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Profile: International Organizations Preparee For Anti-War Protests Around The World Against A Possible U.S. Attack On Iraq
All Things Considered: October 24, 2002
 Protests
JACKI LYDEN, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Jacki Lyden.
On Saturday, people from around the country will be marching in Washington, DC, to protest any future US military action against Iraq. Companion anti-war protests will be held in San Francisco and in cities around the world, including London, Rome, Tokyo and Mexico City. As NPR's Nancy Marshall reports, organizers are comparing these protests to demonstrations against the Vietnam War a generation ago.
NANCY MARSHALL reporting:
Appropriately enough, Saturday's march on Washington will start at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. After a rally near the memorial, the demonstrators plan to march around the White House. Mara Verheyden-Hilliard is a spokeswoman for the International ANSWER Coalition, which is organizing the march.
Ms. MARA VERHEYDEN-HILLIARD (International ANSWER Coalition): I believe that what we're seeing is the largest anti-war movement since the 1960s. And it's a very passionate and well-informed and thoughtful anti-war movement.
SOUNDBITE OF DEMONSTRATION
Unidentified Group: (In unison) Power to the people.
Unidentified Woman: Prayer for the people.
Unidentified Group: (In unison) Power for the people. Life for the people.
MARSHALL: Some of the same people who were involved in last month's IMF-World Bank protests are expected to be back in Washington this weekend. Most of them are students. Student groups have been holding 1960s-style teach-ins and anti-war protests across the country all month. According to The Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal Washington think tank, there were 150 anti-war events on US college campuses just in the month of September.
Some anti-war activists of the 1960s are amazed at how fast this anti-war movement has progressed. When Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, authorizing President Lyndon Johnson to take military action in Vietnam, there were no mass protests in the US. Howard Zinn, an author and retired Boston University professor, was at the forefront of that anti-war movement in its early stages.
Mr. HOWARD ZINN (Author): In the spring of '65, we had a demonstration on the Boston Common and a hundred people showed up. And three and a half years later, another demonstration on the Boston Common 100,000 people showed up.
Ms. PETA LINDSEY (Howard University): They always compare us to the anti-Vietnam War movement.
MARSHALL: Eighteen-year-old Peta Lindsey(ph) is a freshman at Howard University and a student organizer with the ANSWER Coalition.
Ms. LINDSEY: But the thing with the Vietnam War was that when the Vietnam War began, the people who chose to protest--it would be a small protest. It'd be like 50 people in front of the White House, and the people walking down the street didn't know where Vietnam was. Our first demonstration was extremely large. It was 25,000 people, which was way more than anyone would have expected given the post-September 11th kind of moratorium on dissent.
SOUNDBITE OF DEMONSTRATION
Unidentified Group: (In unison) Stop, stop, stop the war!
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
MARSHALL: That first demonstration Lindsey referred to was sponsored by ANSWER in Washington last year just 18 days after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Part of the reason protest organizers were able to draw such a large crowd on such short notice was their use of the Internet, a tool the Vietnam-era organizers didn't have. Peta Lindsey shudders when she considers how hard it would be to organize without e-mail.
Ms. LINDSEY: E-mail is a blessing. That's how I get in touch with most of our organizing centers and with a lot of students. We get a lot of e-mails, just simple questions with students at other campuses going, `How can I help?' And they just sat down and wrote out three words, and then I get to send back--you know, I'll send them links to fliers, information. And it's really, really, really powerful in terms of getting them started.
MARSHALL: As in the '60s, this anti-war movement is fueled by students. Organized labor was largely hostile to the peace activists 40 years ago. Now it's mostly on the sidelines, though a few local union branches have endorsed the anti-war effort.
But two other components of the Vietnam era are once again active: religious organizations and African-Americans. The Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are expected to speak at this weekend's protest, as is a representative of a group called Pastors for Peace. Churches have offered to house demonstrators coming in from out of town. Howard Zinn says all of these groups are getting involved at this early stage in part because the Bush administration's policy direction is clearer today that President Johnson's was in the mid-1960s.
Mr. ZINN: When the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed, it was not really clear what it meant. Even though the troops were going to Vietnam and the air strikes had started, it was not as clear that this was going to be a full-scale war. I mean, I think now it is and people are worried about that.
MARSHALL: This weekend, those who are worried about that policy direction will have a chance to protest, and policy-makers will be waiting to see how many do so. Nancy Marshall, NPR News, Washington.
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