The times, they are a'changin' (maybe?)

In response to this: http://blogs.zmag.org/node/2873

Several years ago, a previous antiwar group on the Iowa campus sponsored a debate about the imminent war. The pro-war debater was a student government type who pretty clearly saw defending the indefensible as good preparation for his future as a blowhard politician or Faux News talking head. I happened to be near him when he sat down after his speech, so I asked him brightly, "So, when are you enlisting? Or have you already signed up to go?" He said, with a sheepish smile, "Actually, I have some family members who were in the military and they ask me the same thing. But I'm not going to go into the military. I have other plans for my life." I asked him whether the kids in the military might not have plans for their futures too, for which he didn't have an answer.

I've sometimes gotten angry at the misinformed knee-jerk patriotism or, at best, the apathetic response of some of the UI students I encounter as an antiwar activist. I've heard a lot of explanations for the fact that most of the current antiwar group and its audience at different events have been in their 30s or older. I've seen a lot of handwringing and self-doubt among older members, wondering "what we're doing wrong" to cause students not to be involved and cautioning each other not to...what? Be old? Look old? Early on, I once had to remind my fellow activists that we could speak freely about our failure to attract students, given that there were no students in the room.

This year, however, we are starting to see students getting (and staying) involved and taking on responsibilities in the UI Antiwar Committee. There are still too few, of course, but those who are coming around are serious, disciplined, and reliable. Unlike some students I've met in the past, they are not playing at being activists. They are not doing it as a fashion statement or to be cool. They are doing the footwork, attending university funding meetings, filling out forms, making fliers, making copies, handing out leaflets, staffing literature tables, sitting through UIAC meetings that are sometimes too long, taking minutes, moderating discussions, and coming up with creative, realistic ideas of how to spread our message. Of course there are too few of them. How could a group ever have too *many* of such people?

In short, I think it's possible that we're seeing the very beginning of a turnaround and growing interest in peace activism among students. I was once in a group that spoke about recruiting "the ones and twos" who were willing to listen to new ideas. That's where we are, I think, and thank god it's not still the zeroes.

Which US?

At the University of Iowa Antiwar Committee's showing last night of "The Ground Truth" -- you can and should see it online at http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15319.htm -- there was an interesting discussion about what the U.S. now owes to the Iraqi people, and whether that debt requires us to "stay and fix what we broke."

A man in the audience asked what I thought was a provocative and useful question: After 9/11, how would Americans have reacted if Osama bin Laden and the Taliban insisted on stationing their troops in New York and Washington to rebuild the towers and the Pentagon? Wouldn't we have preferred them just to leave and let us rebuild on our own? Take it one step further. Would we have been receptive to the idea that they could instruct us on what form of government we should adopt, what kind of society we should have?

Even to ask this sort of question requires a core belief that other people are fundamentally like ourselves, and that is not a belief widely shared by Americans about Arabs and Muslims. Like Asians during America's last military fiasco, Arabs and Muslims supposedly "don't value human life" the way "we" do. They "don't believe in freedom." They "reject modernity." By definition, "They" are not like "Us."

Like the man who asked the question, I don't belong to such an "Us." I belong to the "us" of ordinary people of any nation, any race--any religion or none. We are people who want justice, peace, and freedom to live in the ways we choose for ourselves. We have finally learned that war doesn't work and that one can't change people's minds by killing them. Through the hard experience undergone by our brothers and sisters in Iraq--both soldiers and civilians--we are evolving beyond the narrow-minded, short-sighted, tight-fisted oligarchies who rule over us. I pledge allegiance to that "us."