Monday, March 21, 2005

Asheville's Peace Rally

Asheville had a PEACE RALLY on March 20, 2005. This was organized by the WNC Peace Coalition. There were about twenty of us that did the work of organizing the rally. We scheduled this so it would not conflict with the events in Fayetteville. It was a beautiful spring day.

We started at 11 AM, setting up our "Iraqi Civilian Memorial Flags" at City-County plaza. These flags said

"This is a remembrance of the Iraqi Civilian Casualties.
May they rest in Peace. May their country find Peace."

They were printed on white paper, and there was a peace dove on the flags also. We made about 2,000 of these flags, and they were on thin metal stakes. The stakes were three feet high and about 1/8 of an inch wide. These stakes were donated to us, and many people spent many hours putting them together.

The Asheville Police showed up and made us take them all down. They said they could have been used as a weapon. The American flags, which were two feet high on wooden stakes that were over a 1/4 inch thick, were acceptable. I took pictures of the police officers and did a recording of the interaction between us. This made me very angry that we could not keep the flags up. We had put in a lot of work, and we wanted to increase the public's awareness of the Iraqi civilians who have been hurt or killed. We did not see them as possible weapons.

The rest of the rally went well. We had about 400 people there, and I was pleased to see some church groups represented there. We had a variety of speakers, some of whom brought up other issues besides peace and US foreign policy and Iraq (we wished they had not). Most of the speakers were well-received. We had a speaker from Physicians for Social Responsibility, who talked on "Smart Security", and several poets perform their poetry against war and violence. The best speaker was Cindy Sheehan, of Gold Star Families for Peace. She talked about her son's death in Iraq. She is a strong voice for peace. She is a strong voice to call for the end to the occupation of Iraq. What a horrible price she and her family have paid.

Prior to this Peace Rally, there was no consensus around thanking the Asheville Police from the stage. After the Asheville Police made us take down the flags we had made (but deemed the US flags were okay), no one felt like the Asheville Police should be thanked. Unfortunately, one of the MCs decided to thank the Asheville Police for not searching our backpacks, like they did in Fayetteville! Imagine, she thanked the police for not violating our civil rights. The members of the WNC Peace Coalition who worked on this Peace Rally were appalled.

There were several tables on various topics, most related to peace activities and war resistance. I had an exhibit on EYES WIDE OPEN (see www.afsc.org) at the rally, which we are bringing to Asheville later this year. I felt I was being pulled in 20 different directions during the rally. I will try to do less next time around. I had too much going on.

I had set up my display board on Iraqi Civilian casualties. There are 5 of them, covered with names of Iraqis who died in this war. They are 40 by 60 inches, which is pretty big. I was afraid that the wind would blow them away, but I used a rope, with clips on it, to hold them down. They were lying flat on the ground. These names were collected by the CIVIC team, under Marla Ruzicka. The Jarrars helped with collection of these names. Some of the names came from the Iraqi Body Count website. The list of names is very incomplete. I heard that the local TV station showed a clip of these boards. I am going to try and get a copy of this broadcast.

The "I Want Peace" flag was the backdrop of our stage. It is made up of pieces of red and white fabric sewn together to form the stripes of the flag, and a blue piece of fabric in the upper left corner. The blue part has the word "PEACE" in English and Arabic, sent to me by a women who lives in Baghdad. Her name is Faiza Jarrar, and I have been emailing her. She writes a blog called "A Family in Baghdad". The red and white pieces of fabric said "I want Peace" on them. They were signed by hundreds of local people. It is a large flag.

After the rally, several of us went to Unitarian Universalist church and put up the 2,000 Iraqi Civilian Casualties flags. This church is located on a busy street, so lots of people will see them. It looked impressive.

That night, I went on the radio program "Listen to Women" on WPVM, along with Cindy Sheehan, two poets (Carrie Gertsmann and Beki Buchanan) from our rally, both of the MCs (Kam Parker and Mendy Knott) from our rally, and Robin Cape, the host of the show. It was an impressive show. It was pretty intense doing the show also. As always, Cindy's voice was very powerful. Hearing Kam's story (she is a former Marine) was pretty impressive also.

We got some good press for our rally. The local paper had this article:

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050321/NEWS01/503210324/1001

I was exhausted at the end of all this, but it was worth it. I think we did increase awareness of the war and it's toll on civilians and military.

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