By John Catalinotto, Washington, D.C.
Tens of thousands of people in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and thousands in other cities worldwide, demonstrated Sept. 29 against the Bush administration's drive to war and in defense of Arab and Muslim people living in the U.S. who have been subject to racist attacks.
Since the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon has moved 28,000 troops, dozens of warships and hundreds of bombers to the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, threatening to strike Afghanistan and perhaps other countries.
The Sept. 29 protest actions in the U.S., called by a new coalition--Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, or ANSWER--attracted a rainbow-like gathering of civil rights, anti-war, religious, solidarity, community and student organizations, with some participation from organized labor.
Brian Becker, an ANSWER spokesperson, said the demonstrations showed "there was a real coalition, broad enough and solid enough to build a powerful movement in the United States against the war that Bush and the Pentagon are planning."
He announced at a meeting following the Washington protest that ANSWER was proposing follow-up mass actions for Oct. 27.
Increasing the significance of the demonstrations is that they happened in the midst of a super-patriotic media campaign. The media gave 100-percent backing to Bush's war moves. Some also stridently red-baited and violence-baited the demonstration's organizers. But they failed to stifle the new coalition.
On the contrary, the movement for peace--as reflected by dozens of speakers as well as the marchers--was broader Sept. 29 than it has been since the last years of the U.S. war against Vietnam.
At the Washington, D.C., rally, speakers from the area included Vanessa Dixon of the D.C. Healthcare Now Coalition, Eleiza Braun of the George Washington University Action Coalition and Rev. Graylan Hagler, Senior Minister of the Plymouth Congregational Church, showing that community, student and religious organizations were strongly supporting the anti-war coalition.
The mass anti-war sentiment in the Black community was also represented by the Rev. Curtis Gatewood, president of the Durham chapter of the NAACP. Rev. Gatewood had spoken out the week before against U.S. military action, despite the patriotic stance of the NAACP national leadership. When the national leadership chastised him for his statement, the members of the Durham NAACP reaffirmed their support for Gatewood.
Here's a short sample of the diversity among the speakers in D.C.: James Creedon, an emergency medical technician who rescued people at Ground Zero; James Terry, Queer Youth for Social Justice; Sam Jordan, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Amer Jubran, Al Awda Boston; Sunita Mehda, Sakhi for South Asian Women; Marina Alarcon, Mexican Support Network; Ray LeForest, District Council 1707, AFSCME; Yoomi Jeong, Korea Truth Commission; Rusty Fabunana, Bayan Philippines Forum; and Eric Le Compte, School of the Americas Watch.
MARCH BREAKS THROUGH ISOLATION
ANSWER organizers had told Workers World three days before the march that the major purpose of the coalition event was to break through the isolation people were feeling under the pressure of the pro-war media campaign.
As the rally ended, the demonstrators took the advice of Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Co-Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice, and marched out of the rally area at Freedom Plaza with determination, despite the heavy presence of thousands of riot police, some armed with automatic rifles and all armored.
They headed along Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol. The realization that they had succeeded in their goal flooded over the marchers as their route climbed a hill alongside the Capitol.
As the front of the march neared the top of the hill, people turned around and looked back. A cheer went up as they saw that the march stretched for blocks and blocks, tightly packed across the width of Pennsylvania Avenue.
"No war in our name," read one sign. "U.S. out of the Middle East," read another. And everywhere, "Stop the war" and "Stop racist attacks." The organizers would soon announce that some 20,000 people were there.
The sight of the vast crowd increased the excitement. As if invigorated by the discovery that they had plenty of company in the fight against a new war, students from dozens of universities accepted ANSWER's invitation to announce their school's name and how many students had come.
"Vassar, 100!" "Gettysburg, where tens of thousands died in the U.S. Civil War." "University of Minnesota." "Columbia College." "Bard College in New York, 200!" Students streamed to the podium to shout out their affiliations. There was Oberlin, Howard, four campuses from the University of Wisconsin, plus dozens more. High-school students, too, spoke out their presence.
It was another sign that people were motivated to bring the mood of the demonstration back into their communities, where they would continue to organize opposition to the war and racism.
HOW THE COALITION GREW
Before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon had altered the political climate in the country, anti-globalization groups had planned protests in Washington for the week from Sept. 28 to Oct. 4. Some estimates were that as many as 100,000 youths would come to denounce the responsibility of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for keeping close to 2 billion people in the world near starvation while a handful of big capitalists grew rich beyond all imagination.
The International Action Center--a key initiator of the anti-war march--had scheduled a demonstration Sept. 29 to surround the White House, focusing the protest against the Bush administration.
Then the attacks took place. The Bush administration and the U.S. government in general used the events to put the country on a war footing, while pressuring the media to whip up a patriotism and anti-foreigner sentiment among a stunned population.
When the IMF and World Bank then decided to postpone their meetings, most of the groups in the anti-globalization movement also cancelled their protests. The IAC, said Becker, who is an IAC Co-Director, "decided it was important to keep the date and turn its focus against the war, while opening it up to all those who wanted to oppose the war drive and the virulent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim attacks."
The Anti-Capitalist Convergence also sponsored a successful early-morning march, which later converged with ANSWER.
"We consulted with others and issued the ANSWER call," said Becker. "We thought that even a few thousand protesting the war would show the world--including the population here--that there was more than just the official pro-war opinion. From our point of view the turnout was a tremendous success and the broad organizational support shows that a real anti-war coalition exists and can grow.
"In the original call we suggested further action on Oct. 12-13. But it became apparent that we needed more time to use the impulse of the Sept. 29 march to organize other national or regional actions, so we have adjusted this to Oct. 27," Becker said. "There will be a hard struggle before us, but we have now seen what is possible and the potential support that exists."
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