-^-for posterity-^-

iraq and america. the inevitable war.

in class today i overheard people talking about a war protest. being curious i asked what was going on and was promptly invited to join. it was going to be held tonight in the main campus and there was to be speakers and music. we were to bring signs.

i do not support this war and find it terribly absurd. sovereignty? what happens when one country decides to dictate what countries are right and wrong? going into other countries and deciding who should and who should not be leading doesn’t seem very democratic. in our country voter turn out is a measly 50% (that’s being generous). last election bush won with around 45%. that means that less than 25% of eligible voters went out of their way to bless bush in his presidential campaign. do you think saddam has any less support? would he be able to be in power if he did? even under despotism people have a say. even when the media is held tightly in check people have some control. sovereignty. we’re deciding that it’s right for iraq to be democratic just like the colonizers of the past decided that inferior nations deserved our ‘civilization’. all of this is assuming that there are no ulterior motives involved. that’s my take on the war in less than a paragraph and i don’t think it includes all of the babble that you are fed every night on cnn or msnbc. (who ever decided that it was a good idea for microsoft and nbc (who is owned by general electric) to team up and feed us ‘impartial’ news?)

the protest (it was called a ‘meeting’ by all of our students) was fascinating. jack and i made signs. jack’s sign said, “give peace a chance”, which was easy for the students to read and understand. my sign ran in a different vein. it said, “stop this neo-crusade”, and i had no idea who i thought would understand it. i did have fun explaining what a crusade was and what a neo-crusade was.

we walked to where the ‘meeting’ was to be held and found thousands of people gathered. people had flooded into the main campus of the university and were packed tightly together. some people had climbed trees to watch the events on the main stage. one tree held three different people all waving a different sign. we were the only white people there and stuck out like soar thumbs for two reasons. we didn’t have their traditional signs (small, white boards with phrases like: “abolish war”, “world peace”, “end the embargo” and “students united against war”. there were also larger red banners carried on bamboo sticks.). our signs were large and loud.

instantly we were rushed up to the front of the crowd. we had gathered with some our students in the back but some of the organizers saw two white faces with signs and decided that we should move to the front. we stood right next to the podium. we were in the middle of it all holding our signs high above our heads.

the speeches began and they were wonderful. they talked about the importance of peace and the devastating effects of war. they were given by people who had lived through the vietnam war (or the american war as it’s called over here). the speeches talked a lot about the world being united against this war and how vietnam was allied with the world. the speakers would lead the crowd in cheers. they would ask the crowd what they thought of war and the crowd would respond, “phan doi! phan doi! phan doi!”, and raise their fists (against it! against it! against it!).

it was really a lively event and we enjoyed ourselves.

afterwards we went out to one of our favorite restaurants and ate a quick supper. we were sitting talking when one of the waiters came up to us very excited. he asked us to follow him into another room where we saw the peace rally on television. we listened to some of the speakers again and watched ourselves holding our large signs. the people in the kitchen were so impressed they gave us our meal for free. we left the restaurants and two of the waiters raised their fist and said, “phan doi!” it was really quite a wonderful night.

no matter what you thin about the war, my experience has been quite unique. never did i think that i would be protesting an american led war in vietnam. never did i think that i would be on television protesting said war. this has been a rich adventure.