In early 2008, Voices for Creative Nonviolence began organising “Witness Against War,” a 500-mile walk from Chicago Illinois, to St Paul Minnesota, timed to arrive just before the US Republican party’s National Convention.
Generally, three to five local participants would join our core group of nine to walk, on average, fifteen miles each day. Our signs called for an end to war in Iraq, for health care, not warfare, and for rebuilding both Iraq and the US. “We Hold Both Parties Responsible,” said one sign, deco-rated with the obligatory elephant and donkey (the symbols of the Republican and Democratic parties).
Most nights, we held community forums, inviting people to dialogue with us about the horrible cost of war.
Soldiers against the war
Paul Melling, a former US soldier, frequently spoke about his experiences in Iraq during 14 months with an army artillery squadron. He has since joined Iraq Veterans Against War.
Audiences listened to Paul’s anguished memories of having fired many rounds of artillery into civilian areas. Following one assault, he learned that a family of seven, including women and children, had been killed by US artillery.
For several weeks, we crossed Wisconsin, home to the “Red Arrows,” a National Guard Unit that will send 3,500 troops to Iraq in early 2009. The troops train for deployment at Fort McCoy, where the army has constructed a village designed to resemble an Iraqi neighbourhood, so that soldiers can practice surrounding villages and raiding homes.
We neared Fort McCoy on a Sunday morning. We’d grown accustomed to supportive honks and friendly gestures along our route, but we were surprised to realize that soldiers at the base seemed happy to see us and our signage about ending the war.
Soldiers smiled as they flashed us peace signs and thumbs up signals. Authorities inside the base, somewhat less cordial, arrested 13 of us for trespass. We wanted to distribute an open letter to soldiers, inside the base, about their options regarding deployment to Iraq.
Pretending to be Iraqi
In a Wisconsin county jail, after being arrested, I met Bessie, a kindly grandmother working as a guard. She wore a dark brown shirt and tan pants, like the other uniformed guards, but I think her thick, long grey hair and soft, pleasant smiles were much more noticeable.
One evening, Bessie chatted with eight of us prisoners while we awaited removal to a larger cell. “Tomorrow night,” said Bessie, “I’m gonna have me some fun over there at Fort McCoy.” She spoke eagerly about how she would earn $12 per hour by running through the woods, carrying an AK-47, pretending to be “a bad guy” in Iraq.
I wonder if the simulated raids at Fort McCoy allow the role-players, civilian or military, to empathize with the actual Iraqi residents of villages and neighbourhoods being raided. How do Iraqis feel when US army recruits burst into their homes at gunpoint, turn over their furniture, empty closets and drawers, and often cart off young men and husbands for long hours, weeks or months of interrogation?
Two days later, freed from jail, I caught up with walkers at a vigil in La Crosse held by grand-mothers who volunteer, weekly, to don large papier mâché masks, gowns and veils, and to hold in their arms cloth dolls commemorating lifeless bodies of Iraqi children killed by sanctions and war.
An image of Bessie, running through woods, carrying an AK-47, was on my mind, very much so, as I stood with the “mourning mothers,” and felt the light and grievous weight of a cloth doll placed in my arms.
Ironically, earlier in Wisconsin’s history, soldiers used primitive strategies to round up and forcibly remove Native Americans who lived in the very land where we walked and vigilled.
Ho-Chunk
In Wisconsin and neighbouring states, we traversed traditional land of the Ho-Chunk Nation, also known in English translation as “People of the Big Voice”. In 1836, US settlers, coveting the lush farmland and its rich mining resources, forced the Ho-Chunk to sell it all for a pittance.
“In the winter of 1873, many Ho Chunk people were removed… from Wisconsin, travelling in cattle cars on trains,” says the Nation’s website (www.ho-chunknation.com). “This was a horrific experience for the people, as many elders, women and children suffered and died.”
It’s a tale of immeasurable suffering, recounting genocide, but in spite of the cruelties endured in forced transports, Ho-Chunk members banded together and travelled back on foot to Wisconsin, aiming to reclaim their former homes. Eventually, after eleven removals and five weary returns, they were ceded parts of their original land.
Like the Ho-Chunk people, Iraqis have learned that if they don’t cooperate with a US project to seize their precious and irreplaceable resources, the US will kill them.
Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes. Many hundreds of thousands have been killed or have died from disease and hunger. US bombing, invasion and occupation have been, for the Iraqis, a horrific experience.
An honest understanding of our history, dating back to the US commission of genocide against native populations, would help us take responsibility for continued wrongdoing. The tenacious “People of the Big Voice” have much to teach us.
The big voice in America
During both the Democratic and the Republican conventions, the “Witness Against War” project asked when US democracy will represent the “big voice” of public opinion demanding an end to war in Iraq. We steadily heard this voice along our walk route. When will a so-called democracy’s big voice prevail over the spin that benefits the greedy, powerful few who would limit our imagination and our choices, insisting that we forcibly and greedily claim other peoples’ lands, heedless of their voices?
We must raise our voices loud enough to be heard, or use our feet, when our voices are ignored, in the language of nonviolent direct action. The world looks to us, much of it in genuine pain and anguish, asking when are we going to rescue them from our government, by expressing our wish for peace at long last.