June 2004

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

Don't Burn the Flag. Wash It.

Molly Little at the -American Friends Service Committee Southeast New England office in Providence, RI.

The people of Peru washed their flags on Fridays at noon. Men, women, children, politicians, artists, and journalists came, in peaceful and creative resistance to the corrupt rule of Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, to soap, rinse and hang their flags in the gardens at the Plaza de Armas. They suffered threats and intimidation, but they kept coming every Friday because, as one boy said in front of the cameras, the fatherland's face was dirty and they had to wash it. Vladimiro Montesinos, head of the Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (National Intelligence Service) and President Fujimori's advisor, compared the members of the group with a cancer. The action spread, not like a disease but like a blessing, beyond the squares of Peru to France, Sweden, and Spain, and eventually the water and soap of the Lava la Bandera (Wash the Flag) movement reached Fujimori's Government Palace. In November 2000, the Peruvian dictatorship collapsed.

We live in a time of empire. The problem, of course, is systemic. But how can we bring down an empire unless we expose its dirty face?

Students wash US flag in Providence, RI Photo: © Mike Braca

At the AFSC office, the other student interns and I began to talk about the idea of creating a new coalition of high school students working for progressive change. We could create a coalition that would bridge the disconnections between high school campuses in Rhode Island and raise a voice, the united voice of young people, that badly needed to be heard.

We began by making phone calls, and at first our work seemed futile. But then, one way or another, things began to happen. We met in the basement of the Community Church in Providence, where AFSC has an office, and our numbers began to grow. Within five weeks, the group included students from sixteen high schools around Rhode Island. In order to honor the past and look to the future we named our coalition Students for a Democratic and Sustainable Society. We pledged to revitalize the student anti-war and anti-militarism movements through creative nonviolent action. Our founding principles were democracy, sustainability, nonviolence, and justice.

We wanted, too, to bridge what we believed to be a false dichotomy between traditions of faith-based activism and contemporary "cultural jamming."

For example, Adbusters Magazine independence from corporate rule on July 4, 2003, with a full-page Pledge of Resistance ad in the New York Times, proclaiming "Because my country has sold its soul to corporate power, because consumerism has become our national religion, because we've forgotten the true meaning of freedom, and because patriotism now means agreeing with the president, I pledge to do my duty... and to take my country back."

Soon after I began my internship last fall, I came across a quotation from Norman Thomas, a pacifist and the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1940, 1944, and 1948: "If you want a symbolic action, don't burn the flag; wash it." I learned about the Peruvian activists who helped overthrow a dictator by symbolically acting out both their love for the people of their country and their opposition to the government which was staining their honor.

So, Students for a Democratic and Sustainable Society decided on our first project: a public washing of the American flag, to be held on the lawn of the Rhode Island Statehouse in Providence. Organizing did not proceed without difficulty. The diversity of the students in the group gave the coalition vitality and vibrancy - and it also provided challenges. But we came together, and we worked together, and, perhaps for the first time in our high school careers, societal and social categorizations didn't hinder us anymore.

More challenging than our own internal differences were, of course, the challenges presented to us by the broader community. A promo piece in the largest newspaper in Rhode Island portrayed our action as provoking conflict between student activists and war veterans. A spokesperson for the American Legion called the washing a desecration of the flag, and a local conservative radio talk-show host, dismissing us as communists, equated washing the flag with burning it.

But support from the community far outweighed the criticism. On April 19, 2004, close to 100 students from around Rhode Island gathered to wash a six-by-ten foot American flag, and 50 members of the community came in positive affirmation of our action. We came, as students and as citizens, politicians, artists, and journalists, and we cast, in the words of Thoreau, not merely a paper ballot but our whole influence. This, Thoreau said, is the beginning of peaceable revolution. The time has indeed come for a peaceable revolution of cultural consciousness.

In Rhode Island, we are on our way.

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