U.S. Anti-War Movement Based in the Mainstream
By Dana Wilkie
Copley News Service
February 14, 2003
WASHINGTON – One morning soon – before too many surfers or joggers are out – dozens of women in their 50s and 60s will gather on a beach somewhere in San Diego County, take off their clothes, lie on the sand, and arrange their bodies to spell "peace."
Not much later, newspapers will receive photographs – taken from far enough away to make the participating women unrecognizable – that will make clear their anti-war message.
There's a curious group of Americans demonstrating their opposition to a U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
They don't fit the stereotypes of the 20-something who shuns a privileged home for piercings and tattoos, or the Birkenstock-wearing vegan who hangs out with anti-globalization activists and environmentalists.
Whether they are pacifists or former military commanders, poets or high-powered executives, Psychologists for Social Responsibility or Mothers Acting Up, today's anti-war movement appears to run through mainstream America.
"It's become religious groups and labor unions, local politicians, Republicans and businessmen," said Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University sociologist and author who studies social movements. "I think these groups have stepped forward in part to give the anti-war movement legitimacy."
The breadth of the movement may well be on display tomorrow during a day of protest in cities around the globe, including San Diego.
Nobel laureates, Pentagon consultants, corporate chiefs, academics and former military officials, along with more traditional protesters, have joined forces and released statements opposing a unilateral attack on Iraq.
A group of Republicans and business leaders recently signed a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal titled "Republican Dissent on Iraq."
Retired Vice Adm. Jack Shanahan of Florida was among the signers.
"We need to exhaust every other kind of diplomatic and economic option available to us," said Shanahan, who said he believes many anti-war voices go unheard.
Notably, retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, also has voiced his concerns about moving too quickly to war.
Across the country, women in a group called Baring Witness disrobe at mostly secluded places, arrange their bodies to spell "peace" or "no war." In San Diego, a 60-year-old Encinitas woman – a professor at a San Diego university who asked to not be named – is organizing a group of 30 to 50 women for that purpose.
"Showing our bodies is not something we do, because we've been taught not to do it," said the woman, who would not reveal the time or place of their gathering, except to say her group will be at a North County beach. "This is a different way to get attention, and for me, it's a courageous thing to do."
Francine Anzalone-Byrd, a San Diego woman with Mothers Acting Up, plans to drive to Los Angeles tomorrow for an anti-war march. The 55-year-old mother of three and executive director of an alcohol-and drug-abuse treatment center said she sees "an atypical group of people" at these gatherings.
"They are professionals, teachers, social workers, businessmen and women," Anzalone-Byrd said. "They seem more mature than the college-age crowd involved in the anti-war movement in the '60s."
The nation seems both cautious and divided on U.S. policy on Iraq.
A New York Times/CBS poll published today says 66 percent of Americans approve of war with Iraq as an option. Fifty-nine percent said they believed the United States should give U.N. weapons inspectors more time. Sixty-three percent said Washington should not act without allied support and 56 percent said President Bush should wait for U.N. approval.
Nevertheless, some are skeptical that the anti-war movement is as broad as activists say. Critics argue that protesters are simply more savvy and better organized.
"They're more efficient. They're better at what they do," said Jack Spencer, a defense analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group in Washington. "It's the professionalization of protesting."
Spencer and other critics argue that anti-war activists are veterans of other liberal-leaning causes who have joined forces to make the anti-war effort seem larger and more vocal than it is.
Experts on social movements say participants in this anti-war movement are more in the mainstream for several reasons. In the early days of the Vietnam War, protests were led largely by college students who opposed the draft and the war. Today, there is no draft.
In the 1960s, the anti-war movement began with people seen as "fringe" types – hippies and the ultra-liberal – and swelled only after the country had been at war for years, with mounting casualties.
Today, the anti-war movement has broadened even before the start of a war.
One expert on protest movements with the Brookings Institution, a center-left group based in Washington, said the nation has become more skeptical of its leaders since Vietnam.
"Back then, there was much more of a willingness to accept the government's word for things," said the expert, Ann Florini. "In this case, we're getting bombarded with information about how strongly the rest of the world opposes this war, and there's a real sense that we don't know why we're doing this."
There may also be fears that a war will hurt the sluggish economy.
"I think people from affluent backgrounds are finally getting it," said Yalonda Sinde, director of the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice. "The economy is waking people up to the fact that, in the scheme of things, it's about more than just getting their piece of the pie. When resources start to dwindle, that makes them see the injustice in a lot of things, including war."
Also, the Internet has helped motivate and organize people who typically would not venture from their homes to protest a war, experts said.
On the Web, for instance, Psychologists for Social Responsibility explains that people might support war because of a primal need to feel secure.
"When we have our banner at protests, others come up and say things like, 'Wow, psychologists are even against the war,' " said Tod Sloan, a member of the group who lives in Tulsa, Okla. "Then they tell us we should try to point out the mental health problems of our leaders. It's sort of comical."
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