Saying No To A War

Thousands and Thousands Protest War and Racism in San Francisco and Washington

Alex Cuff/PNN Community Journalist
Tuesday, October 29, 2002;

When I boarded at the 24th Street/Mission station, the BART was packed with folk decked in everything from jeans and khakis to mohawks and pink braids. The demographic seemed more energetic and possibly younger that the average Saturday morning crowd, and the train more full. As I had optimistically suspected, the train emptied at the Montgomery station as hundreds clogged the escalators, and the more restless of us ascended the endless stairs, to join the thousands of anti-war protesters marching from Justin Herman Plaza to the Civic Center. Once in the street I was surrounded by women, children, and men of all ages and races ñ some holding signs, some singing, some talking with neighboring marchers and some walking, silently, with heads held high ñ all participating in the great act of expressing disgust with the Bush administrationís conceivable war against the people of Iraq.  

Among the thousands proceeding down Market Street, we were on bicycles, in wheel chairs, we were elders, we were anarchists, socialists, communists, mainstream liberals, and we represented a diversity of races. Just before reaching the Civic Center I ducked into a coffee shop on McAllister to use the bathroom where I unfortunately shared the idea with 50 others. During my twenty minute wait on line I began speaking with Bombay-born Maribel, a woman with soft features and sad brown eyes, who began our conversation by telling me it was her first rally. She had flown out from Houston despite the wishes of her husband and her circle of ìbourgeoisieî friends. After years as a dentist practicing in a conservative area of Houston, she quit her job and has dedicated herself as an activist against the growing pro-capitalist and militarist trends in the world.  

The volume of bodies amassing before the stage on Civic Centerís lawn was astonishing. We poured off the grass into the surrounding parking lots to the front of the library. Being a modest five feet, there were times as I eased my way towards the amplified voices coming from the stage, that I couldnít tell which way was forward. When I finally emerged from the ocean of bodies, I was as close to the stage as I was going to get, I raised my hand over my eyes in a salute against the October sun and joined those around me paying attention to the speakers. At this point, people were still filing in - in fact the last marchers, many carrying ìRegime change begins at homeî signs, were still leaving Justin Herman Plaza as the first arrived at Civic Center.  

The speakers included Congresswoman Barbara Lee; Barbara Lubin, Director of the Middle East Childrenís Alliance; Paul Boden, Coalition on Homelessness;  San Francisco Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Mark Leno; Richard Becker, a member of the ANSWER steering committee;  Ron Kovic, Vietnam veteran and author of "Born on the Fourth of July;" Richard Mead, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; Ramiz Rafeedie, Free Palestine Alliance; and a youth organizer from A.N.S.W.E.R whose name I didnít catch. Needless to say there was no absence of tax-funded cops surrounding us in case some of the non-violent, antiwar protesters decided to wield weapons of destruction upon one another.

Around 2pm I slid back away from the stage toward the library to use the pay phone in order to track down my sister and brother who I never managed to meet up with earlier in the day. As I was coming out of the Grove Street exit I caught the tale end of what I learned afterwards was a break away march which proceeded back down Market Street to the Embarcadero where the protesters, exercising a more radical action, stopped in front of the Recruiting Center where folks continued to speak out against the war.  

When I did catch up with my siblings in front of the falafel place on Grove Street, my brother offered me a piece of paper he had been handed at one of the info tables. ìCan you believe this, Al?î It stated the statistics regarding the amount of Palestinian children murdered in the past year by US-funded Israeli arms. He has just moved to the Bay Area from Long Island where he has not been exposed to, nor has necessarily sought after, non-corporate media coverage. My brother reminded me that although our actions on Saturday are not changing the morals of the Bush administration nor helping them to move away from their profit-and power-based agenda, we are educating those who have a right to know. We are creating, through an organized popular dissent, a voice that canít be ignored by the corporate media, our government, by our politicians, or by those funding our politicians. We are demonstrating that violence is not the only form of power.