Pax Americana: 198 Sundays

198 Sundays

May 31, 2009

198 Hiatus

198 Sundays will return in mid-June after I return from Gaza. In the meantime, browse the archives as you consider ways you can peacefully effect change at home and abroad.

ntodd

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May 10, 2009

198 Sundays: Breasts, Not Bombs

In light of Sam Super Lesbian Activist Mom's performance at yesterday's vigil, today we'll revisit a symbolic public act (nonviolent protest and persuasion):

22. Protest disrobings:

War is indecent, not nudity.

ntodd

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May 03, 2009

198 Sundays: Girls Say 'No' To Boys Who Say 'Yes'

As we get ready for our trip to DC for the Mother's Day vigil, I've been thinking about the role mothers and women in general play in effecting political change.

One of the reasons I chose to join Code Pink--besides realizing that I shouldn't reinvent the wheel--was because they are all about women power and female energy. Everything they do is a life-affirming celebration, they derive strength from empathy and emotion, and quite frankly look at the world differently than men for I'm sure a variety of sociological (and maybe biological?) reasons. It was not only a way for me to get involved with people who were trying to effect change in inventive ways on a daily basis, but to put myself into a community's minority for really the first time in my white male existence, and learn new skills in terms of political action and personal interaction. We're soaking in patriarchy, and it's good to do whatever we can to soak in something else, if only for a little while.

What Code Pink does is in the tradition of the suffrage movement and the creator of Mother's Day herself, Julia Ward Howe. Part of this year's vigil pays homage to Howe and involves acts of radical knitting to create a giant banner for the front of the White House that reads, "We will not raise our children to kill another mother's child."

Sally Field put things a little less delicately at the Emmys a couple years ago: If mothers ruled the world, there would be no god-damned wars in the first place.

Well, we probably won't get to test that theory for a while. Yet women have been instrumental in anti-war movements for a long time, though their traditional roles were restricted to behind-the-scenes activity even in the most liberal and equal societies of their time.

Although young men captured the camera's eye as they burned their draft cards, much of the work of organizing draft resistance was done by women. Singer Joan Baez performed protest songs everywhere with a banner behind her that read: "Girls say yes to boys who say no." In Greenwich Village, the Peace Center, directed by writer Grace Paley, organized and counseled scores of conscientious objectors willing to go to jail rather than serve in the war.

Arrested with the Berrigan brothers for actions that included pouring blood and napalm on selective service records of men scheduled to be drafted was former nun Mary Moylan, who later went underground with them.

Eugene McCarthy's failed campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 attracted many younger women who went on to become lifelong activists. In student groups, females were confronting a system where, in the parlance of the time, "men made policy and women made coffee."

Behind the men standing at the microphones as the day's events were televised, an emerging mainstream national women's movement was visible if you knew where to look.

Some folks might have taken exception to Joan's banner and the famous poster pictured above, just as some have more recently to knockoffs we saw during the last campaign:

The Draft Resistance Movement both in Australia and America have been associated with a slogan: "Girls say yes to boys who say no". It is a major criticism of the movement that it could accept, even as a joke, a call to take part in exploitation, to join in the use of other people as rewards and objects. It is worse when it is remembered that the slogan was popularized by women (e.g. the Joan Baez poster) in answer to the question: "What is the role of women in the DRM?"

Women could see their only answer in reproducing within the movement their roles of commodity and passivity in the most obvious form of sex object and emotional prop for the warriors. That the question could be put is a sign of the elitism in the movement. At the DRM conference in September 1971 men not going to jail voted on recommendations for men going to jail; women were excluded from the voting. But their relation to people going to jail was the same as that of the men not going. This exclusion was not a structural effect of different situations but of elitism.

Movements use whatever tools are at their disposal. Gandhi used a charkha, both literally and symbolically, along with other things. In the 60s, women took ownership of their sex and used it along with a variety of methods to make their views heard and to influence policy within the anti-war and civil rights communities.

Which brings us in a roundabout way to today's Method, another rerun: 57. Lysistratic nonaction.

Lysistrata (Attic Greek: Λυσιστράτη Lysistratê, Doric Greek: Λυσιστράτα Lysistrata), loosely translated to "she who disbands armies", is an anti-war Greek comedy, written in 411 BCE by Aristophanes.

Led by the eponymous Lysistrata, the story's female characters barricade the public funds building and withhold sex from their husbands to end the Peloponnesian War and secure peace. In doing so, Lysistrata engages the support of women from Sparta, Boeotia, and Corinth. All of them, at first aghast at the suggestion of withholding sex, finally agree swearing an oath of allegiance to the cause.

