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Pupils walk out over war

Staff and agencies
Wednesday March 5, 2003


Young anti-war protestors make their voices heard outside Downing Street


Hundreds of pupils today walked out of their lessons to join anti-war demonstrations around the country, while a headteacher defended his decision to suspend two students for encouraging their peers to join the protests.
Schoolchildren in the south-east took their protest to the heart of government with a noisy rally outside parliament, moving on to Downing Street, where a handful of demonstrators tried to climb the security gates at the entrance to the street.

Police dragged them away and kept other protesters behind barricades on the opposite pavement.

Police in Cambridge made three arrests as hundreds of students staged a peace protest in the city centre. They said two 16-year-old boys and a 17-year-old girl had been arrested on suspicion of public order offences.

The police said the protesters - who were mainly students from sixth form colleges - had staged their demonstration in a peaceful manner.

Meanwhile a headteacher today defended a decision to suspend two sixth-form students who tried to organise a contingent of fellow pupils to join the nationwide anti-war protests.

The two 16-year-old boys, who attend Prince Henry's grammar school, in Otley, near Leeds, were asked to leave the premises yesterday afternoon after attempting to drum up support among younger pupils for today's anti-war student walkout being staged across the country.

Headteacher John Steel confirmed that the pair had been sent home for inciting other students, some of them aged 11, to walk out of school in protest at a war against Iraq and the situation of Palestinians in Israel.

He said: "Prince Henry's grammar school has a legal duty of care to its 1,360 students, and we must ensure the health and safety of our students during the school day.

"The school cannot advocate or legitimise actions that could put students at risk, and prevent us from exercising our responsibilities.

"We value the conviction of the two students concerned, and respect the views of all members of our school community, but we cannot sanction protests during the school day when students should be in lessons," he said.

Mr Steel claimed that by suspending the two students from school they were being dealt with in accordance with the school's standard behaviour policy and a meeting with the students and their parents would be held in due course to discuss the situation.

Sachin Sharma, one of the suspended students, told BBC Look North: "The majority of our school does not have democratic rights at all.

"They have no means by which to express themselves, they do not have a voice in real terms ... so the only way that we can as minors express ourselves is through demonstration, through protesting."

The campaigning comedian Mark Thomas today led a group of anti-war protesters who dumped seven sacks of dung outside the Labour party's London headquarters. The group of around five people drew up outside the party's new offices in Old Queen Street, Westminster, just before the morning rush hour, and started heaping fertiliser on the steps outside.

Mr Thomas, who has been involved in a number of protests in the past, told a camera crew at the scene: "This is what the people of Britain think of the second UN resolution, which despite the government's claims, does not specifically call for war on Iraq." The group left shortly afterwards, as police arrived at the scene.

The blue van carrying the dung and protesters made it to the security-sensitive Westminster HQ without being challenged.


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EducationGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/magazine/09ANTIWAR.html?ex=1048235039&ei=1&en=1a34a161298735fa

www.moveon.org

I suppose that depends on what the students failed to learn while they were out protesting.

<ahem>

On the west coast of the US there is a growing presence of Women in Black. I participated myself recently by standing for an hour with them in front of our county courthouse.

The numbers aren't large, anywhere from 30 to 150 or so, but then these are small towns in my area. There were about 40 women the day and place I joined them.

Most people drive on by. Perhaps 15 percent of the cars or trucks toot their horns in appreciation. A small number of people scream obscenities and wave fists as they pass.... but keep on going. In the hour I was there that happened four or five times. In my short experience with this, the vocally irate people have been males in trucks. But lots of the people who beeped in accord were males in trucks too.

This has been going on for months now and I just stepped up to the plate this last week. The numbers and places it is happening seems to be growing, according to local newpaper reports.

Here is a general link to the Women in Black as seen in the UK.
http://www.chorley2.demon.co.uk/wib.html

Indonesian peace/prayer really - 10th March:

March 10, 2003
Indonesia's Muslims pray for peace

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Over 500,000 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) followers turned out at the parade ground inside the Brawijaya Military Command headquarters in Surabaya on Sunday for the largest rally so far in the country against a possible United States attack on Iraq.

Apart from praying for an end to the country's worsening political situation in the face of the 2004 general election, the NU condemned the U.S-led campaign for a military invasion to disarm Iraq, Antara reported.

"It is the UN that is vested with the authority to impose sanctions against a particular country accused of violating a Security Council resolution, not the U.S.," the NU said in a statement read out by influential NU cleric Fachruddin Masturo.

Boasting 45 million supporters making it the largest Muslim organization in the country, the NU demanded that the U.S. wait for a U.N. decision on whether or not Iraq deserved to be sanctioned for possessing weapons of mass destruction.

