Jude: A few years ago this country waged the biggest peace protest since Vietnam...
Vietnam Protest Movement
When the Vietnam War started only a small percentage of the American population opposed the war. Those who initially objected to the involvement in Vietnam fell into three broad categories: people with left-wing political opinions who wanted an NLF victory; pacifists who opposed all wars; and liberals who believed that the best way of stopping the spread of communism was by encouraging democratic, rather than authoritarian governments.
The first march to Washington against the war took place in December, 1964. Only 25,000 people took part but it was still the largest anti-war demonstration in American history.
As the war continued, more and more Americans turned against it. People were particularly upset by the use of chemical weapons such as napalm and agent orange. In 1967, a group of distinguished academics under the leadership of Bertrand Russell, set up the International War Crimes Tribunal. After interviewing many witnesses, they came to the conclusion that the United States was guilty of using weapons against the Vietnamese that were prohibited by international law. The United States armed forces were also found guilty of torturing captured prisoners and innocent civilians. The Tribunal, and other critics of the war, claimed that the US behaviour in Vietnam was comparable to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe during the Second World War.
In November, 1965, Norman Morrison, a Quaker from Baltimore, followed the example of the Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Due, and publically burnt himself to death. In the weeks that were to follow, two other pacifists, Roger La Porte and Alice Herz, also immolated themselves in protest against the war.
The decision to introduce conscription for the war increased the level of protest, especially amongst young men. To keep the support of the articulate and influential members of the middle class, students were not called up. However, students throughout America still protested at what they considered was an attack on people's right to decide for themselves whether they wanted to fight for their country.
In 1965, David Miller publically burnt his draft card (call-up notice) and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. His actions inspired others and throughout America, Anti-Vietnam War groups organised meetings where large groups of young men burnt their draft cards.
Between 1963 and 1973, 9,118 men were prosecuted for refusing to be drafted into the army. The most famous of these was Muhammad Ali, the world heavyweight boxing champion.
Muhammad Ali was one of the many distinguished black figures who protested against the war. There were several reasons why blacks and other ethnic minorities felt so strongly about Vietnam. One reason involved the expense of the war. By 1968, the Vietnam War was costing 66 million dollars a day. As a result. President Lyndon B. Johnson increased income taxes and cut back on his programme to deal with poverty. The blacks, who suffered from poverty more than most other groups in America, were understandably upset by this decision. Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights leader, argued: "that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor as long as Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube."
Other Civil Rights leaders pointed out that because of the draft deferment enjoyed by college students, it was the poor who were more likely to be sent to Vietnam. What is more, as Eldridge Cleaver, a Civil Rights activist pointed out, in many southern states of America, blacks were being denied the right to vote in elections. Therefore, blacks were fighting in Vietnam "for something they don't have for themselves." As another black leader put it: "If a black man is going to fight anywhere, he ought to be fighting in Mississippi" and other parts of America.
This advice was taken and in the late 1960s, several cities in the United States suffered violent riots in black ghettos. Anti-Vietnam War leaders began to claim that if the government did not withdraw from the war they might need the troops to stop a revolution taking place in America.
Demonstrations against the war steadily increased in size during the late 1960s. In New York, over a million people took part in one demonstration. The public opinion polls showed that a narrow majority of the people still supported US involvement in Vietnam. However, the polls also indicated that much of this support came from middle class families whose own sons were not at risk.
President Lyndon B. Johnson knew that if the war continued, he would eventually be forced to start drafting college students. When that happened he would have great difficulty obtaining majority support for the war.
The most dramatic opposition to the war came from the soldiers themselves. Between 1960 and 1973, 503,926 members of the US armed forces deserted. Many soldiers began to question the morality of the war once they began fighting in Vietnam. One soldier, Keith Franklin, wrote a letter that was only to be opened on his death. He was killed on May 12, 1970: "If you are reading this letter, you will never see me again, the reason being that if you are reading this I have died. The question is whether or not my death has been in vain. The answer is yes. The war that has taken my life and many thousands before me is immoral, unlawful and an atrocity... I had no choice as to my fate. It was predetermined by the war-mongering hypocrites in Washington. As I lie dead, please grant my last request. Help me inform the American people, the silent majority who have not yet voiced their opinions."
In 1967, Vietnam Veterans Against the War was formed. They demonstrated all over America. Many of them were in wheelchairs or on crutches. People watched on television as Vietnam heroes threw away the medals they had won fighting in the war. One shouted: "Here's my merit badges for murder." Another apologized to the Vietnamese people and claimed that: "I hope that someday I can return to Vietnam and help to rebuild that country we tore apart."
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNprotest.htm
Iraq war protests:
The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq. Millions of people protested in approximately 800 cities around the world. According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.[1][2]
Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. The protest in Rome involved around 3 million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history.[3] Opposition to the war was highest in the Middle East, although protests there were relatively small.[clarification needed] Mainland China was the only major region not to see any protests, but small demonstrations attended mainly by foreign students were seen later.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest
Actors stage Aristophanes’ Lysistrata to protest war against Iraq
By Joanne Laurier
15 March 2003
Billed as “The Largest World-Wide Theatrical Protest for Peace,” readings of the ancient Greek antiwar comedy Lysistrata were held in 59 countries and in all 50 states in the US on March 3.
