Acting Locally

On March 20, the one-year anniversary of the war against Iraq, peace groups around the world plan to take to the streets and declare, "We still say no to war!" In Portland, Oregon, the nearest metropolitan city to where I live, tens of thousands of people are scheduled to protest. Up the Columbia River in my small town, our group is also prepared to demonstrate for peace that day.

Our peace group originally formed around the energies of an 80-something mother of four, Evine, who has lived in this rural county for sixty years. In the past few months, she has been hospitalized twice for pneumonia, her brother died, and her sister -- who had stood next to her in choir every Sunday and lived on the same land with her for 30 years -- died suddenly. Yet Evine spent a recent Monday afternoon phoning people to remind them about the next peace meeting.

Holding a peace rally in a politically conservative area is somewhat of a risk, but we've done it several times, confining ourselves to a one-block area along the main road through town. Most people driving by waved or stared at us blankly, although some gave us the finger, shouted at us, or kept driving around the block in their pick-up trucks making as much noise as possible.

I was never certain of the value of these peace demonstrations, but I participated because I thought it was imperative to do something and because I enjoyed being surrounded by my esteemed elders who had been working for peace for more decades than I had been alive.

During the first rally -- in October 2002, before the war -- I walked beside Evine for a time. I was afraid she would get sick out in the cold, wind, rain. She wept quietly. I put my arm across her shoulders.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I've seen this too many times," she said. "My brother fought in World War II, and my son went to Vietnam, and they were never the same. There has to be a better way."

That day and during other demonstrations, Evine and I were a part of a group of about 40 (out of a community of about 2,000). Most of the members of our group were over sixty, with a few of us 40-somethings hanging around. Several children participated, but few people in their twenties or thirties ever showed up. It was a lively group, nevertheless. Some of our elderly peacemakers could not walk far, so they sat on benches, waved signs, and shouted slogans.

One woman who was recovering from cancer held up a "no more war" sign and waved to passing cars, to the mortification of her teenaged daughter who stayed home. "Mom, people will see you," her daughter said beforehand. "That's the idea," she said. "I'm not going to stop standing up for what I believe because I might embarrass you."

A Korean vet helped display a huge banner which read, "Support our troops. Bring them home NOW!" One demonstrator who had been a medic in World War II walked beside me for a time during each rally. He had been wounded during the war, plus he had taken care of hundreds of wounded soldiers. "I have seen the horrors of war," he told me. "I can't tell you what I've seen. It was too awful. But I can try to stop it from happening again."

After the war began last March, our peace group struggled. We could not wrap our minds around the reality that millions of people around the globe had worked tirelessly to stop the war in Iraq, yet it had happened anyway. What had we done wrong? Where could we go from here?

I was one of the stunned. I read every article I could about "what went wrong." Organizers around the country were asking the same questions we were. I examined my own methods. After 35 years of activism (if I went back to my first fight -- to save the killdeer on the grounds of my elementary school), I didn't think I had accomplished anything. I certainly had never celebrated a victory.