...

During the Civil Rights movement, male activists were often male chauvinists and treated female activists as second class citizens. At one point, several of the women from SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) staged such a "sex strike" (they used an earthier term I won't repeat here!) with their husbands and boyfriends until they obtained better treatment. I am told that after 10 days, all of their demands were met!

(Note: As with all nonviolent actions, this one could carry physical risk in certain contexts. In many cultures and contexts, women are not allowed to refuse their husbands sexually and doing so could result in physical abuse or even death. This male "ownership" of women's bodies is one of the many global forms of violence against women, still not adequately addressed -- even by peace and justice folk.)

In typical Code Pink fashion, there is a variation on this theme available at the online store:

When we were tabling during the Inauguration, I actually sold a pair to a guy as his girlfriend gigled behind him.

But seriously, this is a tactic that can put a great deal of psychological pressure on the "opponent," whomever it is. Currently we're seeing this put into practice in Kenya:

A group of Kenyan women’s organisations have called on the nation’s wives and girlfriends to withdraw conjugal rights in an attempt to bring an end to political strife that some fear could ultimately lead to renewed ethnic violence.

The Women’s Development Organisation says it will also approach the wives of Prime Minister Raila Odinga, 64, and President Mwai Kibaki, 78, to join the week-long sex strike.

"The women of this country will not ... allow its political leadership to lead it back onto a slippery journey to ... violence and absolute chaos," the group said in a statement on Wednesday.

The coalition government was formed in early 2008, bringing an end to ethnic violence that saw over 1,500 killed and 300,000 displaced.

The fighting broke out after Odinga’s supporters claimed he had been cheated out of victory in the December 2007 presidential elections.

Despite promising to compromise and work together, Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and Kibaki’s Party for National Unity have done little but bicker.

Is this the only method available to the women of Kenya? Will it end the political crisis in Kenya? Probably not by itself, but that's why we have a large toolkit including a variety of approaches.

The point is, even if we aren't living in the Age of Aquarius just yet:

[A]ll it takes is a few women to upset the whole foundation in a way that perhaps fathers and husbands can't quite do. Womanhood seems to have a unique power in that regard.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

ntodd

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April 26, 2009

198 Sundays: Run On Mr Potter's Bank

Given all the economic pessimism, here's a repeat of a financial Method: 86. Withdrawal of bank deposits.

Money deposited in private or government banks or government savings systems may be withdrawn either as an expression of protest against the government or as a means of noncooperation intended to help overthrow an unsteady government.

For example, the withdrawal of bank deposits was called for at least twice during the 1905 Revolution in Russia--first by the All-Russian Peasant Union at its founding conference in midsummer 1905, and second, by the St Petersburg Soviet on December 2, 1905. This was designed to weaken foreign confidence in the Russian economy and government and thus prevent the government from obtaining a foreign loan to be used to combat the revolution. To the embarrassment of the government, there were extensive withdrawals of funds from banks in the following weeks, apparently as a result of the call.

In a very different context, in December 1966 a moderately successful appeal was made to depositors of the First National City Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank, urging them to withdraw their deposits from those banks and to place them elsewhere, because of the banks' financial involvement in the South African economy.

I'm hearing a lot of people talk about closing accounts with credit card companies, which is great because credit is inflationary and it denies those leeches their money. Same could be said for banks in general, and while we might not want to cause a run on the banks, perhaps this is the time to withdraw our consent and wind down the predatory system that's gotten us into this mess.

ntodd

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April 19, 2009

198 Sundays: Speakeasy

My buddy Sinofnian's recent activities reminded me of this week's re-re-post of Method 177: Speak-in.

Speak out, speak in, and sometimes take part even when you weren't invited...

ntodd

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April 05, 2009

198 Sundays: Dead Letter Office

Since I've been sending so many emails to VT gummint officials in the lead up to our showdown over marriage equality this Tuesday, so how about 2. Letters of opposition or support again as today's Method:

That's it. For more, read my original post.

ntodd

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March 29, 2009

198 Sundays: I'm Shocked To Find There's Singing Going On Here

When I first worked with Code Pink back in 2007, I noted the prevalence of a particular Method in their actions. 37. Singing:

Under appropriate conditions, singing may constitute a method of nonviolent protest--for example, singing while an unwanted speech is being made, singing national or religious songs and hymns, rival vocal programs to compete with boycotted ones organized by the opponent, singing while engaged in a march, civil disobedience, or some other act of opposition, and singing songs of social and political satire and protest.

