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Aug 30, 2004 A few years ago, I joined a few protest marches. I was a Jesuit then. I was deeply concerned about Central America (and still am, although it’s off the headlines). I spent a summer in El Salvador and Nicaragua, living and working with my then-brother Jesuits there. The year after I returned, the Salvadoran military stormed the rectory at the Jesuit university there, and slaughtered the Jesuits I’d known. The murderers dragged my friends out of their beds in the middle of the night, and bashed their heads in, on the front lawn. They killed the university’s president, Fr. Ignacio Ellacuria, SJ, the rest of the community, and even the poor woman housekeeper and her young daughter. My friends’ killers were a Salvadoran army brigade. What infuriated me was that the US military helped train these thugs. It disgusted me that my government was helping to train these bastards. I know the standard reply; this school teaches military tactics, including military ethics. The school may be the only place these foreign soldiers hear the message of restraint and civil respect. At least a little something is better than nothing. Of course, I dismiss this as rationalization. Which sends the greater message: your warning not to shoot, or giving the gun in the first place? It strikes me odd that one would teach a lesson of restraint, but if you’re going to fight, here’s the best way to kill your enemy. When I first heard of my friends’ murder, I didn’t know what to do. I was angry, but I was helpless. I was a high school teacher, not a government policy maker. Then I heard that people were organizing a protest march in Washington. In the year since I’d returned home, I’d attended a couple marches against US policy in Central America, but these were small. The march was going to be big. In the absence of anything else, I decided to attend, and join a civil disobedience arrest as a protest. After all, I had to do something. This march wasn’t a positive experience for me. I wanted to help make a serious political statement. At the end of the experience, however, it all felt small and adolescent. The plan was to gather on the grounds near the Washington Monument. There would be speeches. Then the crowd would march to the front of the White House. The organizers had a permit to protest in Pennsylvania Avenue from noon until three. At three o’clock, when the permit expired, the cops would order the crowd to disperse. Anyone who wanted to be arrested for civil disobedience would simply remain in the street. The disobedience was that you would refuse to leave the street, forcing the cops to arrest you. The first goal of a protest march is to draw attention to your cause. You would think that a large number of people marching through the capitol, arriving in front of the White House, then refusing to leave until the police have to drag them away, would draw attention. You would think so, but it doesn’t happen. The reason is that we’ve seen these so often before. The novelty wore off long ago. The rituals of protest have become so familiar that we pass over them blindly. Remember Bill Murray sitting by the street in the movie “Groundhog Day,” narrating the events as they unfolded? He mentions the event before it happens, it happens, and then he recounts the next event. Throughout the whole list, Murray is bored and jaded. That’s how I felt after this march. The one unpredictable factor was the weather. The march was in November, and an unseasonably early snow fell. A strong wind magnified the cold, leaving the chill factor way below anyone’s expectations. Before the march started, we had speeches near the Monument. The people gathered around trash can fires. Several celebrity speakers stood at a platform. They took turns with their fiery speeches. Because of the cold, though, people were reluctant to stray from the fire. The celebrity speakers were shouting to a thin shivering few, while the rest stamped their feet around the trashcans. I knew we were in trouble when one celebrity (I won’t name him) was shouting into the microphone. He tried to keep his mitten on his script, which was flapping in the wind. At one point, he bellowed that, “We stand with the people of …”, but then his script blew away. This would distract anyone, of course, but the celebrity left his words hanging. “The people of … the people of …” It wasn’t his fault, but the poor speaker sounded as if he couldn’t remember which people we were supposed to be standing with. It wasn’t a good omen. Protesters carry signs with slogans. The slogans were occasionally witty and clever, but that’s all they were. If you hear a thousand different Polish jokes, they may all be different, but they’re all Polish jokes. The signs felt the same. Some made fun of Bush’s name. Some made jokes about Quayle. It was all predictable. This particular march had attracted thousands of people, but the first thing that struck me was how casual the cops were. You would expect that so many people would present a worrisome threat. Instead, the