-scale protests. An ever-widening circle of Americans is voicing its opposition to the Bush administration's policy on Iraq.
And despite the myriad challenges facing the burgeoning anti-war movement, there's no question that this political force is here to stay.
Alliances and strange bedfellows
At noon on Dec. 7, about 100 people gathered on the University of Colorado's Boulder campus. Many held signs which read, "No Iraq war," "Teach your leaders peace," and "No blood for oil;" others held American flags. The group, including grandparents and toddlers, students and businesspeople, marched down Broadway to Pearl Street, shouting chants like, "1, 2, 3, 4, we don't want this bloody war!" Some people driving by honked and gave them a thumbs up; others gave them the finger and shouted obscenities.
Upon arriving at the Boulder courthouse the protesters held a peace rally. The motley group heard a church minister, a professor and a Vietnam veteran, among others, speak out against U.S. aggression against Iraq. As holiday shoppers walked past, students played protest songs and performed street theater.
The protest was a microcosm of what's going on across the country: All different types of people, many for the first time, are taking an active stance against war.
"I think it's been quite remarkable," said Stephen Zunes, professor of politics and chair of the Peace and Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, as well as author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism. "In spite of a virtual blackout by the mainstream media, and despite the fact the war hasn't started yet, the number of people involved at various levels is quite impressive. The level of organization is the same as [the Vietnam protests] after three years of heavy fighting in Vietnam."
According to Ira Chernus, professor of Religious Studies at CU/Boulder and a peace activist, there have been two main turning points for the current peace movement: the December 1999 anti-globalization rally in Seattle, which, said Chernus, "galvanized a progressive consensus among young people," and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"It's kind of ironic," said Chernus. "We are so bombarded in the mainstream media with the idea that [September 11] made people more patriotic, but it also had the opposite effect, of also galvanizing a more critical awareness of the U.S.'s foreign policy and how it affects people around the world."
While a national poll released at the end of October by the PEW Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington, D.C., reported that 55 percent of Americans favored military action in Iraq and 34 percent opposed it, many say that the size and number of recent peace demonstrations suggest resistance to Bush's war plan is steadily growing.
On October 26, large rallies occurred across the nation. In Washington, D.C. 100,000 to 200,000 people protested the war, 45,000 to 100,000 rallied in San Francisco, and about 4,000 activists gathered in Denver. In comparison, a 1965 anti-Vietnam march on Washington, D.C., was estimated to include between 25,000 and 30,000 protesters.
More recently on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, actions occurred in 120 locations in 37 states, resulting in more than 100 arrests.
National networks like United for Peace are springing up to coordinate peace activities across the country. Major anti-war organizations and coalitions such as Peace Action, The National Network to End the War Against Iraq and International Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (International ANSWER) are organizing national events. And peace groups such as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization, are authorizing members to engage in acts of civil disobedience. Because civil disobedience often leads to arrest and could possibly threaten nonprofit organizations' federal funding, this is not a decision organizations take lightly.
And peace activists are discovering that they have some strange bedfellows.
John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest union in the country, has spoken out against the war. His concerns have been echoed by the National Council of Churches (comprised of 36 Protestant and Orthodox Christian denominations) and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Coloradans haven't missed the peace train.
"Hey, this isn't just Colorado Springs and Boulder," said Carolyn Bninski, International Collective Coordinator at the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder and member of the Boulder Eight. "Everybody across the state is doing anti-war stuff."
In Pueblo, protesters rally in a different location each month. In Durango, an unprecedented 800 people recently demonstrated against the war. There are protests in Fort Collins and Longmont every Saturday and silent vigils in Denver every Wednesday. Activists recently held a peace summit in Western Colorado. Despite two recent instances of malicious vandalism at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, demonstrators regularly march in Fort Collins. Student coalitions against the war have formed at CU, Naropa University, CSU, Fort Lewis College and Denver's Auraria campus. In October, 70 students at Cherry Creek High School staged a day-long hunger strike for peace.
And, for the first time, peace groups all over the state have formed an alliance, the Colorado Coalition to End the War on Iraq, to coordinate their actions.
"I've been a Coloradan all my life, and I've been active for the past 20 years, and I've never seen this kind of collaborative work," said Kalin Grigg, head of the Sociology Department at Fort Lewis College and a peace activist.
