Archie Ruparel/The Hoya About 60 members of the Georgetown community march from Healy Gates in silent protest of the potential war with Iraq Saturday. They joined thousands of others downtown.
With the U.S. on the verge of war with Iraq, tens of thousands of protesters gathered Saturday in Washington, D.C., near the White House and in other cities around the world to stage peaceful anti-war protests. The demonstrations against the Bush administration’s possible military strike on Iraq were estimated to be the largest anti-war protests since those against the Vietnam War nearly three decades ago.
Busloads of college students from across the country attended the rally. “If you look at the protests 30 years ago against Vietnam or the one’s we’ve had recently, it has been students which have provided the energy for these rallies,” Ev Yankey (COL ’06) said. “Students are in a unique position because unlike adults, who might be tied down by greater responsibilities like a job or a family, students, who might have fewer short-term concerns, can become the driving force of these movements.”
Protesters at the White House held signs that said “Regime Change Starts at Home,”No Blood For Oil” and “Drop Bush, Not Bombs.” Speakers at the rally included former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, actress Susan Sarandon and singer Patti Smith.
“Protests like these make a big difference,” Anders Fremstad (SFS ’06) said. “Even if Congress has voted on the war issue, if you look at what [President George W.] Bush is planning, he still doesn’t have international support and people in his own country supporting him, especially when he has tens of thousands of people turning out to show him that they don’t approve of the war. I think it really does send a message that he has to be very careful in what he does.”
Though most of the action took place downtown, one demonstration began right at the feet of John Carroll.
Hugh Byrne, who leads Buddhist meditations in Campus Ministry at Georgetown, led about 60 students and adults on a silent peace walk to the protest site. After gathering in a circle on Healy Lawn for a moment of silence, the group processed silently in single-file through the Georgetown neighborhood and along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Potomac River until reaching the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
“It seems to me that protest movements often mirror the problems of those people and institutions they oppose – often bringing a lot of anger, pointing to the problems as being with the other person or institution and not looking at our own roles in helping perpetuate the problem,” Byrne said. “The problems are not all `outside’ – we must also look within if we are to create a peaceful world, we must first find the peace within ourselves, or else we are likely to create further conflict.”
The theme of the walk came from the words of the Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who said, “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.”
Byrne said, “While pointing to what needs to be changed in society and in the world at large, we must find the peace in our own hearts that can be a catalyst, a factor, in bringing peace to our families, communities, societies and our world.”
The silent peace walk offered participants a chance to consider their own reasons for opposing the war. “A lot of times when we are in an atmosphere that can be noisy and turbulent or even violent it is hard to gain perspective of what we are protesting against,” Brian Glenn (SFS ’06) said. “But once we remove ourselves from the noise and the pundits and we find why we want inner peace, resolve and an answer for ourselves, it is much easier to express to ourselves what we want and why we want it.”
Byrne underscored the important part students play in such demonstrations. “Students were a big part of the march and rally today, and I think if the current administration’s policies are to be seriously challenged students will play a central role,” Byrne said. “The particular situation of students – with the time and resources to reflect on the pros and cons and the rights and wrongs of war in Iraq – puts them in a very important position to demonstrate public opposition to the war.”
The protests downtown this past weekend were not the first time Georgetown students have been vocal about the situation in Iraq. Last Wednesday’s “die-in” in Red Square drew national media attention.
Nick Laskowski (COL ’03), a member of the Georgetown Solidarity Committee, said that all Americans should be concerned about the possibility of a strike against Iraq and the ease with which Congress authorized the President to invade Iraq. “A lot of people are going to die very soon and it is important for us to voice our opinions against this. We must stop, slow, impede and do anything we can to prevent something so wrong from taking place,” he said. “Our government is jumping into a war for which it was no justification and no motive. It is very clear that we are not going to be able to solve this problem using the electoral system, as Congress is unwilling to prevent this war from happening, so as we saw last weekend, more people are going to have to use different tactics to convince our leaders that this policy will not work.”
International Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, which coordinated the nonviolent protest in the District with several other anti-war coalitions, estimated attendance exceeded 100,000. The rally began at Constitution Gardens, adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and then proceeded to the White House before returning to its starting point. Protests remained peaceful and police reported only three arrests, compared with nearly 600 during last month’s International Monetary Fund and World Bank protests.
International ANSWER also organized another major protest in San Francisco, in addition to protests staged throughout the world in Rome, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tokyo, Mexico City and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
“We think this was just extremely, extremely successful,” Maria Verheyden-Hilliard, an organizer with International ANSWER, told The Washington Post on Oct 27. “It absolutely shows that when George Bush says America speaks with one voice, and it’s his voice, he’s wrong.”
About 100 supporters of the administration’s policies held counter-protests at the corner of 17th Street and Constitution Avenue led by the D.C. Chapter of Free Republic and a group of Iraqi-Americans.
Imam Husham Al-Husainy told The Washington Post on Oct. 27 that he came to Washington from Detroit with about 40 Iraqi exiles to raise awareness of what Saddam Hussein has done. “Most of the people across the street, they don’t know the reality in Iraq,” he said.
Though representing opposing views, relations between protesters and counter protesters remained peaceful.
“Students are often ahead of the game politically. If you look at other movements, like civil liberties or the movement against the Vietnam War, it has been students which have led them,” Fremstad said. “I would rather have students on the other side of the war [debate] get involved and have an opinion. A lot of students are out here opposing the war but I think even the students that don’t oppose the war should be out here being heard as well.”
While anti-war and peace themes dominated the demonstrations, other causes could be found at the rally, including protesters against the U.S. Justice Department’s alleged civil liberties violations, Palestinian rights advocates and the supporters of the campaign to free death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.
“This protest was unique in that it was built by a large coalition of groups with many different interests, but they shared the same ultimate objective,” Yankey said. “Some people protested because they oppose war in all situations, while others were there simply because they opposed this specific war. People there had a wide range of ideologies – socialists, Marxists, libertarians and capitalists – but they all felt the decision by President Bush to go to war with Iraq was wrong.”
