by Linda Pershing
The mainstream media paid very little attention, but on May 13 and
14 mothers took to the streets of Washington, demanding an end to the
U.S. occupation of Iraq and calling for the impeachment of Bush and
Cheney. Tired of presidential excuses and congressional
procrastination--after every public opinion poll and the November
elections clearly demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of the
American public want to end the war--hundreds of women, and scores of
men who came to support them, created chaos in the nation's capital.
On the morning of Mother's Day, Sunday, May 13th, Code Pink and
other peace workers infiltrated a military exhibition on the National
Mall. A testosterone-driven display of weaponry, tanks and aircraft,
chemical warfare suits, and exhibits about various military
“intelligence” agencies, combined with overt recruiting efforts,
created a particularly bizarre environment on Mother's Day. Families
strolled through the exhibits as if they were visiting a carnival,
laughing and smiling while their children were handed toy hand grenades
or were encouraged to try on gas masks, pick up hand-held missile
launchers, and have their faces painted in camouflage. Covering their
bright pink outfits and keeping fabric banners hidden until they got
inside, women activists quickly climbed up on tanks and aircraft on
display, unfurling banners that read: “Mothers Say No to War!” and
chanting peace slogans at astonished military personnel and visitors.
Park Police and soldiers soon climbed after them, trying to remove the
women in pink from the top of equipment and from the display area,
without success. While one group diverted their attention, other
cluster of women scrambled onto different tanks or moved across the
display grounds, calling out to onlookers to rethink the glamorized
exhibition of militarism and violence. Resisting containment and
arrest, Code Pink members moved around the outdoor exhibit on the Mall
and were finally escorted out by the police, chanting in military
cadence as they left: “One, two, three, four. Mothers Say No to War.
Five, six, seven, eight. Teach Our Children Not to Hate.” After their
eviction, they continued outside the exhibit, displaying peace banners
and distributing flyers to the public.
That afternoon, Code Pink also sponsored their annual Mother's Day
peace rally in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. Several
hundred women, many with their children and families, came to the park
to participate in the colorful and jubilant festival. Honoring the
original intention of the holiday designated by Julia Howe, whose
Mother's Day Proclamation called for women to denounce militarism and
war, the celebration included music, art, and games, in addition to
speakers who shared information about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. One
young woman came dressed in a pink crown and full-length, evening grown
covered with pink sequins. Across her torso, the words on her sash
announced: “I Miss America.” The festival culminated with a short
parade in front of the White House, a lively procession of children and
mothers holding banners and posters. They posed in front of the White
House for photos, and then participants ceremonially tied hundreds of
pink ribbons, decorated with names of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers killed
in the war and the text of the Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Howe,
onto the White House fence. The bright pink totems fluttered in the
breeze, creating a visual and gendered contrast to the stark,
wrought-iron fence around the White House. Shortly thereafter security
guards removed all the ribbons, names of the deceased, and poems-and
threw them in the trash.
The following day peace activists marched defiantly through the
streets, without permission, stopping traffic and interrupting business
as usual in downtown DC. Their actions signaled a symbolic reclamation
of public space, a refusal to recognize authorities who continue to
ignore the voices of the people, as well as a determination to redefine
the power and the political dimensions of maternal love in a time of
war. Starting from Lafayette Park and the White House, moving down
15th Street, across Pennsylvania Avenue, and onward to Independence
Avenue and Capitol Plaza Southeast, they followed peace activist Cindy
Sheehan as she led the “Mother of a March” on Monday, May 14, calling
on mothers from across the country to put their bodies on the line.
The goal was to get the message to Congress that U.S. military
involvement in Iraq must end. The mothers' march also signaled the
beginning of the Summer 2007 SWARM Campaign, designed to unleash a
flurry of citizen lobbyists who will pressure Congress for immediate
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (see http://www.grassrootsamerica4us.org).
Rather than drawing crowds of people together on a weekend--a
strategy that is convenient for participants but not as effective in
reaching Congress--Sheehan scheduled the action on the Monday following
Mother's Day, when Congressional leaders would see the disruption of
business around the Capitol. Organizers secured permits for the
initial rally in Lafayette Park but not for the march through
downtown. First, there was a noontime rally featuring an array of
performers and speakers, among them Cindy Sheehan, military mother Tina
Richards, U.S. Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), Reverend Lennox
Yearwood, attorney and civil rights leader Dr. E. Faye Williams, and
peace activist Michael Berg, whose son Nick, a civilian
telecommunications contractor, was captured and beheaded by Iraqi
insurgents in 2004. Afterward, approximately 250 people marched through
the streets of the nation's capital, stopping traffic and drawing
attention as they went. Before the action began, Sheehan told the
crowd, “It's not enough to be philosophically or intellectually against
this [war]; you have to be physically against it, also. I know it's a
hardship to be here on a Monday, but we have all made that commitment.