Beyond Vietnam
So why has the anti-war movement gathered so much speed so quickly?
"You don't have to be too with it to see that Iraq had little to do with fighting Al Queda," said Alan Gilbert, John Evans Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Colorado at Denver and author of "Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy?" "It isn't too hard to figure out that the oil White House and the Lockheed Martin White House are shooting for oil, not for inspections. The way it is presented, if it is your son or daughter who is being asked to fight a war on Iraq, are you going to feel good about this thing? That's the reason there's a big anti-war movement."
The peace movement has other things going for it, says Chernus.
"Part of what makes it different [from activism in the 60's] is it's a movement that cuts across generations," said Chernus, explaining that today's peace actions include both veterans of the Vietnam-era protests and younger people who are fighting back for the first time. "There's an interaction between the different generations. The older people bring wisdom as well as experience, and the young people bring energy and enthusiasm."
Another big difference, said Chernus, is that activists in this country are connected worldwide via the Internet.
"The young people have grown up accustomed to this global perspective," said Chernus. "There's a much more sophisticated sense of what is going on in this war. It took a number of years back in the Vietnam era for people to really understand [to a similar degree] the complexities of what that war was all about."
Whatever the reasons for the anti-war movement, it's already scored a victory or two.
"I think the main accomplishment so far is that it has slowed down the momentum to war," said Chernus. "For a while it looked like war was inevitable. But when the peace movement geared up, it raised questions in people's minds. There's still a lot of infighting in the highest levels of the government about how to deal with this. Now [the question] 'should we go to war' has appeared in the mainstream, and I think the peace movement can take considerable credit for that."
Serpents and doves
Not every act of civil disobedience has to end in arrest for it to be successful.
At 9 a.m. on Dec. 10, about 100 people met at the offices of the AFSC in Denver. About 15 of them planned on getting arrested that day, by loosely blockading the U.S. Customs House in downtown Denver.
As the protesters silently marched to the Customs House, Denver police lined their route, some watching from rooftops, others on street corners.
At the Customs House the protesters were met by federal marshals in front of the building, as well as news cameras and additional supporters. Many of those prepared to engage in civil disobedience laid down in makeshift body bags in front of the Customs House as supporters painted fake blood on their faces and handed them flowers.
As the protesters quietly hummed "Amazing Grace," newspaper photographers zoomed in on the body bags and newscasters interviewed students with their faces painted ghostly white. After about an hour, it was announced that, since the protesters were not blocking the public way, they would not be arrested. Since no one wanted to step onto the Custom House's property and face more serious federal charges, the demonstrators called it a day.
The demonstration, however, was a victory. The very nature of the event, from the large numbers of police officers to the gruesome face paint, made it an irresistible photo story for the local media. And so far, getting the media's attention has been one of the many challenges facing the anti-war movement.
"The media is certainly controlled by corporate interests, and that does influence coverage [of the peace movement]," said Rachel Cohen, Communications Coordinator at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a national media-watch group based in New York City. Cohen noted that there were now about 6 to 10 corporations controlling all the major U.S. media outlets, down from about 50 in 1983.
"There's a huge [media] over-reliance on official sources," said Cohen. "That means that people like peace activists, grassroots activists and academic experts are often left out of the debate. It takes a huge media spectacle, like a large march or a crazy stunt, to draw media attention to grassroots movements. It shouldn't."
This fall the New York Times, the Washington Post and National Public Radio largely ignored or undercounted the number of protesters at major rallies in the U.S. and Europe. After receiving complaints from readers and organizations like FAIR, the media outlets revised their stories.
Howard Kurtz, media critic for the Washington Post, says FAIR might have a point. "I think the anti-war effort today has been somewhat under-covered by a press that has been focused on the president's rationale for war against Iraq. But it's a bit of a stretch to compare the current situation to the Vietnam era. The media are not so powerful that they can create sentiment that doesn't exist," Kurtz says.
The quick, in-and-out manner the war on Iraq would likely be fought doesn't help the situation, say activists, explaining that it would be difficult for the media to show the human cost of the war. Furthermore, most peace organizations don't have the funding to organize major publicity campaigns.
The only way the movement can garner more attention, believes Val Phillips, program coordinator at the Denver AFSC is to "think like photographers." Some say this is already beginning to work, judging from a front page story in the Washington Post about the movement on Dec. 2.
