San Francisco protests war on Iraq: "Not In Our Name!"
8 October 2002
Oakland, California
As the debate on the administration's proposed war on Iraq is gaining momentum, with a vote in Congress expected by the end of the week on a resolution to give the President broad authority to use force against Iraq, more and more opposition voices are being heard throughout the country. Not surprisingly, the San Francisco Bay Area has been no exception.
On October 6, a hot Bay Area Sunday which marked the eve of the anniversary of the bombing in Afghanistan, a diverse crowd inundated San Francisco's Union Square to proclaim: "Not in our name". An estimated 8,000 people (organizers put the number at 12,000), held banners such as "Don't invade Iraq", "War is not the answer", "No blood for oil", "Drop Bush, Not Bombs", "Time 4 U$ Regime Change".
Several prominent personalities addressed the rally including the Reverend Cecil Williams of Glide Memorial Church and singer Bonnie Raitt. Supporting statements were issued by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Martin Luther King III, amongst others. "Now more than ever, we must oppose the rush to launch a first strike against Iraq. A preemptive strike would gravely increase the risk of destabilizing the Middle East and would set an international precedent that could come back to haunt us all..." read Congresswoman Lee's statement.
The crowd took the "Pledge to Resist": "We believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names. Not in our name will you wage endless war; there can be no more deaths, no more transfusions of blood for oil..."
The rally was organised by a group called the "Not In Our Name" project (www.notinourname.net), an umbrella organization which came into being last March in New York and has since spread throughout the country. It was formed in response to what Xochitl Johnson, one of the local organizers, called "the scariest year" during which the war in Afghanistan caused the deaths of innocent civilians, the adoption of the US Patriot Act eroded civil liberties, and hundreds of immigrants have been rounded up and held indefinitely while the Justice Department refused to release their names.
The signatories of the project's Statement of Conscience, which has been printed in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, is a list of over 17,000 names, including MIT professor Noam Chomsky, former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, actress Susan Sarandon, director Oliver Stone and author Gore Vidal.
Not In Our Name rallies were held in about two dozen cities throughout the country, with thousands attending in Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and Chicago. The largest one was in New York's Central Park where estimates put the crowd at 14,000 - 25,000.
On Saturday, a couple of hundred people gathered in suburban Walnut Creek for an event entitled "The Silent Majority Speak Out". The gathering was in support of the next day's rally and was staged by a broad coalition of organizations such as local groups of the Democratic and Green Parties and the Rossmoor senior citizens community.
The crowd - a mix of middle class and senior citizens - was distinctly different from that at the Union Square rally but the tone was just as emphatic and passionate. One of the speakers ended his statement by proclaiming the war on Iraq as "wrong, pure wrong and plain stupid" while another one called one and all to action: "When we've lost our country, we have to go to the street to take it back!"
On Saturday September 28, a Free Palestine demonstration organized by the San Francisco chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee saw about 5,000 people march from Dolores Park to City Hall. The event was intended to commemorate the second anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Intifada as well as the 20th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila Massacre, and protest the occupation of Palestine. Inevitably, opposition to the proposed war on Iraq became the joint theme of the protest.
Many more such events are planned for the weeks ahead. The largest one expected will take place on Saturday, October 26 - the first anniversary of the signing of the Patriot Act - when mass marches and rallies, organized by International ANSWER (www.internationalanswer.org), will be held in Washington DC and San Francisco.
