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I am posting this to share with you the thoughts and experiences of a person I know who has committed herself to stopping the war in Iraq through nonviolent civil resistance. She has been doing this since the start of the Iraq invasion, and leading others as part of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. The last few weeks have been especially hard because the bill in Congress did not exactly make the way clear for stopping the funding of the war, even for those legislators who truly wanted to.
I have abbreviated names of people who are not "public".
-undeterred-
March 26-April 1 – Week in DC – Occupation Project
J – Madison, WI
I flew to Washington, DC on March 26 to be there at this historic moment as our Congress is betraying the people of the United States by voting to continue to fund a war they were given a mandate to end. When I left Madison, the House had just voted to continue to fund the war the week before, and the Senate was expected to vote the same way sometime during the week I was in DC. The bills for the supplemental funding contain a date for withdrawal at least a year (the Senate) or 1 ½ years (the House) away. Additionally, the bills have many loopholes so that Bush will be able to continue the war the way he wants to. Though the Democratic leadership claims that they are trying to end the war with their bills for the supplemental funding, I believe that we cannot accept their political game-playing when innocent people continue to be killed everyday as a result of the war and occupation of Iraq.
I arrived in DC late Monday afternoon. That evening my friend P and I went to the Code Pink House to attend a planning meeting. There are so many strong activists in DC right now working to end the war. Members of Code Pink are on Capitol Hill everyday demanding an end to the war. They had activities planned for the whole week. After the meeting I went to G’s house, the convener of the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. I would be staying with him and his wife on Monday night. I wanted a chance to talk to him about organizing, and about the theory and philosophy behind nonviolent civil resistance. We stayed up talking until 2:30 in the morning.
On Tuesday I went to the Hart Senate Office Building in the early afternoon. I met with Feingold’s aide, E. I talked to her about why I was in DC for the week and told her that I was feeling betrayed by the Democratic Congress. I was feeling very emotional about what was happening and had a difficult time getting some of the words out because I was very choked up. After the meeting with E, with a ticket for the Senate Gallery in hand, I walked over to the Capitol. This was my first experience ever sitting in the Gallery. After listening to a few Senators speak, Senator McCain took the floor and went on for over 30 minutes about why we need to stay in Iraq. It was getting difficult to listen to him, so I left. That night we had a meeting with a small affinity group to discuss our plans for a nonviolent direct action on Thursday. I was supposed to fly home on Thursday, but I knew I would need to change my plans and stay for this action.
I was scheduled for “Coffee with Senator Herb Kohl” on Wednesday morning. My friend D and I went to Senator Kohl’s office together. D was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Bush that said “International Terrorist”. There were about 20 people already gathered at Senator Kohl’s office, most of them in business suits. Kohl’s aide, C, quickly came over and greeted D and I. He asked if we would like to chat with him in the conference room. We talked to C for several minutes, sharing with him our concern for the bills that Congress was passing to continue to fund the war. C said that he thinks that Bush will veto the bill, it will come back to Congress, and the Democratic leadership will strip out any timeframes or other language that puts any constraints on Bush. This was bad news, but not unexpected. Senator Kohl spent several minutes talking with us. He didn’t say anything new. He is against the war, but is not willing to take a strong stand to bring it to an end. He said what we were doing as peace activists made a difference, and we need to keep doing it. He said “God bless you” as we left. It was a frustrating visit because Senator Kohl is still not doing anything to end a war that he says is a mistake.
I spent Wednesday afternoon at the House office buildings. My friend D put on his Bush devil suit. He wore a plastic mask that looked like Bush and had devil horns, and he wore a red suit with a tail. He played the part of Bush as a devil, and carried a sign saying, “Nancy Pelosi bought my war. Congress sold its soul.” My friend M from Virginia joined us and we stood outside the House office building with D until it was time for us to meet with (Congresswoman)Tammy Baldwin’s staff. I felt like this would be a difficult meeting. I was extremely disappointed in Tammy’s vote to support the supplemental funding bill the week before. We talked with her aide, S and I told him how disappointed I was. He said it was a very difficult decision for Tammy, and that she thought voting for the bill was the best of two difficult choices. It sounded like the Democratic leadership threatened to strip out all the language that put restrictions on Bush if the bill did not pass the House. S said that Tammy would have about 3 more times to vote on this bill before something passes. I know that Tammy really wants the war to end, but I am disappointed that she did not follow the lead of Lee, Woolsey, Waters, Kucinich, and Lewis and vote her conscience.