Recently this was brought to mind because the good old anti-fascist song Bella Ciao figured in to our latest PINK Talk episode (stream, download), a Code Pink ditty by Betsy Rose was the outtro to my latest Paxcast, and Ericka and I watched Casablanca again last night.

Just as with dancing, a revolution without this is one I want no part of...

ntodd

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March 22, 2009

198 Sundays: Banners High We'll Make Demands

Neil Diamond's song might be ironic, dismissive and/or just plain funny, but it actually also describes pretty well what went on yesterday at the ANSWER-organized demonstrations that marked the 6th anniversary of the Iraq War:

Before war protesters ended their demonstration Saturday afternoon, several placed cardboard coffins in front of the offices of northern Virginia defense contractors such as KBR Inc. and Lockheed Martin Corp. as riot police stood by.

"Lockheed Martin you can't hide, we charge you with genocide!" they chanted as part of a demonstration that began in Washington to mark the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Arlington County, Va., police estimated there were 2,500 to 3,000 protesters and said no arrests were made.

Organizers from the ANSWER Coalition said more than 1,000 groups sponsored the protest to call for an end to the Iraq war, and estimated that about 10,000 people participated. Carrying signs saying "We need jobs and schools, not war" and "Indict Bush," demonstrators beat drums and played trumpets as they marched from near the Lincoln Memorial past the Pentagon into Virginia.

Meanwhile, at a similar protest in San Francisco, tension grew after four or five dozen activists surrounded a group of riot-equipped police, throwing sticks and water bottles. Police responded by regrouping in riot formation and physically detaining several protesters who pushed and shoved with officers.
...
In Washington, protesters demanded that President Barack Obama immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, saying thousands of Iraqis have died and thousands of American troops have been wounded or killed.

"We think it's especially important for this new administration to feel the pressure from people that we don't want more war," said Obama supporter Pat Halle, 59, of Baltimore.

Anti-war activists said even though former President George W. Bush is out of power, they are disappointed with what they see as stalled action from Obama.

"Obama seems to be led somewhat by the bureaucracies. I want him to follow up on his promise to end the war," said 66-year-old Perry Parks of Rockingham, N.C., who said he served in the Army for nearly 30 years, including in Vietnam.
...
In southern California, hundreds of protesters gathered in Hollywood. Among them were peace advocate Cindy Sheehan — whose son was killed in Iraq — Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis and Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam veteran whose story was chronicled in the book and film "Born on the Fourth of July."

Protesters in Los Angeles were expected to follow a rally with a march and then a symbolic "die in" where they would lie down in a major Hollywood Boulevard intersection to symbolize the soldiers who have died in the war.

Protesters waved signs and sold bumper stickers and T-shirts commemorating the event.

Denise Clendenning, 51, an environmental scientist from Chino Hills, Calif., said she hopes Obama will rethink his strategy to withdraw most of the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and call all of them back instead.
...
In Washington, U.S. Park Police said no arrests were made. However, there sometimes was commotion among activists.
...
This year, the protest in Washington was held on a weekend — a few days after the March 19 anniversary of the war, which began in 2003. Last year's weekday protest was marked by lower turnout than in previous years.

From the Code Pink photo album of yesterday's San Francisco event.

Of course a variety of Methods are employed at these protests, though marching is probably the most prominent aspect in a lot of people's minds--a march is a specific type of procession that often is an amalgam of different forms of nonviolent protest and persuasion that can also stand on their own. I first covered 38. Marches in the context of Las Madres in Argentina, but here's what Sharp has to say:

The march...is practiced when a group of people walk in an organized manner to a particular place which is regarded as intrinsically significant to the issue involved. The duration of the march may vary from an hour or two to several weeks, or even longer. Posters and banners may or may not be carried, and leaflets may or may not be distributed to bystanders.
...
An "Agreement for the Deportation of the First Batch of twenty thousands Jews to East German Territories" was signed by a Bulgarian and German official on February 22, 1943. But revolutionary groups in Sofia appealed to the Bulgarian people, urging them to stand before Jewish homes and crowd into the Jewish quarters, refusing to allow the Jews to be deported. On May 24, 1943, writes Matei Yulzari, the Jews of Sofia organized a protest in which many non-Jewish Bulgarians also participated:

It started from the Jewish synagogue in one of the suburbs, where the gathering was addressed by Rabbi Daniel Zion and several young men. The crowd started an impressive march, which was intended to join the demonstration of the university students and make its way to the royal palace to protest against the outrages to which the Jews were subjected. Clashes with police were followed by numerous arrests.

