PAGE 4
KEEPING THE PEACE
that our actions still matter even when things seem bleakest.
Supportive community reminds us that whatever men like
John Ashcroft may think, true patriotism means engagement,
not silence.
This past December, a Seattle antiwar coalition called
SNOW gathered 2,000 people from the city and suburbs at a
local high school and divided them into neighborhood groups.
The resulting 80 groups are now operating on their own with
local facilitators and e-mail listservs. Some are conducting vigils
and neighborhood marches, others door-to-door canvassing and
handing out yard signs, others peace fairs, petition drives and
potlucks. These efforts reach people who would never go near
a downtown march.
We could build this infrastructure at every point we
speak out. Our marches and rallies have grown in nearly every
city in the country to create carnivals of homemade signs,.stilt
walkers, puppets, belly-dancers, marching bands, grandmothers,
ministers, punks, and all manner of ordinary citizens. But they
have also missed opportunities. Speakers have focused, with
reason, on how Bush has failed to make the case for a war that
will make us less safe, not more. But thay have talked little
about what it means to work in an on-going way to address the
root causes of these crises we now face. They have taken for
granted the need to give people psychological bread for their
journey.
Our marches and rallies have also done far too little
to connect the tide of new participants to concrete networks that
could support their involvement. Some of us are linked with a
hundred different groups, juggling endless invitations to act.
But most of America, including most participants in the huge
recent marches, aren't connected in this fashion. Despite the
growing involvement of religious and labor groups, most march
as individuals, not through organized institutions. Except when
local peace and justice efforts are most visible, those newly
involved can easily miss them, particularly if they live, like most
Americans, in neighborhoods outside the urban core which is
the focus of so much visible alternative politics. When the
propaganda barrage escalates into a full-scale blitz, those just
beginning to act will find it particularly hard to resist isolation.
ARTIST UNKNOWN
BY PAUL LOEB & GEOV PARRISH
"If you want peace, work for justice."
-PAUL 6
With millions marching worldwide, we hoped to avert
Bush’s war on Iraq. But given one of the most insular admin
istrations in America's history, we failed. No matter how powerful
our argument, and the unprecedented breadth and strength of
our movement, Bush and his cohorts went ahead with a war
they have wanted for years. So we must work now to lay the
groundwork to prevent it from leading to wars on Syria, Iran,
North Korea, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil — maybe even
France. This means we will need those now surging into the
movement who had hoped to prevent the war to stick around
for the long haul and not melt away when times get hard.
During the first Gulf War, arguably more justified,
the U.S. peace movement got kicked in the gut. Then as well,
major protests surged through American and European cities,
hoping to stop the war before it started. But once the war
began, mainstream debate over the wisdom of war was quickly
supplanted by the insistence that anything other than relentless
cheerleading was disloyal to the troops — and to the country.
In previous fights against Contra aid and the nuclear
arms race, polls said our fellow citizens were with us. But
Americans overwhelmingly supported the first Gulf War —
because it worked militarily, and because the hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis who died were faceless and anonymous.
Those who continued speaking out for peace quickly felt
marginalized, isolated and silenced. Some blamed their
compatriots for not doing enough. Most quickly retreated
into private life, many entering a political cocoon they would
stay in for years. Either way, visible public opposition quickly
faded.
So how do we encourage the newly engaged to
continue? How do we keep on ourselves, and keep reaching
beyond the core converted? History never fully repeats itself,
a lesson the Bush administration seems to forget. But Bush
has gone to war despite massive global opposition and the
peace movement needs to be prepared for some unsettling
possibilitites.
Because the war has gone well militarily Americans
are likely to rally behind Bush as their worst fears have so far
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been averted. The mainstream media praises our President’s
heroic leadership and seems to largely avoid covering civilian
deaths though thousands might be dead. Most Americans are
hesitant to speak out, fearful of undermining the troops or too
discouraged to think it matters. The administration implicitly
brands those who challenge their policies as disloyal and
irrelevant.
But the same casualties our media minimize are highly
visible to the Islamic world. The “accidental" bombing death
of an Al Jazeera reporter has further enflamed the Arab street.
Whether through satellite image or word of mouth, Muslims
worldwide are hearing of the dead and wounded, the fleeing
refugees, the destruction of homes, power stations and sewage
plants. Just as our conduct in the first Gulf War helped shift
Osama bin Laden from an ally to a murderous foe, so attacking
Iraq has ultimately created further enemies, in ways we can only
hope we will never know.
Perhaps the results of this rage will be delayed. But
an uglier immediate scenario is also possible — that the attack
on Baghdad and crackdown on Palestinians in Israel will trigger
counterattacks on American and allied targets throughout the
world —including on U.S. soil. Forgotten in the Bush II admin
istration's relentless propaganda campaign, equating Saddam
Hussein and his purported weapons of mass destruction with
terror and 9/11, is that many of the actual perpetrators of 9/11
are still out there — quite possibly including Osama bin Laden
himself. And Islamic terror groups have been planning for
response to the invasion of Iraq for at least as long as the
Pentagon.
If terrorist bombs do go off in Chicago, Des Moines
or Philadelphia, America will no longer simply be conducting
an invisible war in a faraway land. If bombs here at home kill
innocent American civilians most citizens are likely to feel
overwhelmed with anger and fear. Just as was true after 9/11
they will hardly be receptive to the truth that America’s own
actions will have helped set those terrible events in motion —
and that we as well have taken innocent lives again and again.
It will be hard to resist the administration's permanent eviscera
tion of due process, the Bill of Rights and other inconvenient
nuisances. If unprepared, the peace movement risks being
isolated and obliterated.
Having failed to persuade the Bush administration
to not invade Iraq, the antiwar movement needs a Plan B.
It needs a message that will play well after the war, even if
terrorist counterattacks begin; it needs a plan for getting that
message out to the public despite all the media cheerleading;
and it needs a strategy for not only retaining its current massive
numbers, but expanding them to the point where we can reverse
government policy. We need to take account of these possibil
ities now, in our message and approach, anticipating the public
mood, so our actions still count
In the face of such grim possibilities, we might begin
by connecting the waves of new participants just beginning to
speak out with communities of longtime activists. That sounds
almost trivial but there is nothing more demoralizing than stay
ing home in isolation watching Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld
on TV Even with supportive communities, keeping on will be
difficult. But the more disconnected we are, the harder it will be.
And if we re connected with enough sympathetic people, we can
support each other, pass on alternative perspectives, and talk
about all the issues that remain following Saddam Hussein's
removal from the Baghdad palaces where we helped install and
maintain him.
Community also lets us gather to mourn We did this
far too little during the first Gulf War, and suffered as a result.
It is sometimes necessary to admit we feel angry and powerless
Then we can remember we still have the power to act, and
But peace movement participants don't have to be
disconnected. We now have the technologies to keep people
involved. Imagine if at every march, rally, or door-to-door
campaign organizers put major volunteer energy into gathering
names, e-mails and zip codes, then used the Seattle model to
set up local meetings.
Organizers could at least do their best to ensure that
no one left a major march without knowing about the key local
websites that could allow them to plug in and get connected.
Integrating the flood of new participants would take serious
volunteer energy, but if we can link even a fraction of those just
coming in to each other and to existing communities of concern,
far more will persist when the going gets tough. That is also an
argument for continuing our coordinated local protests, in ways
that can keep reaching new communities. Encouraging this kind
of connection should be as high a priority as getting people to
march to begin with.
We need to remind ourselves and our fellow citizens
that winning the war doesn’t change the fact it is a betrayal of
law and of justice, and an incitement to bitterness and terror.
Which is why, for all the need to build community, we also need
visions sufficiently compelling to help participants new and old
keep going. We need to raise these visions to all just beginning
to raise their concerns, including those who backed Bush’s wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, served in other wars, or even consider
themselves honorable Republicans.
Given how continually Bush plays the fear card, we
might acknowledge that Americans have some reasons for fear.
And then make clear that reckless zealotry and a willingness to
make entire populations expendable does nothing to bring real
security. That is part of why so many major military figures —
like retired Generals Anthony Zinni, Wesley Clark and even
Norman Schwarzkopf — have expressed strong reservations
about the war in Iraq.
Think of Osama bin Laden's original vision. His Al
Qaeda militants justified their anti-American jihad on three
grounds: American military desecration of the Islamic holy land
of Saudi Arabia; American support for Israel's brutal military
occupation of Palestine; and (despite Al Qaeda's loathing for
Saddam Hussein himself) the massive suffering of ordinary
Iraqis during the Gulf War and the medieval siege of Iraq,
punctuated by occasional bombings, that America led up until
its recent invasion.
From every indication, Osama bin Laden hoped 9/11
would provoke the United States into perpetrating such atrocities
against Muslims to inspire a global Islamic holy war against the
Western oppressors. Or at least that it would trigger a regional
jihad bringing militant Islam to power in the Middle East. After
some initial bows to multilateral restraint, the Bush administra
tion has complied more fully than bin Laden could ever have
dreamed. It has given a blank check to unprecedented levels
of Israeli brutality; it has openly plotted for a widespread
permanent military presence in the Middle East; and it has
now accomplished its objective of invading Iraq to remove
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