I went with M to see her representative from Virginia, Frank Wolf, a Republican. Mr. Wolf’s aide became angry, arrogant, and patronizing within about 5 minutes of our discussion with him. M remained polite throughout the 10 minute interaction and said she just wanted him to listen to what she had to say and pass it on, but the aide could not refrain from sarcasm. M is following up to let Rep. Wolf know about the visit, and will send a letter to the editor of her local paper if she gets no satisfaction. I have been talking with congressional aides from Wisconsin for the past three years, and I have never been treated like that. It was unbelievable that a staff person would be so rude to a constituent.
The Action on Thursday
A group of us had been emailing and talking over the several days previous to Thursday about organizing and participating in a nonviolent direct action. I had originally planned to fly home on Thursday, but decided to change my flight reservation and stay until Friday so I could participate. This action was part of the Occupation Project, a nationwide campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence to pressure Congress to vote no on funding the war. This particular action on Thursday was organized primarily by the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance. G, the convener of NCNR, was one of the main organizers of this action.
We met at the American Friends Service Committee Washington, DC headquarters across the street from the Hart Senate Office Building Thursday morning at 10:30 am to make final plans for the action. There were a number of items for the action that we needed to bring into the Hart Senate Office Building without notice by security guards. Some individuals in the group were going to be putting together about 20 large tombstones with names and pictures of US soldiers once they got inside the building. I had about 20 smaller tombstones with names and pictures of US soldiers in my backpack. Other people brought in tombstones, banners, and posters and pictures showing Iraqis who have suffered and died as a result of the war.
At about 11:40 am we split up and began walking to the Hart Building, using different entrances. I was feeling nervous and very emotional about our action. It is always difficult to face a possible arrest, but I was glad to know that I would be connected to D and M during the action, and that P would be there as a support person. As we walked to the Senate building, M got a phone call from P saying that the Senate voted to pass the supplemental funding about an hour earlier. I was feeling nervous about this action, but that announcement strengthened my reserve, and I knew deep in my heart that I needed to be here at this moment participating in this action.
At noon, about 30 individuals willing to risk their personal freedom in order to speak out against the war in a nonviolent direct action gathered in the central atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building. We quickly set up the tombstones and unfurled banners. The atrium is a huge 8-story central area inside the building. People can stand on balconies going up 8 floors and observe what is happening in the atrium, and the balconies began to fill up once we began our action.
We started reading names of Iraqis and US soldiers who have died since the Democrats took control in January. We talked about the shame of the war and that the Democrats now have control and people are still dying everyday. It was an emotional and powerful action, and I was crying.
The police let the action continue for about 20 minutes. Then an officer stepped into the center and said there would be no warnings, anyone in the area of the cemetery would be arrested immediately. Each time we do an action, it is a personal choice whether or not a person is able to risk arrest that day. A number of people were not able to risk arrest for various reasons, and they backed out of the circle at that time. I was standing next to M reading names of people who had died in the war, and we were the first two who were handcuffed and arrested. There were seven people handcuffed and arrested by the Capitol Police in the Hart building that day.
The police always come on a little tough at first, but before we even left the building they softened. I think that is, in part, because we go with them willingly and nonviolently. I think another reason is because they totally support what we are doing, even though they still have a job to do. I have two stories that illustrate their kindness. After I was handcuffed, I was standing next to D. They always separate the women and men after an arrest, and the officer said, “Come with me.” I was handcuffed at that time, but I leaned my head on D momentarily to say goodbye, and the officer said, “After your hug.” and gave me a minute.
We eventually went outside and the officers were taking our property away. I asked my officer if she could get my lip gloss out of my backpack and lubricate my lips before she took my backpack. Of course, because I was handcuffed I was not able to do it myself. She found my lip gloss, looked around and said, “I want to make sure there are no cameras recording this.” and then put lip gloss on my lips.
