The Iraq War Protests... Five Years On

By Connect Mason Convergence Director Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson

Five years ago, I was living in Stockholm, Sweden. In the Spring of 2003, the streets of that city were overflowing with young people, students and professionals alike, strengthened by members of the generation that experienced Vietnam and the horrific terrorist attacks in Munich and throughout Europe in the 1970s, and by those of the age bracket still scarred by the appalling depravity of Hitler’s Third Reich. It felt as though a great and varied portion of the city, its immigrant population included, saturated the streets of Stockholm in protest against America’s proposition to go to war.

My experience today echoed that experience, but only so far as an echo can mimic its source. Today’s reverberation had been dampened and muffled by the events of the past five years: the exhausting military failures and minor diplomatic successes in Iraq, the steady stream of body bags and injured soldiers returning to American soil, and the recent trend towards an economic recession and the pageantry of the Presidential Primaries. But, in many ways, the very affects that dampened the mood necessitate resistance activities like the ones that unfolded in Washington, DC today. Numbness is no excuse for inaction.

In no way am I trying slight the efforts made by those who planned today’s events. If anything, Funk The War and the other protest movements occurring through the city were diligently planned and executed exactly what they set out to: a powerful cry demonstrating that a vast portion of the American people feel that the Iraq War is an unjust and devastatingly costly military exercise.

My dour sentiments stem mainly from an examination of the dissimilarities in the times and settings of these two connected moments. In 2003, there was still a hope the war would not happen. Today there is no such hope. In Europe, the voices raised against the war blended into a formidable choir. Not the case here in the United States in 2003. Even today, with Iraq being seen as an ‘unpopular’ war, the arguments supporting a swift end – namely, ‘Pull Out Now’ – are complicated by the fact that the war indeed happened, Iraq was invaded, serious mistakes were made in every level of planning and facilitation by Rumsfeld’s strategy, and Iraq may, quite seriously, not be a country we can up and leave – not without being held responsible for the atrocities that would fill that power vacuum.

My mild pessimism could also stem from the fact that the youthful energy of the march today, reflected in signs taped to office windows, in the supportive cries from cars that were hindered by the movement of this mass of protestors, was dashed by the actions of the police towards the end of the march.

At first, the police accompanied the demonstrators through the streets like a supervisory force; keeping peace, but quietly and competently. There were many times today – the incidents involving red paint being splattered across officers and counter-demonstrators the most vivid examples – where the police acted with the utmost respectability and professionalism. There were even moments of downright esteem between the groups, despite the differences in dress, age, and profession. But the overzealous efforts to clear protestors from the streets on the return to Franklin Park, the shoving of adolescents and young adults, culminating in a number of officers thrusting demonstrators out of the street, myself caught in the fray, into a human wall attempting to maneuver the curb up onto the sidewalk (not easily visibly in a crowd setting) and the knee-high chain fence around Franklin Park – during which people were knocked over quite forcefully – negated much of the earlier respect.

There may well have been reason to be forceful, though the police are not meant to respond to their emotions, but to their duty to protect and serve.

While my experience today may have been more cynical than most, the very fact that the protest spirit is alive and well in my generation is enough for me. The Children of the 80s are infiltrating this country’s nervous system at every level now, and were we to be a Silent Generation, I would have little hope for the future. We are no longer the youth that needs to be protected by an older generation, but a group of young people redefining the American experience in that liminal post-adolescent, pre-adult stage of life. We will continue to shape this country as we leave school, take jobs, vote in elections, and participate in the day-to-day activities of this country.

Change is something that cannot be merely hoped for. The actions of people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in the 1960s exemplify this point, as do the deeds of many men and women across American and world history. Change is something that has to be fought for. If anything, I left the District today with the peace of mind that there are those of my age bracket that are willing to fight, even after five costly years in Iraq, even after the myriad numbing experiences between March 2003 and March 2008, for what they believe in.

See Lars's photographs from the protest in our audio/visual slideshow.