Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

13,000+ New Englanders Rally for Peace in Boston

Matthew Williams | 04.11.2002 20:02

On Sunday 11/03/02, over 13,000 people from across New England gathered on the Boston Common for a peace rally and march through Boston. A great diversity of signs, some of them highly creative, voiced people’s opposition to a war on Iraq. Some carried signs calling for working through the UN for weapons inspections and against a first strike, while others were simply opposed to all war.

Boston, MA; 11/03/02--Over 13,000 people from across New England gathered on the Boston Common for a peace rally, starting at 1:00 and running until about 5:00. The rally was organized by United for Justice with Peace, a coalition of Boston metro area peace groups. In addition to numerous speakers and musical performers, there was a lively march through Boston--down Tremont Street, turning around at Copley Square, and coming back up Boylston St. Although predominantly white, the crowd included people of all ages, from small children to the gray-haired. A great diversity of signs, some of them highly creative, voiced people’s opposition to a war on Iraq. Some carried signs calling for working through the UN for weapons inspections and against a first strike, while others were simply opposed to all war; most of the rally’s speakers fell towards the second end of the spectrum.

Howard Zinn, an eminent radical historian whose own experiences as a bomber during World War II turned him against war, asked the gathering, “Are we going to overthrow Hussein and create a democracy? That would be something new in our foreign policy. We have supported military dictatorships and overthrown democratic governments often in the past. If our government wants democracy in Iraq, it should lift the sanctions and in their own time Iraqis will overthrow Hussein. When you go to war against a tyrant, you are killing the victims of that tyrant.” Zinn was referring to the US government’s bloody track record in foreign policy, which includes the overthrow of an elected socialist government in Chile and nationalist one in Iran, replacing them with brutal dictators--Pinochet in Chile and the Shah in Iran. Hussein himself was a US ally through his worst atrocities--including gassing both Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds--until his invasion of Kuwait upset the balance of power in the Middle East. The Gulf War killed thousands of civilians and devastated Iraq, destroying the civilian infrastructure as the US government deliberately targeted hospitals, roads, sewage treatment plants, and electrical generation plants; the sanctions have prevented Iraq from rebuilding.

As I came out of the subway stop at Park St., I was immediately greeted with a crowd. A large group was gathered around members of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, playing a guitar and singing such songs as “Ain’t going to study war no more”. I continued on to the Boston Common bandstand, where the Joint Chiefs were playing reggae. Shortly thereafter the speakers got under way. The gathering was huge--organizers placed it at well over the 10,000 they had been expecting; an IMC audio reporter’s grid count put it at 13,400 and police estimated 15,000. Actor Tim Robbins--star of the Shawshank Redemption and director of Dead Man Walking, as well as a long time peace activist--noted, “It took years of involvement in Vietnam to build up to this number of people at protests. To have this many before the war has started is essential.”

Layla Cable, a Boston-area teacher with family in both Kuwait and Iraq, told of what her relatives endure under sanctions. “My uncle went in for a minor eye surgery and died three days later from an infection because of the lack of antibiotics. My cousins’ children don’t want to go to school. They say that they don’t see the point--there are no jobs and no food. Imagine a war on top of that.” By conservative estimates, the sanctions have killed 300,000 children under five through malnutrition and lack of basic medical care. Although the Iraqi government has been able to import food and medicine under the food-for-oil program since 1996, the amount is no where near enough and essential items are often placed on hold by the US and British governments. Because of the devastation of the civilian infrastructure, the unemployment rate runs as high as 60% in some areas. As a result, most people are dependent on government-distributed rations--provided by the food-for-oil program--for their survival.

There was a forest of signs. There was the old favorite, “No blood for oil.” Others held American flags with the stars replaced by a peace sign. Many of the signs were electoral in orientation, including not just those supporting Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for governor of Massachusetts, and Randall Forsberg, the write-in candidate challenging Senator Kerry because of his pro-war vote, but others reading “Regime change begins at home: Vote.” Others were more creative and a great deal of work had obviously gone into some. My favorite was one reading, “Remember Vietnam. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately, those of us who remember it are condemned to relive it with them.” There was also a small group with different variations of the anarchist black flag.

Both Stein and Forsberg spoke are the rally. Forsberg said that a new war would devastate not only Iraq, but would harm the US as well: “A war on Iraq would not only be wrong, a war on Iraq would be dumb. It would wreak havoc with our economy by driving up oil prices, throwing the stock market into turmoil, eliminating the capital investment we need to create jobs. It will send us into a depression, not just a recession.” Episcopalian bishop and monk Thomas Shaw warned of other dangers besides economic ones: “What is driving this war is fear and anxiety. Saddam Hussein has replaced Osama bin Laden as our demon. Our government tells us that if we eliminate Hussein our lives will go as they did before September 11, and we can continue to consume a disproportionate share of the world’s resources. But if we continue of this course, we will not be able to continue on with our lives. We will create more terrorists. The people of the world who hate us will still hate us.”

As a break from the speakers--and to keep everyone warm in the chilly fall air--there was a permitted march through the streets of Boston, lead by Buddhist drummers from the Peace Pagoda in Leverett. At the points I was able to take a good look from the middle of the march, I was unable to make out either its start or its end. Some people simply chatted, while others chanted such things as, “Hey Bush, we know you! Your daddy killed for oil too!” Iraq contains the world’s second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia, where the US already has large numbers of troops stationed, propping up its Islamic fundamentalist monarchy. Despite the rhetorical claims of the Bush and Blair administrations, there is no concrete evidence that Iraq actually possesses nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The Bush administration, however, has been intent on setting up military bases in oil rich regions; the war on Afghanistan resulted in US bases throughout oil rich Central Asia.

Robbins said, “I do not like fundamentalism of any kind--in al-Qaeda or in our government. Our government’s fundamentalism is business fundamentalism, the unfettered expansion of economic system across the globe. Our resistance should be resistance to placing profit over human life. That is what is going on in this war-- business. The economic scandals surrounding Halliburton and Harken have disappeared from the papers.” Most members of the Bush administration have ties to major oil companies, including Vice President Cheney’s to Halliburton and President Bush’s to Harken.

The march eventually returned to the Boston Common. The official program continued with more speakers. Off to the side, a large group gathered to drum and dance, periodically calling out “No attack on Iraq!” and generating a lot of good energy. As MC Brian Corr of Peace Action and the American Friends Service Committee said to loud applause, “We are going to stop this war before it starts. We are not going away.”

Matthew Williams
- Homepage: http://boston.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=8768&group=webcast

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech