Protesting the war
Mar. 15th, 2003 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerToday I marched around downtown DC with ~100K other folks to protest the idea of a US invasion of Iraq. My first peace-protesting experience! As a result of my recent research-binge, my thoughts weren't focused on the primary topic I was marching about, but instead the popular side-topic of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I made and carried a big sign all day. One side read "End the cycle of violence", and the other side, "60% of Jewish Israelis favor unilateral withdrawal from settlements and disarmament. -Peace Now survey". I'd tried to come up with a shorter way of saying it, but in the end decided every word counted. I put a Jewish star inside the 0 in 60% -- the only Jewish star I saw on any sign at the protest.
I'm glad I wrote it the long way. All day I had people smiling and nodding at the longer sign, thanking me, coming up to shake my hand, etc. "I'm glad you're helping with the education," said one young man.
Other comments: "That's a rare sign, we need more signs like that." "I've seen too much stuff that's anti-Israel today, you're a breath of fresh air." "Wow, cool, I didn't know that."
No negative reactions at all, just a few people who didn't believe the statistic. And particularly uplifting was this: everyone who read the sign sporting Jewish affiliations, AND everyone who read the sign sporting sporting Palestinian affiliations, responded with warm smiles and thumbs-up. I don't think if I'd specifically tried to make a sign that would win approval from both sides of that conflict that I could have done nearly as well as this turned out. Yay me.
Brandi got a lot of positive responses to her sign as well -- I hope she'll write about it! :-) I felt proud of the two of us for carrying signs that were both in harmony with the purpose of the march and cut against the grain of other signs that were there.
International ANSWER was slanted in their speaker-selection and rally cries, as we'd expected. Any endorsed references to the Israel-Palestine conflict were purely about ending the oppression of the latter by the former. However the crowd itself was not nearly so slanted, also as we'd guessed. There was unsurprisingly a low Jewish turnout, and no signs purely supporting Israel, but anti-Israel signs were rare as well. If I'd been marching with a general anti-war sign, I still would've been very bothered by the slant in this particular protest community against Israel. As it was I think I raised awareness some significant amount
and made some Jewish people feel safer being visible there.
Things I learned today:
-A key vote on drilling in the National Wilderness Preserve comes up in a couple days, and it hangs by a thread this time. If you care about this issue, and might be moved to call/write/fax your congresspeople one time about it, it sounds like this is the time.
-Many Palestinians fear that if the Americans attack Iraq the Israeli military will take the opportunity to evacuate the entire rest of the Palestinians to Jordan. It was also alleged to me that such a plan was in fact on the table within the Israeli military. Very scary if true.
-The US/UK/Spain summit happening this weekend is on an obscure island in the Atlantic. Why? Because it's somewhere they could go to meet without being mobbed by anti-war protesters. The WTO started doing that after Seattle too.
There's more, but I can't remember any more right now. I'm kinda wired and wiped out at the same time...
100K was a good number, but the anti-war movement is only going to have the impact it wants if protests like this keep happening, and get bigger. It was where I needed to be today, and interestingly educational. I want to continue my practice of making signs that support the protest at the same time as subverting something that's amiss within it.
I made and carried a big sign all day. One side read "End the cycle of violence", and the other side, "60% of Jewish Israelis favor unilateral withdrawal from settlements and disarmament. -Peace Now survey". I'd tried to come up with a shorter way of saying it, but in the end decided every word counted. I put a Jewish star inside the 0 in 60% -- the only Jewish star I saw on any sign at the protest.
I'm glad I wrote it the long way. All day I had people smiling and nodding at the longer sign, thanking me, coming up to shake my hand, etc. "I'm glad you're helping with the education," said one young man.
Other comments: "That's a rare sign, we need more signs like that." "I've seen too much stuff that's anti-Israel today, you're a breath of fresh air." "Wow, cool, I didn't know that."
No negative reactions at all, just a few people who didn't believe the statistic. And particularly uplifting was this: everyone who read the sign sporting Jewish affiliations, AND everyone who read the sign sporting sporting Palestinian affiliations, responded with warm smiles and thumbs-up. I don't think if I'd specifically tried to make a sign that would win approval from both sides of that conflict that I could have done nearly as well as this turned out. Yay me.
Brandi got a lot of positive responses to her sign as well -- I hope she'll write about it! :-) I felt proud of the two of us for carrying signs that were both in harmony with the purpose of the march and cut against the grain of other signs that were there.
International ANSWER was slanted in their speaker-selection and rally cries, as we'd expected. Any endorsed references to the Israel-Palestine conflict were purely about ending the oppression of the latter by the former. However the crowd itself was not nearly so slanted, also as we'd guessed. There was unsurprisingly a low Jewish turnout, and no signs purely supporting Israel, but anti-Israel signs were rare as well. If I'd been marching with a general anti-war sign, I still would've been very bothered by the slant in this particular protest community against Israel. As it was I think I raised awareness some significant amount
and made some Jewish people feel safer being visible there.
Things I learned today:
-A key vote on drilling in the National Wilderness Preserve comes up in a couple days, and it hangs by a thread this time. If you care about this issue, and might be moved to call/write/fax your congresspeople one time about it, it sounds like this is the time.
-Many Palestinians fear that if the Americans attack Iraq the Israeli military will take the opportunity to evacuate the entire rest of the Palestinians to Jordan. It was also alleged to me that such a plan was in fact on the table within the Israeli military. Very scary if true.
-The US/UK/Spain summit happening this weekend is on an obscure island in the Atlantic. Why? Because it's somewhere they could go to meet without being mobbed by anti-war protesters. The WTO started doing that after Seattle too.
There's more, but I can't remember any more right now. I'm kinda wired and wiped out at the same time...
100K was a good number, but the anti-war movement is only going to have the impact it wants if protests like this keep happening, and get bigger. It was where I needed to be today, and interestingly educational. I want to continue my practice of making signs that support the protest at the same time as subverting something that's amiss within it.
your thoughts?
Date: 2003-03-16 08:34 pm (UTC)First: you go! Go, you! And stuff. :-)
What should be the message of the peace movement when (if?) the U.S. invades Iraq? How do we maintain the coalition, the momentum? I've been turning this over in my head since talking with my Dad (political organizer/trainer/writer) yesterday.
Sigh. Pondering.
Re: your thoughts?
Date: 2003-03-17 09:16 am (UTC)Those are good. :-)
I'm sure there'll be more inspiration to be found in the Vietnam anti-war movement.
Re: your thoughts?
Date: 2003-03-17 11:30 am (UTC)I think that works for me.
Incidentally, I couldn't make it to Washington last weekend (sorry, guys), so I spent Saturday morning writing this instead.
-- colin