Opposite Sides
20 April 2002
Oakland, California
With repeated chants of "Free - Free Palestine" and a sea of Palestinian flags as far as the eye could see, the thousands that gathered today at Dolores Park in San Francisco protested loudly and clearly against the occupation of Palestine and demanded an end to President Bush's war on terrorism and to US support of Israel.
As the march, the West Coast counterpart of today's demonstrations in Washington, DC, had hardly been advertised, the large crowd took me by surprise. Thousands of people converged on the park: of all colours, races and backgrounds - white, black, arab, jewish, asian, latino - young and old, some with babies in strollers, some in wheelchairs. They came from as far as Seattle and Los Angeles. Police later said it was the largest march that has taken place in San Francisco in two decades. Estimates put the number at a minimum of 20,000.
The main theme of the demonstration was opposition to "the real axis of evil: war, racism, poverty". It was intended to support a variety of causes, including protesting military spending and demanding that funds are instead allocated to healthcare, jobs, housing and education; defending civil rights and civil liberties; opposing the imprisonment of the Cuban Five, Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence, the bombing in Colombia.
But the Palestinian occupation stole the show as the speeches and banners reflected. The Star of David on the Israeli flag was presented as a swastika, Sharon and Bush were proclaimed Nazis, calls were made to repeal the Patriot Act and to cease all US aid to Israel. "Not in our name" demanded banners showing pictures from the devastation in the occupied areas, others protested the use of US tax dollars while still others pleaded "Let us not become the evil that we deplore". T-shirts worn by (presumably) Jewish people read "Another Jew against the oppression of the Palestinian people".
Huge numbers kept pouring in and the organizers were obliged to cut the speeches short and begin the march as the park could not hold any more people. For the next couple of hours we marched through the streets of San Francisco, waving flags and banners and chanting slogans. People along the way watched and offered their support, others waved their own Palestinian and peace flags from windows.
I didn't join in the chanting. I observed the crowd, took photographs and tried to control my emotions. The support shown to the Palestinians was overwhelming. I would never have expected to see anything like it in America. Why did the situation have to become so dire before the people of this country took an interest and raised their voices? But mostly I was deeply saddened by the polarization that the desperate situation in the Middle East was pushing me and so many others to be part of.
A scene from last week kept playing over and over in my mind. I was in the darkroom printing photographs. I walked into the common room where we all leave our binders with negatives and finished prints to review in bright light. On the table there was a binder just like mine with photographs from a demonstration showing banners and flags. For a quick moment I thought they were the pictures I took last week on the University of California at Berkeley campus but was puzzled as I was sure mine were still in the wash. A tall, young guy appeared and sat at the table, by the pictures, across from me. I smiled at him. "We must have been at the same event!" "Saturday at the Embarcadero?" he asked, smiling back. "No, last week on campus", I replied. "So you're probably on the opposite side..." he said calmly. We both fell silent. How sad, I thought, that instead of being two people just sitting across from each other, busy with our common interest in photography, we have to be on such opposite sides....
Demonstrations both in the San Francisco Bay Area and in DC took part last week by the "opposite side" - supporters of Israel and of the financial and political backing the US is offering - people that feel just as genuinely and passionately as today's marchers about the justness of their own cause.
Our two-mile march came to an end at City Hall were more speeches were delivered. Everyone around me continued to chant slogans and the tablas kept rhythm. I just kept fighting back the tears.
