Yes, we’re at the edge of a desperately unwanted war and that in itself could lead to despair. But the global movement that has sprung to life in these scant months should give us cause for modest optimism as well. Harriet Barlow, a long-time organizer, suggests — quite correctly, I believe — that, unlike at the onset of Gulf War I, this movement will not simply die away in the face of a well-orchestrated (as well as sometimes perfectly genuine) patriotic reaction to wartime. In fact, it could well be that the Bush administration will “win” in Iraq and manage to lose the world in the process.
What strikes me about the movement, as it has developed here and elsewhere, is what Barlow calls its “joy,” its festive, theatrical, creative, and generative component which in itself inspires, attracts, and offers hope. New ideas about how to protest — and so to spread the word (or perhaps the words, many of them) — arise with staggering frequency. Only recently high school and college students (including my own son) left their schools, nationwide, sometimes under the threat of sanctions, to demonstrate against the war.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Ruth Rosen just wrote a piece about an organization, launched by Medea Benjamin, called Code Pink (a gentle play on the administration’s manic coloring coding of every moment in our lives), whose activists have staged a four-month long vigil in front of the White House. “In a playful but passionate piece of political theater,” she writes, “San Francisco activist Medea Benjamin spent last Tuesday trying to hand pink slips to President Bush and members of his war team for inflicting a senseless war and a sinking economy on ordinary American families.”
But you don’t have to turn to the “pros” for this. Just the other day, for instance, a good friend of mine told me that his fifteen year old daughter had come up with the idea of suggesting to her classmates that they all wear black armbands from the day the war starts. This is a remarkable idea — and not just for highschool students either. It’s deeply serious, and yet has in it the element of theatricality, even of play. It’s important, especially in the worst of times, to remember that the best, the most attractive aspects of humanity are connected to the spirit of play and playfulness. No movement should be embarrassed by it. Tom
Not Just Anti-war But Pro-democracy
By Harriet Barlow“The antiwar comedy ‘Lysistrata’ — in which women withhold their favors
to secure peace — received more than a thousand readings yesterday in 59
countries, all 50 states and Washington” reported the March 4, New York
Times. One thousand. In every state of the union, and worldwide. This
is not the familiar face of American politics. This suggests a Havelian
joy, the heady stuff of participation, of democracy in unexpected
forms breaking out all over. The Times barely covered the
productions. The paper of record obviously hasn’t caught on to what the
White House is already smelling and fearing: that the nature of politics
itself is being changed by the Iraq crisis.Changed from what? Since the end of the Vietnam War, progressive
organizing in the United States had increasingly located itself by issue
and identity. Millions of us signed up as environmentalists, feminists,
or with a host of other ists and isms, advancing this issue or
that, often to significant ends. The advantage of the siloing of
political energy and focus has been an undeniable raising of political
consciousness. Rights advanced. Water and air quality improved. But
along the way, advocacy became professionalized. We left the hard work
of change to lawyers and public interest professionals, fine people
all. Membership was reduced to an annual check-writing ritual, advocacy
to a bumper sticker. Participation, the showing up and risking parts
of activism, declined, appearing only on the noble fringes of issues,
as with the courageous young in Seattle or the rare Wellstone-type
political campaign. Our collective sense of urgency and determination
as well as the joy factor, so essential to oppositional politics,
declined… Until Iraq. Until now.
“The antiwar comedy ‘Lysistrata’ — in which women withhold their favors
to secure peace — received more than a thousand readings yesterday in 59
countries, all 50 states and Washington” reported the March 4, New York
Times. One thousand. In every state of the union, and worldwide. This
is not the familiar face of American politics. This suggests a Havelian
joy, the heady stuff of participation, of democracy in unexpected
forms breaking out all over. The Times barely covered the
productions. The paper of record obviously hasn’t caught on to what the
White House is already smelling and fearing: that the nature of politics
itself is being changed by the Iraq crisis.
Changed from what? Since the end of the Vietnam War, progressive
organizing in the United States had increasingly located itself by issue
and identity. Millions of us signed up as environmentalists, feminists,
or with a host of other ists and isms, advancing this issue or
that, often to significant ends. The advantage of the siloing of
political energy and focus has been an undeniable raising of political
consciousness. Rights advanced. Water and air quality improved. But
along the way, advocacy became professionalized. We left the hard work
of change to lawyers and public interest professionals, fine people
all. Membership was reduced to an annual check-writing ritual, advocacy
to a bumper sticker. Participation, the showing up and risking parts
of activism, declined, appearing only on the noble fringes of issues,
as with the courageous young in Seattle or the rare Wellstone-type
political campaign. Our collective sense of urgency and determination
as well as the joy factor, so essential to oppositional politics,
declined… Until Iraq. Until now.
The psychological confusion which followed September 11 left many
progressives unable to respond to the Bush administration’s agenda. We,
like all Americans, ached for the loss of life and for the lost illusion
of security. We felt ourselves to be on the edge of an era of blind
fear, apparently overwhelmed and certainly dispirited, ready to be
patriotic if powerless. Then George W. Bush mis-stepped, putting
himself directly in the path of a new generation with new ways of
thinking and organizing.
