May 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

A20 in Washington--Lessons for Organizers

David McReynolds is staff emeritus at the War Resisters League and a member of the National Committee, Socialist Party USA. The following is excerpted from a report he sent out Sunday, April 21.

By now you know what we didn't know in DC, since it was almost impossible to make a crowd estimate "on the ground"-- the Washington Post has estimated 75,000.

We were lucky in the weather, thunderstorms having been promised. First--hello to the many people I met whom I knew personally over decades of marching to DC. It felt like old home week, reminding us that the current youth movement of protest and affirmation had "healthy parents" of men who served prison terms in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, people who fought McCarthyism in the 1950s, and worked against Jim Crow and racism before most of the Saturday marchers were born.

But what was important was not the gathering of the old clan, but the gathering of a new clan. Youth. In their thousands. War Resisters League, Democratic Socialists of America, the Socialist Party, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Solidarity, the Green Party.

This afternoon I saw a press release from ANSWER, largely run by Workers World. I mention the ANSWER release because it failed to begin to do justice to the demonstration. Under the headline "100,000 March For Palestine," it went on to speak of the demonstration as being primarily a pro-Palestine, anti-Israel demonstration.

This misrepresents what this demonstration meant. And if I discuss this bluntly, it was because Workers World, for all their enormously hard work, continues to be a problem for the broader movement because they are so determined to control or dominate a mass movement. When the April 20th rally was first called, months ago, the Middle East had not exploded. The original organizers were students. Later, Workers World set their own date for April 27th (focused then mainly on Afghanistan, not Palestine) but when they saw their support weak and most people opposed to two rallies a week apart, they changed their date for the 20th. So in some ways there were two rallies on the same day.

By April 20th the Middle East had indeed take over as the most immediate problem. It wasn't that Afghanistan was forgotten, the danger of war with Iraq ignored, the danger of a police state (The Patriot Act) avoided. But given the horrors of Jenin, Palestine leaped to the head of the list of demands.

Yes, the Muslim community was there in a way I had never seen before. Thousands and thousands and thousands of Muslims, most young, (but some very old, helped through the long march by younger people). Mothers with their babies in carriages. The PLO flag was everywhere. On the way back, when our buses stopped for food, the Muslim men took time for their prayers.

No one should for an instant underrate the importance of the Muslim participation. But for Workers World to term the rally only, or primarily a pro-Palestinian event, is to discredit the power of so massive a rally in protest against Bush and his backers.

This was the first loud, clear voice from a nation which had been told by the media that there was no protest. In the words of Cokie Roberts, if there were any protests against the war in Afghanistan they were not important, not from "anyone one who counted." But yesterday even she could have counted.

For the supporters of the Israeli government,  it was a warning shot that they have lost the American Left. And that includes losing a great many American Jews who were there at the protest and had helped organize it. The issue of Jenin isn't one of Jews against Muslims. It is one of Sharon against the world, against the United Nations, against a very large number of American Jews, and against a great many Israelis.

What was important, in my view as an old veteran at these events, was that where the media had assumed silence, the world now saw public dissent--in far greater numbers than even we had hoped for. For the "internal movement" it was noteworthy that Workers World cancelled their original demonstration date, and may (though I am skeptical) be prepared to work more honestly with the broad range of peace and justice groups. The loose coalition of peace and justice groups, from the Black Radical Congress to the War Resisters League, from the American Friends Service Committee to Peace Action, from the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism to the Greens, have shown that they can pull off a national demonstration and provide leadership.

The problems of such a coalition are enormous--it is vastly easier for a group such as Workers World, a very small Marxist/Leninist formation with strong central leadership, to set up fronts, and through those fronts to give the impression of a mass movement. The broader movement lived through such splits before, during the Vietnam War and during the Gulf War. What is important for us, internally, is to have faith in our ability to work together through the slower process of compromise, dialogue, and coalition.

What is essential for older radicals to see is that a new generation took part in the largest single peaceful US protest of this century. This does not discount the importance of all the anti-Globalization actions, which helped build to where we are. Nor does it mean that mass peaceful civil disobedience will not be needed. But it does mean that just as Workers World is more marginal than it has seemed, the "Black Bloc" does not command the support of all the youth. Whatever is to be built will need democratic involvement of many, not the vanguard tactics or the "smash and run" tactics of the smaller groups.

April 20th was a major victory for the forces of democracy, of dissent, of the peace and justice movement, and of the possibility of broad coalitons involving black and white--and Muslim and Jew. At a very difficult time in our history, this is an enormous victory indeed.

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