Ammu Joseph has filed this report on the anti-war demonstration in New York.

New York, March 22: For the third time in just over one month, large numbers of people across the United States took to the streets on Saturday to continue their protests against the war on Iraq even as the U.S. Army crossed the Euphrates River and pushed to within 160 miles of Baghdad.

In New York protestors jammed midtown and lower Manhattan as tens of thousands of people marched down Broadway in a peaceful but spirited and colourful demonstration that extended from the world-famous Times Square to Washington Square Park near the legendary Greenwich Village.

Estimates of the crowd varied, with New York City police officials revising their initial estimate of 40,000 participants to admit that the crowd could have been larger. Organisers of the march claimed that it involved 200,000 protesters. One policeman suggested that there were probably about 4000 people on each block of the 30-block demonstration. In any case there was no denying that the turnout was massive. It took a full hour to walk the five blocks from 40th Street to 35th Street, and the mass of humanity kept flowing, with no apparent beginning or end. Every now and then cheers and roars beginning somewhere on the route travelled up and down the length of the procession.

Although the crowd was predominantly white, it was diverse in every other sense, with genteel citizens of Westchester County marching alongside more boisterous residents of Harlem, "Doctors and Nurses against the War" walking alongside "Attorneys against the War," and "Queers for Peace" rubbing shoulders with "Mainstream White Guys for Peace." While some marched with flowers, others did so to the beat of drums fashioned from empty bins and yet others to cheerleader-like chanting: "Ain't no power like the power of the people because the power of the people don't stop." A man in a dark suit wearing a George W. Bush mask and holding a globe in gloved hands shaped like the talons of an eagle obliged eager photographers. A group of women in red, white and blue wigs and costumes, with missiles strapped strategically from their waists, called themselves "Dicks for Peace" for obvious reasons.

Judging by the banners and placards carried by the protestors, their reasons for opposing the war were varied. Some questioned the costs of war and the priorities of the government. One series of placards pointed out that the estimated $ 200 million being spent on one war could instead have been used to provide 24,000 schools or 4 million teachers, 300 hospitals or healthcare for 45 million Americans, 300,000 firehouses or solar power for 1 million homes. Groups of students made their concerns clear: "Drop tuitions, not bombs" and "Books not bombs." A gay group called on "George" to "fight AIDS and HIV, not Iraq." Another group advocated "Healthcare, not warfare."

A number of placards expressed deep displeasure with the President and his advisors. Among those that directly targeted them were: "Drop Bush, not bombs," "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing an idiot," "Criminal, unprovoked aggression by another unelected tyrant: Down with King George II," "War is the viagra for Bush," "Axis of Evil: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld," and so on. One side of a placard shaped like a T-shirt had the President saying, "I went to Iraq and all I got was shame, the hatred of the world and decades of increased terrorism." The other side had the Vice-President saying, "I went to Iraq and all I got was a fat contract for Haliburton and a few billion dollars worth of oil." Another juxtaposed Martin Luther King and his "I have a dream" with George W. Bush and "I have a nightmare." And then there were more general anti-establishment slogans: "Stop mad cowboy disease" and "USA - a true demockery."

The media also came in for some criticism, with one placard accusing the U.S. media of "pimping this illegal war." But the majority of banners and placards were just against the war, plain and simple: "Shock and awe = terrorism," "Smart bombs + dumb war = bad idea." And, of course, New Yorkers were urged to "Remember our shock and awe: no war!" while they had their last word: "US out of NY."

Ammu Joseph

(NYC, March 22, 2003)

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