For the President, the unforeseen, under-the-radar-screen factor turned
out to be an organization so tiny — two full-time employees and one on
three-quarters time — that he might be forgiven for not noticing. Its
name was MoveOn. Created in 1998 to lobby Congress to move beyond the
distraction of the proposed Clinton impeachment, MoveOn moved on,
creating modest call-in and petition campaigns on a variety of
issues. But in the late summer of 2002, its twenty-one year old staffer Eli
Pariser converted their internet based, electronic “constituency” into
an embodied and emboldened force. This action personalized the power of
the ether. Congress realized that the passion of the MoveOn constituency
could be translated into direct action, and therefore votes. Speaking in a
language that both parties understand, MoveOn stimulated its growing
cadre to show up and give where they had previously only spoken.
Soon, not a few, not hundreds, but thousands of MoveOn electronic
petition signers were turning out at Congressional offices to protest
Bush’s threatened invasion of Iraq. After the Congressional vote that
essentially authorized an Iraqi war, MoveOn succeeded in raising $4.5
million dollars in less than a week to support the few brave members of
Congress who had risked reelection by voting against the
President. This galvanized the ever-dedicated peace movement, including
such consistent resisters as the American Friends Service Committee and
Peace Action. Suddenly there was a new ally, cooperative and
generative, bringing new people, a new sense of possibility and new
energy to the work.
In October, ANSWER, an historically sectarian organization, did everyone
a favor by securing the permits for a Washington D.C. demonstration
against the threatened war. Peace and justice groups, both national and
local, wanting to take advantage of the opportunity to witness their
opposition, joined ANSWER in spite of their ideological differences.
MoveOn, its membership in a brief few months having mounted to a
staggering half-million, summoned them to participate and many
responded. The result was a turnout that made the media blink, if not
stare. Wanting to maintain and build on the march’s momentum while
distinguishing their politics from those of ANSWER, more than eighty
groups formed a network called United for Peace and Justice. They
agreed to coordinate actions and messaging through a shared website and
regular steering group conversations.
The same day, leaders from a group of national organizations agreed that
there was an opportunity to make a majoritarian case against the
impending war with Iraq by linking it to the administration’s growing
domestic wars against civil liberties and the budget. Their agreement
to work together evolved into the Win Without War Coalition. Since
then, numerous other formations have weighed in — associations of actors
(a la “Lysistrata”), musicians, poets, students, labor activists, city
councils — catalyzed into action by the prospect of
war. Working collegially, the groups have made the whole feel even
greater than the sum of its already impressive parts. And the sum
continues to grow.
Since November, the capacity to work together has been enhanced by that
rare balm: success. Old factors and new have combined into an alchemy
that defies historical comparison and conventional analysis. Peace,
labor, church and humanitarian groups have found an energy that has
inspired their members to brave the winter cold as they swell weekly
vigils from coast to coast. Lacking leadership from a largely cowed
Democratic Party, citizens themselves are taking on the business of
making their voices heard, of creating democracy in action.
Grasping the connections between the Bush international and domestic
agendas, major national membership groups, such as the NAACP, NOW, and,
most stunningly, the AFL-CIO (never previously a public partner to the peace
movement), joined side-by-side in producing a plethora of anti-invasion
ads, petitions and public letters. This broad multi-constituency
engagement shocked and challenged the policy elite, fostering a new
level of commentary and debate in their media.
The sheer numbers of demonstrators and actions and letters to the editor
have also commanded the attention, and occasionally even the respect of
the media. The administration, mindful of the growing cross-section of
Americans represented by the opposition, has been politically dismissive
but rhetorically respectful of the antiwar movement. They believe that
the day we invade, the protestors will be diminished by a rush of
patriotism engendered by TV coverage of rockets and bluster. They are
wrong.
There is a big story still to be told from these last six months of
remarkable response to a war not yet begun. It is that the voice rising
is addressing a different aspect of our patriotism — the patriotism
of determined participation that we call democracy. It will not dissolve the
day we invade Iraq, nor will it dissipate from inertia if we postpone
this war. What is bursting out all over is not merely an anti-war
movement. It is a genuine, homegrown democracy movement defined by
citizenry in action, not by polls or pundits, and led by one another. This
movement is coming into its own, as so many of us continue to unite across
issue and identity boundaries, witnessing for a vision of security based
on the rule of law (our endangered constitution, international treaties
and courts), an open society, and support for human and environmental
needs. We rising millions will not have to resort to Lysistrata’s wily
strategy. Instead, we will vote.
Harriet Barlow is an organizing lifer. She has worked on every major
progressive issue since the Civil Rights Movement. She is the
co-founder of the Blue Mountain Center, a gathering place for
organizers, activists and cultural workers.
Copyright Harriet Barlow