SAN FRANCISCO ““ They seem to spring up overnight. They
travel by train, car, bus, plane, bicycle or foot. They come in
ones, twos, threes, small groups or massive armies.
They engage in curbside debates or tabletop discussions, arguing
politics, ethics, history, war and peace. They represent one of the
loudest and fastest-moving movements in the world, an unparalleled
coalition of ethnicities, religions, ages and cultures.
And, for the most part, they never know each other’s
names.
In a show of solidarity with the international community, over
100,000 protesters turned out in San Francisco on Sunday in the
culmination of two days worth of anti-war protests around the
world. As they flooded over city sidewalks and flowed down back
alleys, the demonstrators adhered to one common cause, and yet
their reasons for protesting were as diverse as their faces and the
clothes they wore.
For Terresa Gonzalez, a native of Union City, her reason for
protesting extended beyond mere politics.
“I have two sons, and both could go to war. And I
don’t want them to go,” she stated simply. “To
me, (Bush) doesn’t seem to listen to any reasons. It’s
getting closer to the point when he will say “˜Yes’ to
(war).”
Twenty-five year-old Luis Gonzalez, one of Terresa’s sons
and a part-time student at Chabot College in Hayward, shrugged when
asked about the draft. He has a friend in the military, he
explained, who hasn’t been deployed to the Gulf yet.
“I don’t feel scared ““ anything like
that,” he said.
Parental concern did play a factor in determining the turnout of
protesters, and entire families were much in evidence on Sunday.
For some, though, the question was not so much of protection as it
was of lead-by-example.
Edgar Perez, a native of Oakland, had his 9-year-old son
Marcealo join him in a self-composed anti-war rap, much to the
astonishment and delight of onlookers.
“I figure I have to put something together so my children
can see me express myself and learn to express themselves,”
he said as his son paraded about behind him with a microphone.
Other children found different, although equally artistic ways
of expressing themselves. Under the guidance of parents, dozens of
kids carved out peace signs across Embarcadero Plaza with chalk and
decorated the cement with murals. One picture of a crudely drawn
tank was punctuated by a child’s handwriting: “No
Tanks.”
As the rally dwindled into the late afternoon and protesters
made their way back through the city streets, many could be found
enjoying coffee or an early dinner in one of San Francisco’s
countless cafes. Here, too, the diversity of opinions was
expansive.
At Café Venue on Market Street, Brian Twitchell of Oakland
sat underneath an awning with his sister as protesters trickled
away. A four-year veteran of the Marine Corps, Twitchell says his
knowledge of military history was what ultimately disillusioned
him.
“I felt the military was being used for economic gain, not
for upholding democracy,” he said, citing repeated military
incursions “to protect national interests abroad.”
“It’s all in the history,” he insisted.
Twitchell said he never experienced combat, having served in the
period between Beirut and the Gulf War, but that doesn’t
dissuade him.
“I don’t feel I have to experience that aspect to
know it’s not a good thing,” he said.
Bethany Twitchell, sitting at the adjacent table, says she
joined the anti-war movement out of ideology.
“To me, (war) just contradicts the whole purpose of why
the United States is here,” she said, adding that for the
United States to endorse democracy and yet pursue unilateral action
was immoral.
“I’ve always felt that if it was going to happen, it
should be a U.N. initiative. It’s not for the United States
to decide.”
Most of the protesters seemed generally determined to make a
difference by joining the anti-war movement, although some
acknowledged such a difference would be hard to measure.
“I’m here just as another body,” said Jeff
Johnson, a Berkeley native, shrugging indifferently near Café
Venue’s front door. “They can’t silence us.
We’re too obvious.”
Johnson said the lack of debate about war was what disturbed him
the most.
“I feel the administration is allowed to control the
debate,” he said, adding that the media often do not ask
tough enough questions.
At another table, Sara Leimbach and Summer Pendle said they
drove all the way from Southern California to join the protest.
“There’s a sense of helplessness, a sense of
inevitability about the war, and I want to feel like I’ve
done something to make a difference,” said Leimbach, a
resident of Rancho Santa Margarita.
Pendle, a third-year political science student at Irvine Valley
College, said she came to San Francisco to march with
similar-minded people, something she found sorely lacking at
Irvine.
“It’s more not to feel alone. No one seems to be
doing anything, they’re just mouthing rhetoric,” she
said.
But how effective will the protest movement be? Even the answer
to that varied from person to person, and while some were
optimistic, others were not so sure.
“I see Bush’s momentum really meeting some
resistance,” said Johnson, pointing to both increased turnout
at protests and the dissent expressed by many countries in the
United Nations.
Pendle, however, disagreed.
“If the world community can’t change the
administration’s opinion, I doubt the protesters will make a
difference,” she said. But she added that even if the
objective were next to impossible to obtain, it was the effort that
counted.
Bethany was more blunt in expressing her prediction, in spite of
all the principles she believes in.
“Ultimately,” she said, “Bush is going to get
what he wants.”