This mass demonstration alarmed the authorities and they did not carry out the second stage of their deportation plan--deportation to Poland, where the Jews of Europe found their death. Fearing internal unrest, the Fascist government and the king were forced to give up their plan to send the Jews of Bulgaria to their doom in the death camps.

In Oriente province of Cuba in later 1956, during the Batista regime, the bodies of twenty-nine Cuban youths were reported to have been delivered, badly mutilated, as government reprisals for the November uprising. Later there were other murders and countermurders in Santiago. On January 2, 1957, soldiers in Santiago seized William Soler, a fourteen-year-old boy; his badly tortured body was dumped in an empty lot the next night. Robert Taber writes:

At ten o'clock in the morning [of January 4], some forty women dressed in black left the Church of Dolores...and moved in slow procession, praying in unison and fingering their rosaries, down Call Aguilera...At their head marched the mother of William Soler, and with her the mothers of other youths slain by police and soldiers...Over their heads they carried a large white banner with the black inscription: Cesen los asesinatos de nuestros hijos. (Stop the murder of our sons.)

As they moved on past the park and through the shopping district, other women joined them. There were two hundred by the time they had passed the first block, then eight hundred, then a thousand. At every step more women left the shops to join the procession, pressing slowly forward through the narrow, cobbled street. A few policemen stood by, helpless, at the intersections. Men watched from the doorways and many wept with shame as the women passed by, the only sound was their murmured litany and the funereal tapping of their heels.

At one intersection, a jeep load of soldiers suddenly appeared, training a machine gun on the procession, blocking the way. The women waited, silently. The demostration continued to grow until it overflowed into nearby streets, blocking all traffic.

When the soldiers tried to break up the manifestation, pushing their way into the dense crowd, the women simply opened aisles for them to pass through, and then closed ranks again. The mothers refused to be provoked into any overt act of physical resistance, but stood in quiet dignity until the soldiers gave up their futile efforts and, shamefaced, turned away. Then the women began, still silently, to disperse. Part of the procession continued to the city hall and to the offices of several newspapers to leave petitions demanding an end of the terror and the restoration of civil law. Then these women, too, went quietly home.

The mothers' protest march in Santiago had significance because it was the first public act to signal the beginning of organized civic resistance on a broad and effective scale in Cuba, under the aegis of the fidelista movement.

You'll notice 6. Group or mass petitions in the mix, covered a couple weeks ago. A related form of Formal Statement is 3. Declarations by organizations and institutions:

One of the forms such declarations have taken has been that of pastoral letters and similar official church statements. During World War II, in Vichy France, for example, in August and September 1942, protest declarations against the deportation of Jews were read by priests from their pulpits in Toulouse and in the Lyons diocese...Anti-Nazi pastoral letters were also read on a number of occassions in churches in Germany itself.

Even if one supports a regime--perhaps especially if one does--declarations of criticism can be very import. We saw a flavor of that in some of the interviews during yesterday's marches, and of course groups like Code Pink have issued more formal declarations:

CODEPINK Women for Peace is disheartened by President Obama's announcement this morning for troop withdrawal by Aug. 2010, later than his campaign promise, leaving residual troops until December 2011.

Americans voted for Obama largely based on his opposition to the war since its start, and his promise to end the occupation in 2009.

“While the move toward withdrawal is positive, this timeline and leaving tens of thousands of residual troops sounds more like occupation-lite than an end to occupation,” said Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK. “But compared to the past eight years of moving backward, at least there's an atmosphere now where we can continue to apply pressure on the administration to push forward."

CODEPINK women call on Obama and his administration to immediately withdraw all U.S. troops, including residual forces from Iraq. Instead, the U.S. government should increase efforts in diplomacy, humanitarian aid and refugee resettlement. Continued troop presence will only encourage more armed opposition within Iraq and will not force the Iraqi government and Iraqi factions to negotiate power. In addition, with the continued presence of U.S. troops, the international community will doubt the U.S. commitment to withdrawal and will wait to invest in diplomatic and reconstruction efforts.

"Up to 50,000 troops is a big number to leave behind," said Dana Balicki, CODEPINK campaign coordinator. "And there hasn't been any word on military bases left in Iraq that will continue to drain billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers at a time where that money is very much needed at home. But the withdrawal, and a timeline, is a baby step forward from past policies. As citizens, it's our job to move Obama to take giant strides."

