Front Page > Issues > 2004> April

Portlanders turn out to say “no” to war

Portland along with 250 other cities and 50 other countries took to the streets to demand peace. The city added to the significant turnout along the entire West Coast — an estimated 100,000 people opposed to the Bush administration’s war against Iraq.

By Julie Sabatier

The one year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq served as an occasion for a worldwide day of action on March 20. In Portland, a rally was held in Pioneer Square and a march snaked through over a mile and a half of downtown.

Billed under the heading “The World Still Says No To War,” the rally brought together a diverse assembly of people with wide-ranging ideas about how best to resist.
The Northwest Veterans for Peace was among the first groups to arrive. They came in carrying signs and a mock coffin draped with an American Flag. Carol Randal, who was a medic during the Vietnam War, wore a cape made from her army blanket and decorated with furs and feathers of special meaning. “On the back is ermine,” she told me, “They change colors and I do too. Being in this society, people don’t know I’m a woman vet until I say so.”

Ryan, of the Portland chapter of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) held up one end of a red and black sign emblazoned with the group’s insignia. “We’re here to support the rights of workers in Iraq to organize,” he said, “because we know that that’s one of the many democratic freedoms that the White House doesn’t have in mind when they talk about rebuilding.”

Marchers paused on the route downtown to hear from members of Service Employees International Union Local 49 about the struggle to secure family health benefits. “This was a remarkable organizing breakthrough,” stated Mikel Clayhold, one of the organizers of the peace march. “This is the first time in Portland that a major peace march connected with an ongoing labor struggle.”

Andrew Kaza, who is campaigning for Oregon’s fifth congressional district, was proud to point out he was the only candidate in Oregon who co-sponsored the event. “This issue has been with me the whole time,” he said of the war in Iraq. “I see what this administration’s foreign policy is doing to us around the world: it’s destroying America’s credibility, it is creating enemies out of former friends and it’s going to be disastrous for us economically.”

A member of Portland’s Student Activist Alliance who identified himself as Adam held a black and red flag above his head. “We’re the radical contingent,” he explained, “And we’re just here to make sure that radicals get some credit for being part of the peace movement we helped to build.”

Jessica Larson of the School of the Americas Watch group may have said it best when she said, “It’s all the same issue really.”

Compared with last year’s shut-down-the-city protest, last month’s demonstration yielded considerably less contact between cops and demonstrators. The police patrolled the area mainly by bike, with officers in riot gear standing by out of sight.

This was the first major demonstration since the recent Oregon Supreme Court decision banning police from arresting protesters who fail to disperse. Both sides seemed pleased with the results.
“The organizers did a terrific job on this,” Central Precinct commander for the Portland Police Bureau, Rozie Sizer told the Oregonian. “There has been no bad energy today.”

Perhaps the day’s positive feel can also be attributed to a growing sense of hope among activists. “Spain ousted their militaristic government and we can do the same,” said one representative at the Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility table.

There were mourners in the midst of the joyous energy that surged through the protest. Many military families held up signs picturing loved ones lost in conflict overseas. One young woman grasped a piece of cardboard that read “Dear Mr. Bush, please don’t have my brother killed.”

Though this year’s protest was somewhat tame compared with “Day X” in 2003, protesters were not afraid to express anger. “Zionism is a cancer,” said Henrick Schubert, who was there with his wife, “The Palestinians do not have a choice. The Zionists have a choice: get out of Palestine.”

Above us, a man wearing a yarmulke perched above the Pioneer Square Information Center with an American flag, an Israeli flag and a sign that read, “Except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism and communism, war has never solved anything.”

The police stayed close to the few people who came out to support Bush. David Olson and his daughters Stephanie, 15 and Mandy, 12, explained why he supports the war. “We’re the only superpower left,” he said, “Somebody has to stand up for these guys who have nobody to stand up for them.”

By now, everyone has long since packed up to go home and even the messages in sidewalk chalk have all been washed away. Everyone has been counted and re-counted and no one can agree on the numbers in attendance. The numbers are inconsequential, compared with the opportunities for dialogue an event like this affords. And since there were no incidents to speak of, dialogue is all we had to do all day long. Let’s hope we brought some of it home with us.

Julie Sabatier is a local freelance writer.