cops sipped their coffee and chatted with one another. They greeted protesters cheerfully. Many protesters calmly asked them for directions, and the cops calmly complied. The protest route was clearly marked off. Sawhorse barriers neatly displayed the path. Billboards displayed instructions to the protesters. It was as organized as standing in line for a ride at Disney Word. Even my arrest lacked any drama. Like most marches, it attracted mostly young people. The young people at this march were loud and boisterous. Many were kids from Georgetown and nearby colleges. On the other hand, there were quite a few older, religious types – like me. The older religious folk tend to pray, sing, and stay relatively quiet. The religious types gathered at one end of the street, and all the raucous kids gathered at the other end. When the police finally decided to start arresting people, they lined up next to us religious folk. The cops were in formation, spanning Pennsylvania Avenue, three or four deep. It was an impressive wall of cops in riot gear. I stood up, ready to be arrested. Then the police sergeant whistled, and the wall of cops marched closer, closer, closer ... they were going to arrest me any second now … and then the wall of riot cops walked right past me. They didn’t even stop. You see, cops know that the religious folk were peaceful. It just isn’t in our nature to cause a public nuisance. Instead, they ignored us and bore down on all the college kids, who posed more of a problem. In fact, after the wave of cops had passed by us, they sent a single officer with a clipboard to arrest us religious folk. The officer looked us over, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Anyone who wants to get arrested, please line up here.” Like sheep, we all got in line. It was planned, orderly, and completely shorn of drama. My worst souvenir from the march, which remains with me to this day, is a dread of anyone singing, “We Shall Overcome.” There aren’t many songs that all protesters know. Singing the national anthem wouldn’t fit; neither would a Led Zeppelin tune. John Lennon’s “Imagine” is politically appropriate, but it’s a meditation; marchers need something rousing and rallying. When you think of it, there aren’t many songs that could work on a march. “We Shall Overcome” is about all there is. Therefore, they sing it, over and over again. In the morning, when the march was starting, the experience of singing “We Shall Overcome” is moving and powerful. By the evening, after forty renditions, the song is a drag. A protest march should try to persuade a fair- minded audience to oppose the policy you’re protesting. The problem is that protests attract people who make no effort to persuade. Many attend strictly to insult. Further, when they use sneering sarcasm to deliver their insults, it’s juvenile. When you’re surrounded by witty insulters who offer nothing else, you know that any fair-minded listeners are turned off. After all, if one stranger whines that some other stranger is a fascist, your first impulse is not to agree. Your first impulse is to hope the whiner goes away. When I see twenty-something protesters dressed in some kind of costume (often Nazis – they always choose Nazis), and carrying a sign with an insulting slogan, it isn’t as persuasive as the protester hopes. In fact, it usually provokes me to dismiss them. The march would have been more effective if anyone been there to watch it. We protested on a Saturday afternoon in front of the White House. Bush wasn’t even there. He’d gone to Camp David for the weekend. We were protesting to the White House janitors and security guards. The media paid little attention. Over 500 people were arrested that day, but we didn’t even make the late night news. When the news came on, I was sitting in a holding pen in the bowels of the DC jail. There was a TV monitor hanging in the cell. The local news came on, and all my fellow protesters scrambled to see ourselves. The only news item about us was that a celebrity was in town (the same celebrity who’d lost his script). They showed pictures of the celebrity waving as he was loaded into the paddy wagon. Then the local news went to the sports segment. When I started the march and planned to be arrested, I was hoping to make a dramatic statement. At the end, however, the experience left me even more unsatisfied than before. I was, frankly, embarrassed. They’re planning a lot of protests against the Republicans in New York. They had a large march this weekend. I have no doubt that there are many in that crowd who are in the same position I was. Many of those people feel angry, but powerless. Maybe they’ll have a better experience than I had. However, I don’t know. The signs look the same. They even use the same Quayle jokes, only they point them at a different Bush. I couldn’t help but notice that the same celebrity who lost his script was also at the New York march. ------------ Email Michael Mulville: kcmulville@hotmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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