Feb 15 Rally

Saturday morning. 9 AM, the phone starts ringing. People are up
bright and early, already calling to make sure my alarm went off. "I’m awake, I’m awake," I say before the caller can finish her sentence.

"See you at 11." 9 AM is really nothing to complain about. For the
last two antiwar rallies, we had to wake up earlier. Both of them were in Washington DC, the buses left at 5. Having this rally in New York makes it much easier for many of us.

The subway platform is jammed full of people. No seats to be found anywhere. The entire train, to a man, gets off at the 42d Street stop.
These people are all headed over to the rally. 11 AM, I arrive at our designated meeting point at Bryant Park. A large South Asian and People of Color contingent has gathered-- members of SAPBR, Third I, Not In Our Name and other organizations. We’re supposed to pass out flyers about the February 20th National Day of Solidarity with Arabs, South Asians and Immigrants. As we start walking, masses of people start converging from 5th Avenue. Within minutes, we’ve lost sight of some of our people. "Shams, Roopa, where are they?" Trust the Bengalis to get lost already! The police are lined up in a huge cordon outside the Public Library, blocking the entrance. Why? The protestors are just meeting on the library steps because it’s a landmark. But the NYPD is conditioned to expect trouble-- their response is heavy-handed.

As we pass Lexington Avenue a huge crowd of people pour out of Grand Central Station. The city administration’s plan to corral the rally has already backfired. The city denied permission to march, citing some unfounded fear of terrorist action. A lawsuit was filed, but the judge sided with the police. Well, you can pass an injunction, but the march is happening anyway. After all, how are hundreds of thousands of people going to get to the rally in front of the UN? By the time we get to 2d Avenue, the masses of people are completely choking off the streets. Not only is it now a march, it has brought city traffic to a standstill.

2d Avenue and 42d Street, we are told to start walking uptown. A
police bullhorn announces that we have to walk to 72d Street before we can cross. A few people start grumbling. But others say, "Listen, this is even better. They make us walk to 72d Street, it’s totally like a march. We get our march after all." Its true, 2d Avenue is packed all the way up to 72d Street and beyond. People stretched for 30 blocks. Now we’re jam-packed like sardines. We keep pushing forward, but we move an inch a minute. Sometimes we don’t move at all.

People are hopping in place to stay warm. Radios come out, tuned to WBAI which is broadcasting live rally coverage. The speeches have begun. "Quiet, quiet," says someone, "Julian Bond is speaking." The words fill the air. We start to clap.

I give one friend a lift on my shoulders. She gets up and starts
yelling, "Oh my God, I can’t see the end of the march. There are
people as far as I can see!" We are about 20 in our group, but we keep losing each other. Even holding hands doesn’t work, the crowd keeps surging forward and we lose our grip. We decide to call out each other’s names if we get lost. But wait, we can’t use our real names.

What if there are FBI informants in the crowd? Ok, someone decides, we’ll call each other by food names. I decide to be "Aloo" (potato), my friend is "Baingan" (eggplant), and so on. The best names-- Chai, Saag, Bhel, Sambar, Iddly, Mole, and Roti-- are taken quickly. The stragglers get to be Spam and Corned Beef. Every time one of us gets lost, food names fill the air. This being New York, even the white people around us recognize the foods and smile. But the system breaks down after five minutes. We can’t remember who is what. Iddly keeps yelling "Where is Aloo?" even though I’m standing next to her. Finally we come up with a better system. Whenever we want everyone to come together, we’ll yell "Buffet."

Our group takes the lead in starting chants. The most popular one is "George Bush, corporate whore/We don’t want your oil war." Lots of people pick that up, seeming to enjoy the forbidden fruit of saying the word "whore" out loud. Sambar says, "Maybe we should switch to something else, after all there are kids in the audience." "Nonsense," says Baingan, "They should get the total experience." Around this time, we start noticing that a new chant has started, "Bush-it, bullshit." This one is actually led by two fresh-faced girls next to me. They can’t be older than 12! Their mother is with them, but doesn’t seem to mind. I lean over and ask if this is "legally sanctioned swearing." "It’s for a good cause," she says and smiles.

