Ramping
Up the Call to Action: Mothers Tell Congress to
End the War Now
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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