We must put our "opponent" on notice so they know why we're marching and so they can correct their behavior. Just recently we've seen it work regarding Obama's lack of AIDS policy even BEFORE an event takes place.

We also need to remind our opponent and supporters what we're fighting for in simple ways. It might seem odd to cite Adolf Hitler here, but really in a sense we're engaging in propaganda here, framing the debate and lighting brushfires in people's minds, and he was truly a master:

The content of propaganda is not science any more than the object represented in a poster is art. The art of the poster lies in the designer's ability to attract the attention of the crowd by form and color. A poster advertising an art exhibit must direct the attention of the public to the art being exhibited; the better it succeeds in this, the greater is the art of the poster itself. The poster should give the masses an idea of the significance of the exhibition, it should not be a substitute for the art on display. Anyone who wants to concern himself with the art itself must do more than study the poster; and it will not be enough for him just to saunter through the exhibition. We may expect him to examine and immerse himself in the individual works, and thus little by little form a fair opinion.

A similar situation prevails with what we today call propaganda.

The function of propaganda does not lie in the scientific training of the individual, but in calling the masses' attention to certain facts, processes, necessities, etc., whose significance is thus for the first time placed within their field of vision.

The whole art consists in doing this so skillfully that everyone will be convinced that the fact is real, the process necessary, the necessity correct, etc. But since propaganda is not and cannot be the necessity in itself, since its function, like the poster, consists in attracting the attention of the crowd, and not in educating those who are already educated or who are striving after education and knowledge, its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect.

So we see 8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications that disseminate our "propaganda" at these events, and elsewhere both before and after. We also rely heavily on 7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols:

Among the very common forms of nonviolent protest are slogans, caricatures and symbols. They may be written, painted, drawn, printed, mimed, gestured, or spoken. From the summer of 1941 to May 1942 a resistance group of Jewish youths in Berlin, the Baum Group, carried out such activities without a single arrest, Professor Ber Mark reports...In Munich in early 1943 young student members of the Weisse Rose (White Rose) resistance group wrote "DOWN WITH HITLER" on walls.

In occupied Poland, a group of young boys called "The Little Wolves" in 1942 used indelible paint to decorate German trucks and automobiles, German residences, and even the backs of German trucks themselves with inscriptions, such as "POLAND FIGHTS ON," which appeared in Warsaw every morning. Caricatures and posters were also displayed. According to one Polish commentator: "The mischievous and diabolically efficient little pack did much to sustain the psychological atmosphere of contempt for the Germans and fostered the spirit of resistance."

These little acts of defiance can sometimes carry great risk, and risk or not, can provide psychological support for bystanders and activists alike, letting people know that somebody is still out there resisting. They can inspire people to attend marches, and keep the message alive after the marchers have gone home.

Yesterday's events also offered the common die-ins (44. Mock funerals), which are very dramatic, symbolic ways to honor the dead and communicate our grief and grievances. These can pay homage to our soldiers killed in Iraq, Gazan civilians who have died at the hands of our client state's military, and innocents killed during actions here at home.

Speaking of which, it turns out that violent repression usually results in greater mobilization of the masses. For example, the Kent State Massacre (which I discussed regarding 62. Student strike last month):

[T]he majority of Americans supported the Guard's actions at Kent State. Many parents viewed the shootings as the tragic lot of a generation weaned on permissiveness. This view directly contradicted student reaction and resulted in further division between generations. The country experienced its first national student strike, in which over one third of the Nation's campuses were involved. There were approximately one hundred strikes per day for the four days following the deaths, as universities throughout the nation were besieged by protesting students. One hundred thousand marched in Washington to protest the war and the killings at Kent.

Jerry Rubin said afterward: It was the most significant day of all of our lives because in 48 hours more young people were radicalized, revolutionized and yippieized than in any single time in American history. What's more, in the wake of Kent and the Jackson State killings later that month, we saw "nearly a million marchers on both coasts in April, 1971; 12,000 activists performing civil disobedience in Washington in May; and 100,000 marching in 1972 against the mining of North Vietnam's harbors, and at the January, 1973, 'counter-inaugural' against the bombing of Hanoi."

And it's not just in "benevolent" America, but all over the world at various times:

Ciskei: 20,000 African National Congress members demonstrated for democracy in Bisho, Ciskei, a “homeland” in South Africa. Police opened fire, killing 28 and wounding 288. The next day 100,000 ANC members marched to Ciskei, Bishop Tutu led 2,000 in prayer, 12,000 attended a rally led by Nelson Mandela and 1,250 protested in other cities. The following day 2,000 protested in Johannesburg.

