Protesting the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, students from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Students for a Democratic Society marched through downtown Providence yesterday in a demonstration of between 150 and 200 people.
OIF and Providence SDS, which is composed of SDS groups from Brown, the Rhode Island School of Design and local high schools, organized a "Week of Action" from March 17 to March 20. The week includes a movie screening, a "Funk the War!" dance party and a "direct action" event today at noon.
Direct action is "direct engagement with the system ... rather than lobbying or protesting," SDS organizer Mike Da Cruz '09 said. It is "civil disobedience, an attempt to put ourselves in direct opposition, directly confront the person with the power to change things," he added.
Direct action may mean risking arrest, OIF and SDS member Kelly Nichols '09 said. But it is important to "show that we're willing to put ourselves out there in opposition to crimes and injustices taken by the government."
Wednesday's event was organized by the Rhode Island Spring Mobilization Committee, a community peace group. SDS members also went to meetings to help plan the event, Nichols said.
About 40 students began their march at Faunce Arch, bearing signs with, "Drop tuition, not bombs," "Resist the War Machine" and "End the violence! Peace now!" The protestors banged empty water drums and recycling bins and were accompanied by about four people playing instruments and wearing gold-tinsel-wrapped top hats.
The students met a larger group of protestors in Kennedy Plaza's Burnside Park, where the Mobilization Committee had brought speakers including Paul Hubbard of the International Socialist Organization. Hubbard called for an "immediate and complete withdrawal" from Iraq and encouraged grassroots organizing to get "millions into the streets."
The protest then snaked through downtown Providence, stopping in front of several military recruitment offices as well as the national headquarters of Textron, Inc. Textron manufactures cluster bombs, which cause a high number of casualties among Iraqi civilians, Nichols said.
Outside the Textron offices, protesters chanted, "Hey Textron, you can't hide; we charge you with genocide." No one in the building appeared to respond. After a few minutes, the demonstrators moved on.
The march ended with several speeches in front of the State House. Sam Smith, from the progressive organization MoveOn.org, encouraged the demonstrators to be independent thinkers and fight for what they believe in.
"We have to be unrelenting in opposition, stand up and say, 'We're not taking it anymore,'" he said.
He also derided the "experts who say they can't get us out" of Iraq. "We know nothing about Iraq," he said. "We won't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis. We're hated by the people of Iraq."
He encouraged the demonstrators to "make resisting the war acceptable."
Nichols also spoke at the State House, urging protestors not to be discouraged but to continue voicing opposition to the war.
"How can we go about our daily lives while every day the government does illegal actions?" she asked.
Other speakers included a Green Party representative and a young woman who addressed the crowd in Spanish, she said, to represent and speak to the Latino community.
Despite the cold rain, many of the demonstrators said they thought it was important to be outside protesting.
"The bottom line is, we need to show that five years (of war) is five years too many," Nichols said. "We're disgusted with all the lives lost and all the money spent."
"It's just a small action, but hopefully with this small action, we'll inspire others to take direct action and stand up for their beliefs," she added.
"I think it's stupid," Owen Schmidt '10 said of the war. "The money spent on this war - we could have fixed social security, the health care system," he said. "It will cost several trillion by the end, and it could have gone to society."
Brown student representation was not limited to current students - protestors John Glasheen '59 of South Kingston and former Herald staffer Richard Walton '51 of Warwick marched with the crowd.
"I was American studies at Brown, and the America I studied and got to know doesn't come out much anymore," Glasheen said. "They've corrupted our values."
Glasheen, who said he was at the protest representing the Rhode Island Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice and that he had been active in the anti-Vietnam War movement, added that the war is creating an "obscene debt" that will be passed on to future generations.
Susan Beaty '10, an SDS and OIF member and one of the organizers of the week's events, said that despite the rain, turnout was good.
She also praised the Mobilization Committee for the speakers they brought in. There was a "great variety of voices represented - students, different organizations," she said.
Yesterday's protest was mainly organized by the Mobilization Committee. On Tuesday, SDS and OIF held an event called "Funk the War," an "anti-war dance party," Beaty said.
She said 50 to 60 students spent over an hour dancing in Kennedy Plaza to music played using an amplifier plugged into a car battery and brought downtown in a shopping cart.