"People [in the anti-war movement] are trying to think more theatrically, more creatively, not just to reach the fourth estate, but also people on the street," said Phillips. "We're just people who like to sing and pray and stop wars. But we need to, as the Good Book says, 'be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.'"
Hijacks, race and videotape
Another major obstacle for the peace movement is figuring out how to manage a nationwide phenomenon that includes thousands of organizations, each with its own ideology.
"I think one of the weaknesses of the movement is the dot-com mentality of the different groups," said Mike Zmolek, Outreach Coordinator for the National Network to End the War Against Iraq in Washington, D.C. "There's really not one kind of unifying force. There are so many organizations, it's quite bewildering."
Some activists are worried that hard-line left organizations, like International ANSWER, a New York City-based anti-war organization associated with the Marxist Workers of the World Party, will hijack the movement and use it for their own party building.
But Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, member of the national steering committee for International ANSWER, disagrees.
"I think when groups talk about speaking to the mainstream, that's code for middle-class, white America," said Verheyden-Hilliard. "We're not trying to appeal to an archaic model. We are building a movement and doing a huge amount of work to get people to get out. I don't know how that can be hijacking anything. Everybody should be free to fight against this war."
While observers say that already this antiwar movement is markedly more diverse than its predecessors, it still suffers from being labeled a white person's movement.
"Part of it is economic," said Zmolek. "I'm just one more example of a white American who came from a middle-class background with enough time and resources to work on peace issues."
Organizations like Racial Justice 911: People of Color against the War, a national network based in New York City, are committed to integrating minorities into the movement. But the work isn't always easy, said Raquel Laviņa, member of Racial Justice 911's interim steering committee.
"We've done a lot of outreach, and it's overwhelming how against the war people are in poorer neighborhoods. But people don't know what to do [to get involved]," said Laviņa, adding that many minority organizations are financially strapped or too preoccupied to spend time on the anti-war movement.
The biggest obstacle for integrating more immigrants into the peace movement in Colorado is the language barrier, said Jorge De Santiago, Administrator at El Centro Amistad, an immigrant rights organization in Boulder.
"We need to inform the immigrant community what the peace movement is all about," said De Santiago. "They need the information, in their own language. They want to be part of something that will change their lives here."
Peace activists also have to deal with the constant knowledge that they're being watched.
Protest organizers in the Denver area know their actions have been monitored for years, since it was revealed last spring that the Denver Police Department had been conducting surveillance of protest activities and storing the information in "spy files." But now, with the passage of the USA Patriot Act, allowing authorities greater legal flexibility ostensibly to fight terrorism, many worry that this type of surveillance will become routine all over the country.
Many local peace activists say they believe their phones are bugged. In the past police have entered the AFSC office in Denver and searched the premises, saying that a 911 call had been placed from the office. According to witnesses, the main police headquarters during the Oct. 26 rally in Washington, D.C., "was like the Starship Enterprise." And at recent protests and sit-ins in Englewood and Denver, police have videotaped and photographed the demonstrators.
"It's pretty obvious that the police have not stopped their not-so-secret surveillance of protesters," said Steve Nash, a member of Denver Copwatch, a police watchdog group. "One reason it is not so secretive is that they are trying to intimidate."
When the floodgates open
No matter the obstacles in its way, the peace movement seems to have limitless momentum. Even though there were nationwide peace actions last week, and despite the fact there was a major anti-war protest in downtown Denver on Saturday, Dec. 7, activists locally and nationally are already planning their next moves.
The next major national actions will be on Jan. 18 and 19, the weekend of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Members of the Colorado Coalition to End the War on Iraq say they might stage an action in Denver or Colorado Springs in concert with events across the nation.
But after that, where does the anti-war movement go?
Some say the movement needs to focus on recruiting more minorities and people with lower incomes. Others suggest they need to develop more creative strategies to attract the media and keep people interested. Still others say it's time to start coordinating with people involved in the country's military.
But one thing is for certain, say activists: The movement's going forward.
"America has always been a great home of civil disobedience," said Gilbert at CU-Denver. "If George Bush pushes through to war, the floodgates will open and then there will be an explosive movement of civil disobedience both internationally and in this country, the likes of which have never been seen."
Ron Bain contributed to this article
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See also:
http://boulderweekly.com/
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