St. Petersburg: Father Gapon led thousands of workers seeking more food and higher wages to the Winter Palace on Sunday, January 22, 1905. The protest had been announced; even so, the Tsar’s forces shot at the marchers, killing 175 and wounding 625. Father Gapon was lost, but not killed, in the melee, and most marchers fled the scene. Backlash, mostly in the form of general strikes, was strong against this Bloody Sunday. It led eventually to Russia’s first elected parliament (Duma).

Uitenhage: On the 25^th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre South Africans were marching to a funeral of dissidents. Police opened fire on them, killing 19. During the next two days 18 homes of police officers were burned and a demonstration in Port Elizabeth developed. Police came in and clashed with the demonstrators, killing a man and a woman. On the third day, funerals of three dead protesters drew 30,000 mourners.

Vienna: Workers were incensed by the acquittal of police who were tried for killing a worker and a 10-year old child in Burgenland. Thousands of unarmed demonstrators rioted and burned the justice ministry on July 15, 1927. Police and troops shot into the crowd, killing 85 and wounding more than a thousand protesters. A 24-hour general strike followed. Workers occupied several districts of the city; Red Guards from the labor federation controlled main highways, and 500,000 workers marched on the Ringstrasse on July 16.

Marches by themselves don't end wars or regimes, but they communicate messages to regimes, inspire and mobilize people, and offer a beginning point for a strategic campaign of escalation if demands aren't met. In many ways they are the least we can do as we try to effect change, though they can carry a certain amount of risk and even scare those in power enough sometimes to change their polices.

I oft hear people say, "well, we marched in 2003 and that didn't stop the war," as they throw up their hands and give up on any other action. Sadly, that misses the point of marches and fails to draw the most important lesson: we need MORE marches, MORE often, and MORE people to become involved. Combining them with other tactics can change--has changed--the world.

ntodd

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March 15, 2009

198 Sundays: Picture The Change You Wish To See

After last week's epic Method post, today's is short and sweet: 25. Displays of portraits.

The public display of pictures of resistance heroes or persons who otherwise symbolize the objectives of the movement is sometimes used as a means of communicating to others one's political loyalties. During the Indian 1930-31 struggle, photographs of national leaders--Gandhi, Nehru and others--were widely sold and displayed in homes and shops. Similarly, in Czechoslovakia in August 1968, buildings in Prague displayed portraits of President Svoboda and Dubcek, First Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party.

Last week when I was at the Smithosonian's Road to Freedom exhibition I saw a picture similar to the one on the right. I'd say the Obama image I have on my personal blog would also count, as would the myriad t-shirts I saw in DC.

ntodd

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March 08, 2009

198 Sundays: Freedom Keeps On Rolling

Back in December 2007, I covered ride-ins (Method 164) because I'd just met the amazing Juanita Nelson, who was there at the beginning of the Freedom Rides:

Cue the usual objections to NV action: such things as ride-ins can only work against a "benign" regime like what we had in the US. I have argued ad nauseum that this is not true, but what also bothers me is how people who say this also ignore the violent alternative that the Civil Rights Movement could have chosen. They took the righteous path, which also happens to be effective, and we should all celebrate that.

What I should have expanded on was the notion that the US was "benign", because it most definitely wasn't, at least in the Deep South, and JFK and LBJ (even RFK for that matter) weren't really inclined toward pushing Civil Rights and actually a bit hostile to the actions of CORE, SCLC, et al. One might think I'm setting up a strawman, but I have heard/seen folks comment that the movement's non-violence was only successful because hey, this is America, not Nazi Germany (the same objections are raised regarding Gandhi and Indian Independence)!

The people who fought for justice certainly understood the stark reality that most of us just don't comprehend.

I was at the Smithsonian's Ripley Center to see their Road to Freedom exhibition today after holding vigil again with Leslie for a few hours. As I was looking at pictures from Anniston, AL, a young African-American woman asked if anybody had gotten out of a torched Greyhound bus alive. Given that Leslie's dad was on that very bus and she told me the story (and loaned me the Freedom Riders book this week), I happened to know that Hank Thomas and a white undercover policeman were able to open the doors so everybody could escape. She was astonished to hear about it and simply said, while her school-aged daughter joyfully ran around us, "I can't imagine."

