WITNESS AGAINST WAR 2008: From Chicago to St. Paul
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White
July 11, 2008
Dan Pearson came flying into the room, sliding across the hardwood floors of the Voices for Creative Non-Violence office in his socks. The haste is easily forgiven, though; Pearson is a busy man. Organizing a walk spanning over 400 miles will do that to you.
Not that Pearson is alone in this. Voices for Creative Non-Violence has teamed up with about 30 different organizations to orchestrate the Witness Against War walk. Beginning in Chicago, participants will walk through Illinois and Wisconsin to St. Paul, MN. While some plan to walk the whole way, the majority of participants will join up for a day or two at a time (click here for an interactive map of the walk).
The campaign will kick off Saturday, July 12 at the Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago, and the group plans to end their walk Sept. 1, the same day the Republican Party begins its convention in Minnesota’s state capital.
The main objectives of the protest walk are to end the war in Iraq immediately and to secure full funding for veterans’ initiatives. The group also wants to see funding for reconstruction efforts in Iraq and the cancellation of debts owed by Saddam Hussein’s former regime.
Another objective is more localized. The 32nd Brigade Combat Team of the Wisconsin National Guard, also known as the “Red Arrow Brigade” is expected to be deployed by June 2009. This deployment would be the largest of the Wisconsin National Guard since World War II, according to Pearson.
“We’d be asking that the Wisconsin National Guard stay home,” said Pearson. “The permission to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard units has expired. So there is a legal angle there. Whether it’s politically possible has yet to be seen.”
Wisconsin state Rep. Spencer Black (D-Madison) is sponsoring a bill to be introduced at the beginning of the 2009 session that would prevent the deployment. He and others argue that since the 2002 authorization for the use of military force has expired, the federal government has no authority over state National Guardsmen. The Liberty Tree Foundation is organizing efforts to oppose deployment in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Other states, such as Vermont, Oregon, and New York have similar local initiatives.
As a co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Non-Violence, Pearson explained that there are several features of Witness Against War that make it different from other anti-war campaigns.
“[The campaign] has as a central component grassroots outreach education — really building connections with regular folks,” he said. “It’s a far-overlooked aspect of organizing against war.”
Not only is the walk an effort to get out into smaller communities at a grassroots level, but also the sheer duration of their projects sets them apart.
“It’s a sustained campaign of nonviolent disobedience,” said Pearson. “Rather than having a large rally on a single day, our campaigns usually last for at least a month.”
The campaign is an equal-opportunity agitator. Though the group’s final destination is the Republican Convention, they have qualms with Democrats as well. And that includes Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), who recently hinted he may step back from his promise to get troops out of Iraq in 16 months.
“He’s not where we’d like him to be,” Pearson said of Obama. “His position on Iraq is better than John McCain’s. We‘ll be asking people all along the way who support Obama to do all they can to pressure him to take a more firm stance against the war. But he hasn’t had a very good track record so far.”
Obama recently appeared to pull back from his initial promise to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. Though he later qualified his remarks saying his will not compromise his Iraq timetable, he did say at a campaign event in North Dakota that he would “refine” his Iraq strategy after a visit to the country planned for this summer.
Obama cited the need to base his withdrawal decision on conversations with people on the ground there. Pearson’s experience in the Middle East gives him a unique perspective.
“It’s real difficult to find an Iraqi who is in favor of continuing the U.S. occupation,” he said.
Coordinators for Voices for Creative Non-Violence spend a good deal of time in the region. Pearson has recently spent months working with refugees and learning Arabic in Syria, and spent the summer of 2006 on a rebuilding project in Palestine. He now works with refugees from the Middle East living in the United States.
While much of the organization’s efforts concentrate on victim assistance, they also have roots in the anti-war movement. The group started as a campaign called Voices in the Wilderness that opposed the economic sanctions against Iraq in the early 1990s. Having established connections in the country, they founded the Iraq Peace Team to stay in the country during the most recent U.S. invasion.
“Voices in the Wilderness decided the last thing in the world that Iraq needed was to be attacked, invaded, and occupied,” Pearson said. “The sanctions are over now, but now there’s a whole new thing.”
He said there was some opposition in their last anti-war walk, which went through Illinois from the state capital of Springfield to North Chicago in 2006. But these days, most people agree the war should end and object only to the sudden withdrawal of troops:
“That’s a very common [argument] at this point,” Pearson said. “They aren’t as angry as the people who would rather the entire Middle East be wiped off the planet.”
In past campaigns, however, Pearson characterized the response as “overwhelmingly positive,” and expects much the same response to the current campaign:
“When you’re out there with this message and you’re carrying signs… it can be provocative, and some people will respond emotionally to that. If we can show those people that we‘re willing to listen to them, I think that there’s a lot of value in that.”
Pearson may be on the go, but he’s not too wrapped up in the campaign to be pragmatic:
“This one walk isn’t going to end the war. It’s a small part of building a larger movement that will affect some change,” Pearson said.
For more information or to get involved, click here.