"Should the U.S. insist on launching a military invasion of Iraq despite the fact that the latter has begun destroying its missiles, who then will be to blame for violating the U.N. resolution, the Iraqis or the U.S.?" asked Fachruddin, who is also the deputy chairman of the NU's Syuriah law-making board.

Among those attending the mass prayer were Minister of Religious Affairs Said Agil Husin Al Munawar, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda, Minister of Defense Matori Abdul Djalil and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu. NU chairman Hasyim Muzadi, former president Abdurrahaman Wahid, National Awakening Party (PKB) chairman Alwi Shihab and former minister of defense Mahfud MD were also present.

"Our rejection of a U.S. invasion (of Iraq) should be seen as part of our efforts to respect humanitarian values, as well as to promote justice and to maintain the world order rather than as support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein," Fachruddin said.

The Sunday mass prayer meeting was the fifth and the largest ever to have been held by NU. The first public gathering was organized in 1997, months before the economic crisis hit the country.

The previous mass prayer was held in April 2001, only three months before Abdurrahman was ousted from the presidency.

The NU and the country's second largest Muslim group, Muhamadiyah, are both regarded as moderate and to be representative of the true face of the country's Muslims.

Washington invited NU chairman Hasyim and Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif for a visit in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. so as to seek their help in the global war on terrorism.

In Yogyakarta, Sjafii called on religious adherents to continue voicing their rejection of the U.S and its allies' threats of the use of force to disarm Iraq for fear that such an attack would harm interfaith relations around the world.

"As religious followers, people all around the world should not be divided due to certain political goals. We must be united and avoid provocation by these kind of greedy politicians," Sjafii said as quoted by Antara.

Both Hasyim and Sjafii were among a group of Indonesian religious leaders who met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican recently to voice their support for world peace.

Separately, hundreds of Muslim worshipers from greater Jakarta held a gathering at the Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Central Jakarta to listen to a sermon by noted Bandung-based Muslim preacher Abdullah "Aa Gym" Gymnastiar, the head of the Daarut Tauhid Islamic boarding school in West Java. During his address, Aa Gym opposed the possible U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq on the grounds that "any attack would only cause suffering to the Iraqi people and children".

After the Sunday sermon, Aa Gym, carrying his son, and hundreds of other Muslims, traveled to the U.S. embassy to hand over a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush. In his letter he warned the President of a further loss of credibility in the eyes of the international community should he continue to insist on forcibly disarming Iraq.

It is 5 p.m. on a Friday. For the next three hours, 175 or so Houstonians will stand amid the Mecom Fountain's splendor at the intersection of Main and Montrose to hold candles and signs in protest of the impending war with Iraq.

The vigil actually began spontaneously on Oct. 10, the day Congress voted to give President Bush broad authority to use force against Saddam Hussein. About a dozen members of Houston Coalition for Justice not War met near Miller Theater in Hermann Park, but they were drowned out by the noise of a concert under way.

They walked past Mecom Fountain, which they immediately deemed a good place for a vigil. They returned a couple of weeks later and have met there on Friday nights ever since. The crowd has grown to a consistent group of as many as 200 people.

Rick Rubottom, 57 and an engineer by profession, hasn't taken to the streets since the Vietnam War protests. "I just feel true sadness that we're doing it again," Rubottom says. "Involving ourselves in an underdeveloped country for what we rationalize as justifiable reasons."

The fountain was a gift to the city in 1964 from Houston oil magnate John W. Mecom Sr. Now those at the fountain carry placards that read "No Blood for Oil." These Houstonians from diverse backgrounds enjoy a sense of solidarity as traffic roars past. Away from the fountain, they are solitary figures in a city not known for activism. They are often quiet about their views, especially at their jobs.

Tania Levy, 52, made her first trip to the vigil last Friday, the day Britain submitted a United States-backed proposal to the United Nations that calls for Iraq to disarm by Monday -- or else. "I'm so upset, I can't sleep at night," Levy says. "It (concern) dragged me out of the house."

"There's no proof that Saddam Hussein is connected to the World Trade Center," Levy says emphatically, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks. "I don't know how President Bush had to jump from looking for terrorists to Saddam Hussein. He should be concentrating on North Korea."

Motorists honk, wave and flash the peace sign more often than show any overt disagreement. Occasionally, though, someone yells, "Bomb Iraq."

"A lot of people are sympathetic, but they don't make the connection between the war for petroleum and the vehicle they're driving," says Charles Perez, 52, who rides a bicycle to his job at Whole Foods and to the vigil, but who also owns a car. "I'm not trying to be fanatical and say everyone should ride bicycles," Perez says. "But we seriously have to devote some brain power to the efficiency of our daily lifestyle and the use of fossil fuels."

