| Protesters’ message: ‘No War in
Iraq’
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
Thousands of Americans Oct. 27 cast aside complex geopolitical
arguments and the calculations of politicians and policymakers to oppose a U.S.
invasion of Iraq with straightforward messages.
Their placards and posters stated:
- “No War in Iraq”
- “Impeach Fascist Bush”
- “Israel is Not Worth World War III”
- “It’s Patriotic to Oppose Unjust Wars”
- “We Cannot Bomb our Way to Peace”
- “Start Seeing Iraqi Children”
This national debut of the new antiwar movement in the shadow of
the country’s most famous monuments was organized and peaceful and, in a
sense, nationwide. Thousands more watched from home as C-SPAN carried the event
live.
The arguments underlying the simple themes were expanded in casual
conversation with marchers, and in speeches by celebrities and peace activists:
In essence, that U.S. action against Iraq would be immoral and lead to the
deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
There was method in the message.
“Students are scared,” said University of North Carolina
freshman Liz Mason Deese. Their top fear, said Deese, is the rise in
anti-Americanism around the globe and subsequent terrorist attacks.
She was typical of the students who arrived in the caravans of
coaches and cars that made a beeline for Washington. Eight busloads of
University of North Carolina students made the 300-mile trip from Chapel Hill
to Washington.
The old left was on hand -- former Attorney General Ramsey Clark,
a longtime opponent of U.S. military intervention abroad, condemned Bush
administration policies, as did the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.
Hollywood’s Susan Sarandon added star power to the speakers list.
The religious community was present. American Friends Service
Committee National Coordinator Mary Lord said opposition to the war is so
intensely felt that the effort to get people to Washington “was some of
the easiest organizing we have ever done.” Said Lord, echoing a sentiment
expressed throughout the demonstration: “We want to stop this war before
it begins.”
“I just feel so strongly that we should not invade
Iraq,” Dominican Sr. Stella Starch told NCR. Starch is justice,
peace and ecology coordinator for the Sisters of St. Agnes, based in Fond du
Lac, Wis. “The people are speaking, and our representatives who listen to
the people will hear it. But I don’t know about our president. He’s
just got his blinders on and his earplugs in.”
Labor had a place on the podium. A war against Iraq, said Food and
Allied Trade Union Secretary-Treasurer Gene Bruskin, is designed “to make
the world safe for General Motors, General Electric and General Foods” and
not for U.S. workers in need of health care and jobs.
Organizers made a concerted attempt to represent the demonstration
as a middle-American phenomenon. The antiwar message is “coming from
average Americans,” said former member of Congress Thomas H. Andrews. And
there was an element of town fair to the event -- parents, for example, buying
their children a hot dog or pretzel from concessionaires present just outside
the demonstration area.
Still, there was a decided ’60s feel to the event, with
numerous mentions of the protests that helped end the Vietnam War. “It
even smells like the ’60s,” said one member of the crowd, as the
pungent odor of marijuana wafted through the crowd.
Following the rally, demonstrators marched from the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial to the White House.
Additional antiwar demonstrations were held in other cities, with
the largest in San Francisco. Organizers estimated that a total of 250,000
protested U.S. policy toward Iraq Oct. 27, with 100,000 or more marching in
Washington, but there was no independent verification of that number.
Joe Feuerherd is NCR Washington correspondent. His
e-mail address is jfeuerherd@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, November 08,
2002
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