It's
Not Yesterday's Peace Movement
As
war clouds gather, opposition to a U.S. first strike on Iraq grows in a new and
different way than the Vietnam-era peace movement – and faster. Unlike the
l960s, today's movement is more diverse, with a clearer political agenda
unblurred by counterculture messages.
You
don't need a weatherman to see that grassroots opposition to a U.S. war with
Iraq is gathering fast. Today's peace movement already draws big protest crowds
even before the shooting has begun, and its ranks are more diverse than the
1960s movement, which took a few years to grow. Fueling dissent is the
perception that Bush's call for a unilateral first strike against Iraq is
arbitrary.
Peace
activists using technology nonexistent in the '60s – e-mail blasts, dedicated
Web sites – are preparing a march in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 18-20, as well
as other cities around the nation, hoping to keep the pressure on the Bush
administration.
Despite
the post-Sept. 11 climate of patriotism, longtime activists report they see less
public hostility than during the Vietnam war. One reason may be the broad
composition of recent protests – from grandmothers, students and "Soccer
Moms for Peace," to locked-out African American dock workers and graying
baby-boomers reliving the heady calls to action of the Vietnam era.
Unlike
in the '60s, no static over counter-culture lifestyles blurs the message. The
slogan "Make love, not war" has a politically prim makeover:
"Make peace, not war."
Today's
groundswell is "more political from the beginning, based on the conclusion
that the war with Iraq is unjust," says Richard Becker, national
coordinator of the Answer coalition, which sponsored the October protests.
By
contrast, the 1960s upsurge was fueled mainly by the fear that more Americans
were dying because of the draft. "It took thousands of body bags, with the
Vietnam War already going on for a while, before the movement got going,"
Becker says.
Scandals
in the decades following Vietnam – from Watergate to U.S. support of military
dictatorships and its subterfuges in Chile and Central America – have
diminished the U.S. public's innocence. "With the Cold War and the red
scare gone, people are less susceptible to government spins," says Ziad, an
Arab American organizer for Global Exchange in San Francisco, who asks that his
full name be withheld.
Some
credit low-key activism over the years, on domestic problems and U.S. policies
abroad, for people's readiness to take a stand. Among youth and students, the
anti-globalization movement has helped make "close connections between the
drive for war and corporate greed," Ziad says.
Meanwhile,
civil rights gains in the workplace, business, schools and public institutions
have helped racially diversify the middle class – the current movement's main
base. This too is different from the l960s, when peace activists lamented their
movement's largely white, youth-and-student makeup.
Instead,
today's antiwar organizers "have found natural allies in minority
communities," says Roxanne Lawson, formerly of Black Voices for Peace in
Washington, D.C. Minority activists who earned their spurs in battles for
affirmative action and immigrant rights see the war "as an extension of
injustice at home." The NAACP and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination
Committee are among groups opposed to an attack on Iraq.
Organizers
have pointedly timed the planned marches in January during the Martin Luther
King Jr. holiday weekend as a reminder to minority communities that King
strongly opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam.
More
young people from immigrant families critical of the U.S. role in their parents'
homelands are emboldened to speak out because they are U.S. citizens.
While
their political clout has shrunk from the l960s, labor unions – which largely
backed the Vietnam War – are seeing growing antiwar sentiment. The building
trades and industrial unions remain unmoved, sources say, but a number of local
labor councils and leaders have endorsed or spoken in recent protests. Many
Vietnam-era activists have found careers as union organizers and are sources of
antiwar agitation. Daz Lamparas counts himself among them.
"In
the locals many people are really opposed to war," says Lamparas, a field
organizer for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in San Francisco.
"But most unions are still waiting for what the AFL-CIO leadership will
do."
Opposition
is strong among health care and service workers, Lamparas says. "Many of
our members are immigrants. I've seen war, a civil war, during the Marcos
dictatorship in the Philippines. It's not a movie, I tell you. I think many of
our members had similar experiences in their own countries."
Tensions,
however, could lead to the kind of splits that weakened the Vietnam-era movement.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a divisive issue; the high visibility of
Palestinian supporters has kept many pro-Israel liberals away.
Another
potential divider is inspections. The Answer coalition doesn't support the U.N.
inspection of Iraq's weapons program. "It's a trap," argues Becker.
"The U.N. will end up rubber stamping Bush's war."
Meanwhile,
"Win Without War," a coalition of celebrities and prominent liberals,
has taken out ads supporting the inspections. Some liberal critics say Answer is
a front of the Marxist Workers World Party and accuse it of hijacking the
movement, which Bette Hoover, director of the American Friends Service
Committee's Washington, D.C., office, denies.
"When
groups step up to the plate, we don't discredit their efforts," she says.
"But we're not naïve. If they let other voices in and don't let their
agendas dominate, it's OK. It's like people going to different churches. We can
still work together."
For
now, at least, movement organizers – which one activist describes as a
"national network of networks" – continue to patch together
conference calls and emergency meetings to derail Bush's rush toward Baghdad.
Rene
P. Ciria-Cruz
is a Pacific News Service
editor and a longtime editor for Filipinas Magazine.
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