We sat handcuffed in the police van for about an hour before they took us to the station. It was a long processing period of extensive interviews, where one hand was cuffed to the wall during the interview, and the rest of the time we were locked in a small cell. At about 5:00 we were cuffed again and transported to the Metropolitan Police station. We knew that some of us would be spending the night there. D, M, E, and E were definitely going to be spending the night in jail because they had outstanding cases that had not been resolved. The officers were talking about locking me up for the night because we had an arraignment scheduled for Friday morning and I had mentioned that I had a ticket to fly home Friday morning. They were concerned that I was a flight risk. The chief talked to me for several minutes and decided he could trust me to return in the morning. I was released along with three others at about 9:00 pm. It was sad to leave the others behind. E had given me her keys to her apartment and I stayed by myself at her apartment that night. It was hard to be alone in a strange place that night and I almost wished I had been kept overnight in jail.
Transformative Experience
Throughout the day, I began to slowly understand what a transformative experience I had gone through during the action in the Hart Senate Office Building that morning.
This was my 13th arrest since March 2003 while speaking out against the war in Iraq. My understanding of what I am doing has really changed and evolved over the last few years as I have been trying to gain a deeper understanding of what I am doing and why. I have been reading and talking to others to help me better understand the practice of nonviolent civil resistance. At the beginning, I would say that I am “trying to get arrested” and this is a way to speak out strongly against the war.
When I went to my first trial in DC after being arrested at the White House, I thought I should plead guilty because I wanted to get arrested, and I knew I was doing something to break the law. One of my great teachers, Max Obuszewski from Baltimore, told me that he never wants to get arrested. He is willing to risk being arrested in order to speak out against the war, but there is a big difference there. I heard him and I thought I understood him, and I struggled to understand even more deeply what was motivating my actions, but now I know I still didn’t really get it.
On March 29 as I stood in the Hart Senate Office Building, one hour after the Senate voted to provide Bush with $100 billion more for the devastating war in Iraq, I knew what Max meant 1 ½ years ago. I felt it deep in my body. I felt it in my bones. At that moment, there was no where else on earth that I needed to be but there. I needed to be right where I was and I knew I was speaking truth to power. I was following the deepest longing of my heart and of my conscience to be in that place. It didn’t matter if I got arrested. It didn’t matter if I didn’t get arrested. I knew it was likely I would get arrested, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was where I needed to be and doing what I needed to be doing at that moment in the universe. It was a profound moment of understanding for me, and the meaning of what happened for me deepened throughout the day. I feel like this understanding has changed the way I will view nonviolent civil resistance actions in the future, and it gives me strength to continue to follow my convictions even more strongly. I also now question why we were arrested reading names of the dead while the real criminals are not brought to justice. There is something wrong with our system, and we need to fight to change it.
When we were released, the police gave us a notice that our arraignment would be at the courthouse Friday at 10:30. I got to the courthouse about 8:00 that morning because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. There was a lot of confusion about which courtroom we were supposed to be in and when. We finally figured out that we were being arraigned at 1:00 pm. That meant a longer period of time for our friends who were kept in jail until the arraignment. Eventually our friends came into the courtroom in shackles and the three of us who were released on Thursday joined them in front of the judge. At the arraignment we pled “not guilty” and we have a court date on May 8. We also have a “stay away order”. We cannot go anywhere on the 100 block of Constitution Ave. or inside the Hart Senate Office Building until after the trial on May 8.
By Friday I was utterly exhausted and emotionally drained. I had not had much sleep or eaten very well all week. Because I stayed at five different places in six nights, I always had my backpack with everything I had on my back. I wanted to go home so bad, but was not able to get a flight out on Saturday.
But my dear friend M offered to go see the cherry blossoms with me on Saturday. They were in full bloom around the Tidal Basin. It was such a contrast to what we had just been through. It was beautiful and nice to take a little break after a several very intense and emotional days. Saturday afternoon we went to the White House for the “Yellow Cake Walk”, yellow cake referring to the depleted uranium that has been lethal to so many citizens of Iraq. Every Saturday several local DC peace activists meet in front of the White House to protest the policies of the Bush Administration. D was there in his devil suit, and several others were also there with signs and costumes. We went to a Quaker meeting for peace that evening.
I left Washington, DC at 9:30 on Sunday morning after a week full of very intense and emotional activities. The trip was three days longer than I had originally planned. It was an exhausting, but extremely rewarding experience. I was so glad I stayed the extra days and was there for the action in Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday. Doing this work has often been very scary. I feel vulnerable and like I am really putting myself out there. But after my experience on Thursday, I feel more deeply than ever that I need to be doing this work. I know that working together we can make a difference and create change in the world. The words of Audre Lorde continue to inspire me.
When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. –Audre Lorde
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