The global readings, which totaled more than 1,000, were organized by New York City actresses Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower. The origins of the event were explained by the actresses on the web site of The Lysistrata Project: A Theatrical Act of Dissent: “Before we started Lysistrata Project, we could do nothing but sit and watch in horror as the Bush Administration drove us toward a unilateral attack on Iraq. So we emailed our friends and put up a web site. The response has been enormous.
“If America rushes into a unilateral attack on Iraq, the White House not only drives our country deeper into deficit spending, but also alienates out allies, and fans the flames of anti-American sentiment all over the world. Our purpose is to make it clear that President Bush does not speak for all Americans.”
In New York alone there were a total of 67 readings, involving such actors such as Mercedes Ruhl, F. Murray Abraham, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick. Alfre Woodard, Christine Lahti, Eric Stolz and Julie Christie, among others, were part of the project in Los Angeles. Christie asserted: “At least for the record of history we have to let it be known that millions and millions oppose this war.”
Greek dramatist Aristophanes (c.447 - c.385 BC) wrote Lysistrata during the Peloponnesian War (431 - 404 BC), involving the rival Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. The play tells the story of a group of women from the opposing states who unite to end the war by withholding sex from their husbands. Desperate for intimacy, the men agree to lay down their weapons and form a peace.
Many of the readings involved variations on the play’s script. For example, in New Hampshire Lysistrata 2000 depicted a group of harmless protesters detained by government agents. The latter irrationally insist that the protesters are foreign terrorists and thereby upgrade a warning alert to “code fuchsia.” In the end, all die from a poison gas with the exception of one of the agents, mysteriously immune to the biological weapon of mass destruction.
The breadth of the popularity of the The Lysistrata Project was described on its site: “There [were] events in Russia, China and in the jungle in Hawaii, in Athens and in Iceland, homemakers’ reading groups in the Midwest and Burmese dissidents in Thailand, on sidewalks and subway platforms, in parks and theaters, at high schools and churches and bars. All this came about in the last six weeks, propelled by growing fears about the Bush Administrations alarming foreign policy.”
In the Middle East, there were readings in Beirut, Damascus, Karachi, Istanbul and Jerusalem. A version of the play performed at the American University in Beirut incorporated poetry from celebrated Iraqi director Jawad al-Assadi.
Together with major cities in Europe and Australia, activities also took place in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in Havana, in Trinidad and Tobago and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
A refugee camp for Kurds located in a ruined factory in the port city of Patra, Greece was the site of a reading in the classical Greek language. In Mindanao, Philippines, where US military presence has recently caused a national controversy, a theater group contacted the project organizers, writing: “[T]he southern Philippine island [that] has become a battleground involving communist insurgents, Muslim separatist groups, kidnap-for-ransom bandits (the Abu Sayyaf), government forces, and even U.S. troops. We would like to join hands with you in the international Lysistrate project for peace.”
There were several productions in Tokyo. The Daily Yomiuri reported that the organizer of one of the events emailed the online publication with the following statement: “I believe that we Japanese are responsible for our government’s support of the war. We need a chance to remember what we’ve lost in wartime, and to make sure that we are a peace-loving people.”
Near-freezing weather was the backdrop for an outside performance of the play at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, staged by student actors and members of Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company. A group of homeless women and men read the play in a church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Many college and high school students spoke out regarding the reasons for participating in the project. The stage manager for the performance at Towson University in Baltimore commented in the college’s student newspaper: “It really shows the power that theater has had in the past. People have outlawed theater because of its ability to move a group of people. We haven’t seen that yet in our generation. It happened with guerilla theater in the ’60s during Vietnam, and we haven’t had a chance to see that, and this is a huge chance to see the highest level of what you can use theater for.”
In Washington, D,c 17-year-old Amelia Workman, who was playing the character Lysistrata in one of the city’s productions, told the Washington Post: “As war became imminent ... It was no longer a choice. It was a duty. I’m proud of us for taking on such a piece of literature, as high schoolers.”
At Stanford University in California, according to the Stanford Daily, “organizers related classical literature to the current U.S. political situation in an attempt to bridge the two. ‘Reading the play in the context of conflict with Iraq is a way to raise consciousness,’ said Richard Martin, Classics Department chair and event organizer. ‘Has the West been built on conflict? Can we restructure society to avoid it?’”
Megan Elk, a University of Akron directing student and organizer of the reading, told Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer: “Society needs to be reminded what the role of the artist is. ‘We are not just self-serving bohemians. We are capable of making a political statement’ and of working for peace.”
Speaking on the global character of The Lysistrata Project, Linda Chapman, associate artistic director of New York Theater Workshop told the Village Voice: “We’re tapping into a long and honorable tradition that goes back to the Greeks, when the Senate was mirrored by the theater. Theater is so important for democracy because it inspires complexity of thought.”
The international response to The Lysistrata Project is one of the indicators that numbers of artists and intellectuals are being radicalized by the war threat, as well as social and political conditions on a world scale.
Last month the cancellation of a poetry symposium at the White House by the office of Laura Bush, the US president’s wife, after some of the invitees made known their plans to protest the Iraq war, evoked a strong reaction. A web site that arose as a response to the controversy, http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org, now has received and posted poems from more than 12,000 people. An International Day of Poetry Against the War took place on March 5 during which there were 120 poetry readings. Poets presented copies of 13,000 poems to governments around the world, including the US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy and Mexico.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/mar2003/lysi-m15.shtml
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