Thousands gather in New York to protest war with Iraq

NEW YORK — Leaving Grand Central Station in this city, five students were thrust into a human train moving north and east toward the heart of the protests.

"Peace now!"

A poster said: "This war is Bushit!"

Carter Clement '04, Fernando Delgado '04, Katy Glenn '05, Russell Renzas '05 and Samantha Taber '04 arrived in the city around noon, but only after a rally at Princeton Junction held by the Coalition for Peace Action of Witherspoon St. and the University-based Princeton Peace Network.

They were part of hundreds of thousands who barraged New York City in the cold on Saturday with posters, chanting, music and dancing in mostly peaceful protests against war with Iraq. The city had limited the demonstrations to a site at 51st and 1st Avenue, but masses spilled onto 2nd and 3rd avenues, shoulder-to-shoulder for about half-a-mile north and south.

Opposition to a U.S.-led war on Iraq seemed to unify a diverse crowd that in previous demonstrations had protested topics as disparate as globalization and eating meat.

Local Princeton residents, seminary students and University members joined together to go to New York. They made posters in Murray Dodge on Friday night and on Saturday morning rallied for peace at Princeton Junction station and rode the "peace train" to the city.

"I felt I wanted to do something," Delgado said aboard the train. "This is an organized way to express dissent."

Protesters said the demonstrations, mirrored in several hundred cities worldwide, were the largest since Vietnam. They cheered, clapped and played music to the beat of "War, what is it good for?" Posters declared, "No war for oil."

Police constantly clutched their batons and patrolled the streets, often on horseback. "Bush and Cheney we won't go. We won't go for Texas!"

Clement, Delgado, Glenn, Renzas and Taber advanced uptown with the crowd a short while after arriving in the city, passing a Green Point Bank, a Hyatt and a Citibank.

Sirens and helicopters were always in background. Not many arrests were made.

Renzas discounted some of the posters and protesters. "It's a little frustrating," he said. "Slogans don't mean anything."

A diverse group of protesters turned out. Trixie Digger, dressed in a cantaloupe-colored tunic with black pants, glasses, a black hat with a peace sign and white-painted face, demonstrated as part of the Radical Fairy Network. Digger said he was promoting "fashion for peace" and "respect for all creatures of the earth."

At 1:30 p.m. at 49th and 3rd Avenue, protesters climbed on top of postal and Fritos delivery trucks. More protesters joined in the next 15 minutes, so that 16 people were on the trucks. A protester brandished a Palestinian flag with a blood shot and message on it: "FREE PALESTINE."

Cheering.

Clement, Delgado, Glenn, Renzas and Taber arrived at a site near 53rd and 3rd Avenue where protesters had spilled onto the streets. The students stayed there until it was time to go home.

"It was encouraging to do it. I don't think the president's going to pay much attention to it," Glenn said. "It made me feel better to have voiced my opinion. And it was great to see so many people going out there."

Many protesters tried and failed to pass police barricades to go to the center of the protests. Jay Marx, of Washington, D.C., said he went to New York not to go to the protests but began when he found out protesters were penned in.

He argued with a police officer and asked why he couldn't pass the barricades. The officer said, "Cause God said so."

At the same time, Adrien Grist of Staten Island, N.Y., a grandmother and former school teacher, was passing. She said she arrived at the center of the protests and heard Desmond Tutu, Harry Belafonte, Susan Sarandon, Rosie Perez and other speakers.

Susan Albert, a University librarian who joined the peace network a few weeks ago, went with her son, daughter and niece to the protests. She said some protesters threw objects at police, but that they acted aggressively in response, shoving some with horses.

Anatomy of a protest

A crowd of about 150 had earlier formed a triangle behind the En Route store at Princeton Junction. Most attendees were white and middle aged, though children and babies were also present. One baby fidgeted with a sign around her neck that read, "Babies against the war."

"George Bush will know why everybody is in New York," University researcher Zia Mian, who leads PPN, said to the crowd. "The world is actually up for grabs."

"Justice," the crowd repeatedly declared in a chant, "not war."

"I think that everybody from the Methodists to the Marxists, we haven't seen anything like this for 20 years in the American peace movements," Mian said in an interview.

Aboard the "peace train," people sung, "Ain't gonna to study war no more" to the tune of "I'm going to let it shine."

Why

The train was packed.

Clement, Delgado, Glenn, Renzas and Taber stood in the space between cars. The students said they were not satisfied with the case the Bush administration has made for attacking Iraq.

Glenn said President Bush was using "scare tactics" and that there was an "incredible double standard" in the treatment of North Korea and Iraq.

After Secretary of State Colin Powell's talk two weeks ago at the United Nations in which he presented the case against Iraq, Taber had gone to Frist Campus Center to see if anybody was watching commentary about it, she said. A crowd was watching an ESPN classic version of a tire-throwing contest on television, she said.

"I don't think there's any debate. The loudest voices are from the right-wing crowd, like American Foreign Policy [magazine]," Taber said of campus dialogue on Iraq.

"Many people cite the economic gain just for the oil. The costs of prosecuting a war and rebuilding a country are enormous," said Gabe Collins '05, managing editor of American Foreign Policy, in an interview on Sunday. "They have a bigger vision than dollars. They're pretty sincere among some of these hawks. They want to use U.S. power as a force for good."

The students expressed optimism about going to the protests. Glenn said she was a "little surprised" about the lack of undergraduates on the "peace train" but noted how many had gone earlier in the day. "I thought it would be more," she said.

They also thought most students were coming to the protests for principled reasons, though they said some came just to take part in the protests.

"I can't imagine people traveling two hours to do this [and not meaning it]," Renzas said.

Home

At Penn Station in New York as the afternoon came to a close, protesters started chanting and clashed with police, who said they could protest but not chant because people wouldn't be able to hear announcements.

"It feels as though this is fascism," Albert said observing what went on at Penn Station.

Commenting on the effects of this weekend's protests, Mian said they "reinforced both in the minds of the peace movements and in the minds of the larger public community that there is determined and substantial opposition for the war. It's not just in a number and an opinion poll. These are real flesh and blood people who want their opinion known."

"President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have to deal with the fact that they are confronting an international political movement," he continued. "It's not something they can pass off as watching TV. It's real, and it's substantial."