Neither can I. Fortunately we still have some people to bear witness, though in 2004, the San Francisco Bay Guardian had this obituary for one of the few remaining suvivors:

Whenever someone told Ed Blankenheim he didn’t have to risk life and limb in the cause of civil rights, he would vehemently disagree. Henry “Hank” Thomas had just such a conversation with Blankenheim last October, when they and the two other surviving civil-rights activists known as the Freedom Riders participated in a panel discussion at the University of Illinois.

[Hank is on the far left (behind CORE leader Jim Farmer), and the dude wearing glasses in the middle is Ed--they were attending a meeting in SC, May 1961. Photo borrowed from Freedom Riders--1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.]

Blankenheim was not in the best of shape, and both men knew it might be the last time they’d be together, Thomas recalled. Blankenheim had traveled there from San Francisco, Thomas from Stone Mountain, Ga.

“I said to him publicly how much I appreciated him, for doing all he’d done when he didn’t have to,” Thomas said.

...

Blankenheim, Thomas and 11 others did indeed risk life and limb in the early 1960s to desegregate lunch counters, bus stations, restrooms and other public facilities in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Blankenheim died Sunday, Sept. 26, of cancer. He was 70.

The other known survivors from that core group are U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and the Rev. Benjamin Cox of Jackson, Tenn. Cox said three of the Freedom Riders went into hiding several years ago and have not been located.

More about Ed from Freedom Riders:

Ed Blankenheim [Leslie's father, on the far left in this famous picture that's hanging near where the young woman I mentioned above chatted with me] was a carpenter's apprentice and part-time chemistry student at the University of Arizona in Tuscon. Feisty and full of resolve, he had talked his way into the Marine Corps in 1950, at the age of sixteen. Eleven years later, as a Korean War veteran and father of two, he traveled more than two thousand miles to join the Freedom Ride...Befriending fellow chemistry student Tim Burroughs and several other black student activists, he became one of the few whites to participate in local civil rights activities, first as a member of Tuscon's NAACAP Youth Council, and later as a leader of a local CORE chapter known as Students for Equality...[CORE head] Jim Farmer dispatched pacifist leader David McReynolds, a War Resisters League official who frequently donated his services to CORE, to Tuscon to help organize the local student movement. McReynolds stayed for two weeks, enthralling the students with discussions of Ganhian wisdom and strategy.

Blankenheim, in particular, embraced McReynolds as a friend and mentor worth following. "His belief in mankind and the human potential for kindness," he later recalled, "changed Students for Equality and change me. The feeling of respect was mutual, and when the Freedom Ride project emerged a few weeks later, McReynolds unhesitatingly recommended the wiry young man with the sardonic wit and impish grin. Farmer had asked him "to keep an eye out for potential Freedom Riders," and he felt he had found a good prospect in Arizona. Blankenheim had seen enough of the South as a young marine recruit at Parris Island, South Carolina, to be wary of directly challenging the region's racial shibboleths, and he knew full well that he "was being invited on a trip into the Deep South as part of a mixed-race bomb." After a little prodding from Farmer, though, he could not resist joining the Ride. "I was no less concerned about the danger of my committment," he later explained, "but all that I had seen in the South and all that I had learned from Dave stared me down. I had come too far and I couldn't turn back."

Ed couldn't turn back, but it was almost the end of him and his fellow activists:

For...twenty minutes...Klansmen pounded on the bus demanding that the Freedom Riders come out to take what was coming to them, but they stayed in their seats, even after the arrival of two highway patrolmen. When neither patrolman made any effort to disperse the crowd, Cowling, Sims, and the Riders decided to stay put.

Eventually, however, two members of the mob, Roger Couch and Cecil "Goober" Lewallyn, decided that they had waited long enough. After returning to his car, which was parked a few yards behind the disabled Greyhound, Lewallyn suddenly ran toward the bus and tossed a flaming bundle of rags through a broken window. Within seconds the bundle exploded, sending dark gray smoke throughout the bus. At first, Genevieve Hughes, seated only a few feet away from the explosion, thought the bomb-thrower was just trying to scare the Freedom Riders with a smoke bomb, but as the smoke got blacker and blacker and as flames began to engulf several of the upholstered seats, she realized that she and the other passengers were in serious trouble. Crouching down in the middle of the bus, she screamed out, "Is there any air up front?" When no one answered, she began to panic. "Oh, my God, they're going to burn us up!" she yelled to the others, who were lost in a dense cloud of smoke. Making her way forward, she finally found an open window six rows from the front and thrust her head out, gasping for air. As she looked out, she saw the outstretched necks of Jimmy McDonald and Charlotte Devree, who had also found open windows. Seconds later, all three squeezed through the windows and dropped to the ground. Still choking from the smoke and fumes, they staggered across the street. Gazing back at the burning bus, they feared that the other passengers were still trapped inside, but they soon caught sight of several passengers who had escaped through the front door on the other side.