. . . It's time for everybody in America to sacrifice something for
peace. . . . I called for this March on a Monday, because all of us
have been here marching on a Saturday. And what do we do? We march,
and we read each other's signs, then we go home, and nothing ever
happens. Well, today we're going to shut this city down! . . . We're
here to say to Congress: give us our country back!”
At the front of the procession, Sheehan carried a banner reading
“Not One More Mother's Child,” along with a line of other mothers who
have had sons or daughters in military service in Iraq and who now
oppose the war. Participants traveled across the country from as far
away as California and Maine. There were generations of
women--sisters, aunts, daughters, mothers, grandmothers, and great
grandmothers. Male peace activists and veterans against the war came
to support them. Code Pink co-sponsored the event, their pink posters,
t-shirts, feather boas, crowns, and gala costumes splashing vibrant
color throughout the crowd. Even male supporters wore pink t-shirts
and caps marked with the telltale “Pink Police” insignias. As they
paraded through the capital, they chanted, “Hey Congress, what do you
say? How many kids gonna die today?” The focus of the event remained
on mothers, who called on Congress to end the killing of their children
and the children of other mothers, American and Iraqi alike.
As they approached the Justice Department on Pennsylvania Avenue,
Sheehan momentarily paused the procession. With megaphone in hand, she
announced that they were passing the “Injustice Department” that
continues to support Bush and Cheney's illegal war efforts. Noting the
crimes of the Bush administration, including the dissolution of habeas corpus,
spying on U.S. citizens, the torture of political prisoners, and the
firing of U.S. Attorneys because of their political affiliations,
Sheehan railed at the hypocrisy of the current administration. Several
burly, plain clothes and uniformed security guards quickly appeared at
the entrance to the building, arms folded across their chests, looking
nervous and annoyed, as the crowd chanted at the powers that be and
then moved on.
Parading in front of the Capitol Building and up the hill, the
march came to a sudden halt in the middle of the intersection of
Independence Avenue and the Capitol Plaza Southeast, in front of the
Longworth and Cannon House Office Buildings. There, activists quickly
stationed a wheeled cart that supported a flagpole, from which the
American flag flew at half-mast (to honor those who have died in the
war) and upside down (to signify a nation in distress). Bringing
traffic to a complete halt along the Capitol Building, women activists
led the group as they formed a moving chain to encircle the
intersection, winding the line inward into smaller and smaller circles
until they reached the flagpole. In response to the honking of
motorists and the growing number of police who rapidly appeared, the
marchers shouted, “Stop the funding. Stop the war. Mother's say: not
one more!”
When police announced that the marchers were in violation of the
law and would be arrested if they did not disband, Sheehan took the
bullhorn and faced them, shouting in response to their warning, “George Bush
is in violation of the law. Arrest George Bush! Arrest Dick Cheney!”
Police grew nervous and tensions rose quickly. Activists refused to
comply with the order to vacate the intersection; many called out that
the real offenders were the politicians who continue to support the
killing. As demonstrators were arrested, their supporters outside the
now constricting circle of uniformed officers yelled “Shame! Shame!
Shame!” in unison at the police. The peace activists, ranging in age
from their early twenties to their seventies or eighties, most of them
women, were forcibly removed from the huddle they had formed around the
flagpole, their hands cuffed behind them as they were led, carried by
force, or dragged to the arrest wagons that appeared on site. Sheehan
was one of the first to go. Her sister Dede Miller and Code Pink
organizer Diane Wilson were among the last, holding on to one another
and the flagpole in the middle of the intersection until the end,
unwilling to go down without a struggle. Thirty-three were arrested as
hundreds of others stood by to support them, calling out to police
officers to arrest the real
criminals, instead--the ones in the White House. Mothers who brought
their children to the event stood with them, hoping to convey a
valuable lesson about the power of civil disobedience and non-violent
resistance in movements for social justice. The detainees spent over
eight hours in jail, still in handcuffs and without food and water,
before they paid a $100 fine or agreed to return to court for
sentencing in June, and were then released.
The Mother of a March wasn't as large as organizers hoped it would
be. It's difficult to get people to come to Washington on a weekday
and to risk arrest. However, it represented an important step forward
in Sheehan's thinking and in the evolving strategy of other peace
activists and organizers. In recent speeches and online essays,
Sheehan has called on people who oppose the war to move out of their
safety zones and complacency, to sacrifice comfort and ease in order to
bring about change, force public officials to take action, end the U.S.
occupation of Iraq, and hold Bush and his administration accountable
for their lies and crimes against humanity. During two hours of the
march, the U.S. death toll in Iraq rose by two, from 3,396 to 3,398,
and countless numbers of Iraqis died. The Mother's Day actions in
Washington signaled a clarion call to the masses to take up civil
disobedience in order to pressure politicians to stop the war.
The author, Linda Pershing, is a peace activist and women's studies
professor at California State University San Marcos. She can be
contacted at Lpershing@csusm.edu
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