When I was asked to join the University group “Students for Peace” when they went to Washington, D.C., to protest the war against Iraq, I must admit I was hesitant. “Don’t people get arrested at demonstrations?” I asked. Although I am firmly against the war in Iraq, I was hesitant to show up at a rally that would be slightly more radical than I thought I would be comfortable with.
However, at the last minute, I decided to go, and have not regretted it. Certainly, there have been marches in history that have been filled with violence, and though violence was not supported by most in the march, the mainstream media angled their coverage (whether purposely or not) to exclude much of the message of the marchers, and focused instead on the destruction of private property. I was afraid that this would be the case in D.C.
Thousands were expected to protest the president’s foreign policy, and I was not sure I wanted to be connected to the radical left, whom I thought the demonstrators would be.
A handful of the counterprotesters were thinking along the same lines. Among some of the smaller pro-war groups was one with most interestingly, if not ridiculously, named MOVEOUT (Marines and Other Veterans Against Outrageous Un-American Traitors). One man yelled out of a passing SUV, “Get a job!” while another had a sign reading “Hippies Go Home.”
This image of the hapless, dirty and worthless pacifist hippie is the prototypical activist many pro-war partisans believe make up the anti-war movement. On the contrary, the protest consisted of people from all races, of all ages, and even a trio of well-groomed businessmen who carried a sign proclaiming, “Mainstream white guys against the war.”
During the rally, there was electricity in the air; street vendors hawked T-shirts, scarves, hats and gloves to the unprepared, and political groups were selling anti-war signs to carry in the march. The media was hungrily circling the demonstrators, pulling over one or two for interviews, and rapidly photographing the rest. While this was not my first time in D.C., it was the first time I had been to the Capitol, and, when I looked back onto the Washington Memorial, was unable to see where the throngs of people ended.
When the march began and I took my place next to the other University students, I could not help but join in some of the chants. Some reminded me of the Seattle demonstration’s chants, “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “The people united will never be defeated.” While these were slightly tired, there were plenty of call-and-answers that I had never heard. Even when there was a lull in the chanting, there was plenty to look at and to do. One man wore a television around his head with his hair slicked backed in the traditional “talking head” style and was announcing, to the laughter of those around him, that we were on fuschia — no, pink — no, lime-green alert!
There was only one slight hang-up in the march, which I was later to discover was the result of two University students climbing on top of a building along side the march and waving an inverted flag to the cheers of the people below. As the police dashed up, they scaled down the back wall and, while we were nervously looking around for them, rejoined our ranks further on.
While I attended the rally with some initial hesitancy, I came out of it fully convinced in the righteousness of our cause. Death and destruction does not become us, and we cannot be distracted from the pain and suffering here at home by a war abroad. On Sunday, I went to the Vietnam Memorial and walked slowly down the thousands of names engraved on the wall. I would like to take Bush there, and make him read each and every name — one by one — and have him think about the potential consequences of his war.