They were all lucky to be alive. Several members of the mob had pressed against the door screaming, "Burn them alive" and "Fry the goddamn niggers," and the Freedom Riders had been all but doomed until an exploding fuel tank convinced the mob that the whole bus was about to explode. As the frightened whites retreated, Cowling pried open the door, allowing the rest of the choking passengers to escape. When Hank Thomas, the first Rider to exit the front of the bus, crawled away from the doorway, a white man rushed toward him and asked, "Are you all okay?" Before Thomas could answer, the man's concerned look turned into a sneer as he struck the astonished student in the head with a baseball bat. Thomas fell to the ground and was barely conscious as the rest of the exiting Riders spilled out onto the grass.

Yeah, sounds like America was pretty benign. Of course democracies are always nice and warm and fuzzy. That's why Israel also can't possibly be a bad guy when it simply defends itself against barbarians and terrorists, right?

On this International Women's Day, I'm disturbed as I read more of the Lancet's series on Palestinian health that even before the current crisis in Gaza (details from A/HRC/4/57) there were:

69 cases of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints...As a result of the checkpoints, 10 per cent of pregnant women who wished to give birth in a hospital had been delayed on the road between two to four hours before reaching health facilities, while 6 per cent of them had spent more than four hours for the same journey. Before the intifada, the average time to reach health facilities was 15 to 30 minutes.

These hazardous conditions were mainly attributed to impediments faced by ambulances and medical teams when trying to transport women in labour through checkpoints, and to inspections or attacks perpetrated by Israeli forces against ambulances and their patients...35 newborn babies had died at checkpoints as their mothers did not receive the urgent care required by their condition and five women lost their lives while giving birth.

In addition, six pregnant women had been injured at checkpoints as a result of beating, shooting and use of toxic gas by Israeli soldiers. Mention was made of the case of a pregnant woman who had been targeted in her ninth month of pregnancy at a checkpoint by Israeli military, while she was accompanied by her husband and her father. The woman received a wound in her shoulder and the father was injured in the chest; her husband, however, died as a result of multiple gunshot wounds.

This is why I was fasting and holding vigil yesterday and today, and Leslie is doing so until our delegation returns on the 14th. We are doing what we can to show solidarity with the women and children of Gaza as our brothers and sisters deliver aid to a besieged people and engage in citizen diplomacy. This does not mean we are pro-Hamas any more than we are anti-Israel. We simply want these deadly checkpoints that are choking off the life of Palestine to be opened so the people can try to rebuild their shattered lives and country.

So while we are safe in DC our friends are on their own dangerous, necessary freedom ride. They are trying to help the people of Palestine and to hopefully chip away at the walls that keep them in their virtual prison.by loading trucks with aid and piling onto buses:

Just got through first security checkpoint en route to Rafah. 2 buses full of women certainly perk up Egyptian security!

...

We just heard bomb blasts. Isreali F16s are dropping bombs on Rafah

The Code Pinkers have come too far to back down, despite the very real risk to their own lives, because they fervently believe in peace and justice for all people:

What do the women of Gaza want on this International Women’s Day? Like you and me they want to live in peace, to nurture their children and see them happy and free.

Isn't that what people wanted in America circa 1961? Is that what all people want today? Have you come too far to back down?

ntodd

Covered on previous Sundays:

Posted at 11:11 PM in 198 Sundays | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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198 Sundays

May 31, 2009

198 Hiatus

May 10, 2009

198 Sundays: Breasts, Not Bombs

May 03, 2009

198 Sundays: Girls Say 'No' To Boys Who Say 'Yes'

April 26, 2009

198 Sundays: Run On Mr Potter's Bank

April 19, 2009

198 Sundays: Speakeasy

April 05, 2009

198 Sundays: Dead Letter Office

March 29, 2009

198 Sundays: I'm Shocked To Find There's Singing Going On Here

March 22, 2009

198 Sundays: Banners High We'll Make Demands

March 15, 2009

198 Sundays: Picture The Change You Wish To See

March 08, 2009

198 Sundays: Freedom Keeps On Rolling