June-July 2005

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Arrested for Carrying a Peace Sign

Joseph Gerson is Director of Programs at AFSC-New England. Cambridge Massachusetts hosted a celebration of the Army's 230^th "birthday" on June 14, 2005. A Blackhawk helicopter hovered overhead; Army Recruiting Trucks and the Under-Secretary of the Army invaded Cambridge Common. The event, initiated by the military, had been organized covertly. In the impromptu protests that sprung up, six protesters and a photographer were arrested. What follows is one resident's account.

Recruiting Truck at Army's Celebration, June 14, 2005; Cambridge, Massachusetts, © Skip Schiel

As I worked to make my middle-aged bones accommodate the uncompromising metal cot in my jail cell, a piece of history floated through my mind. Thoreau refused to pay taxes to protest against the 1848 US war against Mexico and to protest the expansion of slavery. When Thoreau was imprisoned a few miles from here, Emerson is said to have visited him, asking, "Henry, why are you here?" Thoreau responded, "Waldo, why are you not here?"

The Army -- increasingly unable to recruit young men and women to kill and to be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, had covertly planned another offensive.

I was determined to send a message. These child-buyers shouldn't feel they can come into our community with impunity. We needed to let them know we're not going to let them hijack our young. We won't allow more young -people to become cannon fodder in Bush and Cheney's bloody war.

We made signs: "Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home," "Military Out of Iraq -- and Cambridge?," and "Stop The Killing." We walked to the Common, through the phalanxes of police and soldiers. Peace activists outnumbered warriors, armed police, and the audience.

I stood near the stage where the Under-Secretary of the Army, a sad 11-year-old boy whose father was killed in Iraq, and others would be speaking. I wasn't blocking anything, but I could certainly be seen. Others peacefully joined me.

The first of several soldiers and police ordered us to move. I responded, "I am a resident of Cambridge. The Common is public space. I am peacefully protesting a criminal war, and I am not moving." Finally, armed police pushed us forcefully. I decided not to be pushed, and sat down. Soon the police were nearly breaking our arms, painfully smashing handcuffs on our wrists, and dragging us away. A photographer, Skip Schiel, was knocked down in the commotion and was also cuffed and arrested.

Meditating in my stuffy cell, the statement I wanted to make to the judge came to me. In court, he refused to allow it.

Here's what I had planned to say:

1. If the President of Harvard has the right to graze his animals on Cambridge Common, a 30-year resident of Cambridge has the right to walk there carrying a peace sign.

2. The Secretary General of the UN recently reiterated, the invasion of Iraq was illegal. The Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crime Principles are clear: those who command an illegal war are by definition war criminals. Those who know about wars of aggression but don't act to stop them are also guilty.

3. I acted to protest the cynical harvesting of our city's youth to serve as cannon fodder in a criminal war.

4. I protest the military occupation of my home. The covertly organized event had the pageantry of a fascist rally. We must protect what remains of our constitutional democracy.

5. We all need to do more to stop the killing. Civil disobedience is not the only way to protest, but people who oppose the war, oppose the harvesting of our young for the killing fields, and oppose the subversion of democracy must put more of our life's energy into resisting. We must use our imaginations to identify the many ways we can influence policy. We must use our wills to become the political force necessary to turn our nation around.

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