By the time we get up to 60th Street, all the old antiwar chants are
exhausted. We start making up new slogans, some with a reference to the INS Special registration program. We yell, "One Nation! No Registration!" But people get confused. Scarily, very few people actually know about the INS Special Registrations! Then Iddly comes up with a variation on the Mary J Blige song: "We don’t need no Hateration. Registration. Deportation. War on Nations." This is the cleverest chant anyone has come up with, but it’s too clever for the crowd. People try to pick it up, but they keep messing up the words. Back to simple chants! "I’m hungry," Says Sambar, "How about a new chant. Make Kababs, not War!" People around us are laughing, their spirits are high.

As the police keep telling us to take more detours, and walk further up, we do a chant based on the police action: "We’ll take a walk around the block/But we don’t want no war on Iraq." Saag is a musician and DJ. He has been quiet for a while, observing our fumbling attempts at chant-creation. Finally, he interrupts. "No, no! If you’re creating a chant, you have to get the rhythm right." Shaking his fingers in a 1-2-3 motion, he intones, "No No Registration/No No Deportation/No No, No Detentions/No More War." People are watching Saag’s training lessons intently. Without meaning to, we’ve been providing live entertainment for the groups of people around us. A moment of bonding with the larger crowd.

Finally, after what seems like hours, we are finally allowed to turn on to 1st Avenue. We’re excited. It’s almost 1:30 PM, and this is the first time we’ve set foot on the Avenue where the rally is. As we move forward on 1st Avenue, news is spreading through word of mouth. "The radio is saying it could be a Million people here in the streets." "Oh my God!" somebody yells, "They’re saying London had 2 Million people!" "What about Rome? Did you get numbers for Rome yet? Hey turn the radio up!" The few people with radios become the crowd’s lifeline to the outside world.

The police keep stopping us and breaking up the flow of the march. People are grumbling about either the NYPD or Mayor Bloomberg. He should watch out, I think to myself, otherwise he’ll become as unpopular as Guiliani was. A big burly guy starts a new chant: "Whose streets? Our Streets! Bloomberg’s streets...?" The crowd lustily yells back, "No!" Finally, we are 10 blocks from the stage. We can’t see anything, but there is a huge jumbotron TV screen that is carrying live broadcast of the rally. How did they manage that? Usually there are only ads for BMW and Coke up there. We stand next to loudspeakers on trucks, finally able to hear the speeches. Just in time to hear Angela Davis speak, followed by a Green party politician. Followed by...but by now we’ve moved forward and can’t hear the loudspeakers any
more.

Somebody points up. In a tall apartment building, someone has pasted a big white sign: "We support President Bush." Next to the sign, a woman is sitting inside her apartment and waving slowly to the crowd. "Come down here and say it," somebody yells. "There’s Millions of us, there’s one of you," somebody else says. But no one can get really worked up over her sign. As Baingan points out, "It must be really humiliating for her to sit up there, because she can really see how big the crowds are from up there." It’s true. The East Side of Manhattan is more conservative. But all along our path, people are opening their
windows and taking pictures, and holding out their cordless phones so their friends can hear the crowd roar. Even those who are not in the march can’t ignore the size and impact of the protest.

An hour passes. There’s no movement any more. Too many people crammed on 1st Avenue. We’re listening to the speeches and trying to stay warm. Around 4 PM, we decide we need to eat something. We’ve been outside for almost 5 hours without eating anything-- this is an invitation to get hypothermia. By sheer coincidence, there is a Baluchi’s Indian Restaurant on our block. I don’t really feel like Indian food, but the rest of the "Buffet" team (as we’re now calling ourselves) is very enthusiastic. "Come on," says Bhel, "We’ve been yelling out desi food names all day, we need to eat some too."

Once inside, everyone starts calling friends on cell phones, to see
where everyone is. On my voice-mail is a frantic call from a
Bangladeshi filmmaker Catherine Masud. I call her back-- she is livid.

The police attacked them on Lexington Avenue, and prevented "hundreds of thousands of people" from joining the march. She passes the phone to her Indian friend, who starts talking a mile a minute, "Where are you guys? Does anyone on 1st Avenue know what’s happening here?

