Endless protest movements opposing the country’s military presence in the Middle East have sprung up across the nation, but according to sources inside the peace movement, rallying against the war in Iraq is only an offshoot of the true ambition of peace advocacy.
Peter Bergel, an organizer for Oregon PeaceWorks, said that even though the current anti-war movement has captured the eye of the media, peace is more than just the absence of war. He added Oregon PeaceWorks plants the seeds of peace all year ’round by lobbying to limit the spending budget for the U.S. military and coordinating non-violence educational training programs.
Even though widespread peace protests did not deter President George W. Bush from sending U.S. soldiers to combat in Iraq, Bergel said protesting is a powerful way of affecting policy changes. He added Oregon PeaceWorks has won several minor victories in its efforts to support peace.
“In this business, you very rarely get a hands-down win,” Bergel said.
Alex Gonzalez, an organizer and founding member of Students for Peace, agreed that peace protests aren’t a radical method of overturning public policy, but rather a gradual way of adding new perspectives to public consciousness.
“It might not change overnight, but the mentality of people starts to change,” Gonzalez said.
History Associate Professor Daniel Pope, a University expert on movements of protest and dissent in America, said many people might draw parallels between the current anti-war movement and peace protests during the Vietnam War, but there are also several differences between them.
One thing that set the current protest movement apart was that it started before the United States had even gone to war against Iraq, whereas the American public had been in support of the Vietnam War at the start of the conflict.
Another dividing line between the two anti-war movements was that during the Vietnam War, many people thought that losing the war against Vietnam would be a good thing and would teach the U.S. government a lesson in humility, and this line of thinking hasn’t been prevalent in the peace movement against the war in Iraq.
Pope added that even though anti-war protests didn’t stop the United States from going to war with Iraq, people shouldn’t dismiss protesting as an ineffective way to create change. He said the Bush administration had been hell-bent on going to war for months, and nothing that the movement did was going to change that.
However, Pope added he has hopes that the current movement will be able to prevent the U.S. government from attempting to engender regime changes in more countries.
“I don’t think we should underestimate the power of large-scale, sustained protests,” Pope said.