ERIK HAYDEN
Staff Writer
I hold a distinctly romantic view of the 1960s. Larger-than-life events and figures emerged: the saintly crusade of Martin Luther King, the arrogant paranoia of Nixon, the hope that emanated from President John F. Kennedy. To me, all of the crusades, coalitions, protests and assassinations combine to form an archetypal struggle of the people vs. the man, of grassroots resistance and mechanized horror, of the Summer of Love, and of the Birmingham race riots.
These thoughts swirled in my mind when I looked at the information given by a group called answerla.org that vowed to “shut down the war machine” and entreated me to “join the student campaign to stop the war.” They were staging a major war protest on March 15 at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine to mark the fifth year of the Iraq war. I decided to march with the protesters. I imagined it as if I was going to step into my own romanticized newsreel of 60s protest footage. But this was real, our own generation’s external struggle.
Stepping on to the streets of Hollywood snapped me back to reality with the first glance at the protesters. A man dressed as a prisoner of Abu-Ghraib, bound and gagged, was the center of the procession. As the protesters gathered it was easy to see the diversity of the marchers — there were hopeful students, aging hippies, radical socialists, communists, green peace activists, clowns (literally), free-Palestine activists, Ron Paul supporters, costumed vagrants, and resident answerla.org activists. At first it seemed as if the protest was merely just a convention of radicals from across the political spectrum. But it was peaceful, respectful and relevant.
As we listened to the opening speeches before the beginning of the march from Hollywood and Vine to the CNN building, I could hear the hubbub of discussion and flow of opinions from stranger to stranger. For a brief moment, Los Angeles rose from its slumber to pay homage to the lives lost in our five years in Iraq.
The discussion paved the way to chanting during the seemingly endless speeches before the actual march to the CNN building. Some aging protesters were already starting to complain about the noise, the repetition of the “end war now” chants, and the time spent standing on one’s feet. One grumbled, “This isn’t a march, it’s a stand.” The grumbling by the aging hippies brought a wry smile to my face.
As the march began and the ranks of the thousands of protesters swelled, a union bonded the activists, students, radicals and whackos. We moved together as of a single mind even though we were built of a vast and radically different coalition of people. As we approached the CNN building, the press took pictures and gawkers looked on, but the steady march continued until we came to a halt before the steps of the building. It’s true this protest of several thousand probably did not even register as a blip on the national consciousness. But as a member of a generation that declares its views by the click of a mouse, marching was my physical affirmation of political principle.
Although our protesting style may echo our parent’s generation we must have a new rationale for our protest. The reasoning is not so simple and the logic is not clear-cut for this war. We live in an age of spin and deception.
Ask any five people and they will tell you five different reasons why they think the war began. Was it because of WMD’s? Was it about oil? Was it about ending the brutal strong-arming of Saddam Hussein? Was it to “take the fight to Al-Qaeda?” These questions are not easily transformed into a simplistic narrative for the Iraq storyline.
During the Vietnam War the logic seemed stark — the troops are unwilling, the draft must go, and the fight against communism is not directly related with the killing in Vietnam. Today’s protesters must similarly be able to sum up the rationale for ending the war by bringing to bear the harsh realities of today, or else we will become caricatures of our parent’s generation.
03-27-2008