They’re stopping people from joining the rally. We weren’t doing
anything, but they started attacking us with horses. I got pepper
sprayed in my face. My five-year old son almost got sprayed too. Why are they doing this?" Everyone is crowding around me now, wanting to know what happened. I give her the phone number for WBAI radio and tell her to call and tell them what’s going on. Spam has turned on the radio on his walkman-- WBAI is reporting the police attacks. We are stunned. Sure, it took us a long time to get here-- we’re cold, hungry and tired. But the police attacks we’re hearing about seem to be on a different planet, or certainly from another time. I’m transported back to the days of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond.

All over town, it’s the same story. Many of our friends were never
able to join the rally. The police kept blockading them until finally
they gave up. This will reduce the crowd count because the organizers will only be able to accurately count those on 1st Avenue. The table becomes quiet for a few minutes. But then the food arrives, and the Buffet team starts living up to its’ name. Excitedly passing around the food, we start talking about the spirit of the day. "A Million, do you really think it could be a Million?" "Well whatever CNN reports, multiply by 10; and whatever New York Times reports, multiply by 5. That’s the way it always is" "The vibe was just amazing out there!"

After a leisurely lunch, we don’t want to leave. Sambar jokes that she is suffering "separation anxiety": "I don’t want to leave you guys! I want to carry around the buzz for a while." People start saying goodbyes, hugs all around, and promises to stay in touch. As everyone walks out, the air is charged with the new possibilities.

Two days have passed. The New York Times, as if to atone for past sins, has given full-court press to the protests. Sunday’s papers carried an unprecedented two-page coverage and front-page stories on the protests. Monday’s front page calls it "A New Power on the Streets". The Indymedia.org website reports a global total of 11 Million people! My Italian friend Madda calls me up to tell me that Rome had 3 Million. Usman calls from London late at night--they had 1.5 Million, he was videotaping all day. Even CNN is forced to pay attention and run footage. Chai calls me up and says, "Hey we should all get together and have dinner. After all, we’re the new superpower."

In the midst of all this euphoria, Baingan sends me an Instant Message: "Can you believe, after all this, the EU is saying they’ll support the US? It’s all economics. They need the US economically, so they don’t dare defy the White House." Yes,it’s important to get that reality check before I float away on cloud nine. The system can be very resilient, it can co-opt and neutralize dissent. In spite of a groundswell of public opinion, the US may still invade Iraq. Bush’s gamble will be that opposition will disappear if the war is fought and won quickly. That’s the lesson of Vietnam-- international wars can only be fought if American GIs don’t come home in body bags.

But even if the global antiwar movement fails to stop the war, the
infrastructure and movement that is being created in this moment will have seismic impact in the future. After the unprecedented Seattle anti-globalization protests, many thought the WTO would be brought to its knees. Some changes happened, but many others did not. But something very permanent came about. The Seattle moment gave birth to thousands of grass roots movements and injected energy into existing campaigns.

From Attac (France) to Rete di Lilliput (Italy) to the World Social
Forum, powerful organizations have sprung up to challenge
multinationals, global financial and trade institutions and
governments. These movements have not just blocked regressive social and economic policy, they have successfully enacted their own alternative solutions-- from organic food choices to cheaper HIV drugs, the results can be seen today in many parts of the world. A new set of leaders have become symbols for the global movement for social justice and economic equality-- from Jose Bove in France to Arundhati Roy in India, Naomi Klein in Canada and Farhad Mazhar in Bangladesh. New theoretical frameworks are being explained in books like "Fences & Borders", "Clash of Fundamentalisms" and "Empire." Even high priests like Joseph Stieglitz have quit the World Bank and turned on their former masters in books like "Globalization & its Discontents."

All of these many strands of resistance can trace their roots back to that moment of euphoria where millions of people looked at the Battle in Seattle and realized they were not alone. The anti-globalization movement helped to build today’s antiwar movement. Because of the infrastructure of worldwide grassroots connections, especially the use of the Internet as a powerful organizing tool, activists were able to bring 11 Million people into the global streets on February 15th. Now, there is no such thing as an "American protest" or a "European protest". Each grassroots movement finds allies in far-flung corners of the globe.

It is often said that today’s protests are the largest since the
Vietnam war. What is not pointed out is that it took almost 6 years of continued war in Vietnam, and thousands of American casualties, before protest reached those levels. Today, protestors have matched that level of fervor before the war has started. Our antiwar moment has come close to bringing a giant to its knees. Even if we do not succeed this time with Iraq, the human connections that are being made in this moment will be a powerful force for positive change in the future.