"We're trying to encourage people to think freely -- to use their own critical faculties to make a decision. To insinuate that anyone who opposes the war is un-American, we have a right and an obligation to question."

Nebeil Aloboudi, 51, holds an American flag and a sign that reads "Support Our Troops, Bring them Home." Born in Chicago to an American mother and Iraqi father, Aloboudi lived in his father's homeland from age 3 to 24. He hopes to soon return to Iraq. A construction contractor with a political science degree, Aloboudi contends Bush has sabotaged diplomacy.

"We ask for a simple thing -- no pre-emptive strike," Aloboudi says. "It's wrong to attack a country; it's illegal. What are we teaching our children?"

Standing near Aloboudi are several counter-protesters who support Bush and the more than 200,000 U.S. troops assembled in the Persian Gulf region.

Doug Dixson, 55, protested against the Vietnam War but his politics shifted as he aged, he says. Dixson argues that a war with Iraq would be about removing a dangerous dictator from power, not about oil. "You know 9/11 changed everything," he says. A member of the conservative organization, Free Republic, Dixson was among the estimated 10,000 people who attended a KPRC rally in downtown Houston last week for Bush's stand against Saddam.

Among those gathered are women who belong to newly formed mothers' groups. Last month, 32-year-old Rosa Maria Guerrero formed Mamas Brigade to protest war without organized meetings.

Guerrero, a paralegal, had been active with the coalition when it formed just after the Sept. 11 attacks. She has established the Web site Mamabrigade.org to encourage Houston moms to attend local peace activities. "This is about as earthy and pragmatic a group as one can find," Guerrero said. "It's nonpartisan. Everybody can associate with (a mother's group.)"

Carol Denson, 38, has attended the Mecom Fountain vigil several times with son Ethan, 4, who holds a handmade sign that says "Stop War." Denson is a member of Mothers for Global Peace.

"I think there's something about being a mother. I feel more of a responsibility not only for my own life, but also for my child's life," says Denson, a teacher in the Writers in the Schools program. "I want him to live in a peaceful world, and I feel an obligation to work for that peaceful world."

Houston Chronicle

PDiddie

there is so much wrong with this picture that I don't even want to start the list

I will participate in a peace vigil I heard of through MoveOn, which was started by a religious organization headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

It will take place at the Friendship Fountain in Jacksonville, FL tomorrow at 7:00pm. Participants will stand quietly holding candles.

The local organizer emailed us with the amazing news that Archbishop Tutu called him to wish him luck. An inspiration to all of us that he would call a rather small vigil which might be under 100 people.

I just love the ridiculous notion that, if one is against particular policies or actions of a government or country, then you HATE that country, you want its destruction etc etc. What utterly specious logic!

Amongst the demonstraters there will doubtless be, human diversity being what it is, numbers who DO believe they hate the US (whatever that means - it strikes me as being as stupid to say one hates an entire country as it is to say you love it - for the haters, do you hate every single human - do you hate the babies, the animals, the lovers, the artists, the old people? For the lovers, do you love the polluted rivers, the civic corruption, the sadistic abusers, the pesticides?) - just as there will be many who are generally patriotic, or if overseas, friendly and admiring of aspects of the US.

Dlowan -- I was recounting in another thread an experience today listening to a talk radio program in which every caller, no exceptions, agreed that "god blesses America," and that "god endorses the war." The thinking that produces this is responsible for the black/white, good/evil, for us/against us thinking. That's what fundamentalism is, whether it be Islamic fundamentalism (far from real Islam) or Christian fundamentalism (far from real Christianity). These are people who have found an excuse for bestiality, and like to believe that god blesses it -- they being, of course, the only ones who know their god and who can report god's wishes to the rest of us...

I should have added that the psychology of this, it seems to me, is very close to isolated children who develop imaginary friends and paranoid schizophrenics who are directed by inner voices.

Yes, well, god must be awful busy rushin' round, being on everybody's side, as he appears to be. Seems like being omniscient makes it awful hard to make up your mind!

I confess, when I hear the words "God is on our side" I tremble and get very worried.

I must say that when I have been in a group of protesters where it was against a war, ecology or some other "left wing" matter I have seen participants that I wouldn't want to be associated with. Their beliefs are violent and their actions are crude.

Then again, I've grouped with, at times, rallies that would be considered "right wing" and I must admit that I have found a few participants that were level headed, considerate and very thoughtful -

Go figure!

(Earlier photo edited due to bandwidth considerations)

Whew! Don't know how to follow that, PDiddie!

But I was interested to read somewhere yesterday (read a lot yesterday, can't remember the source, sorry!) that some feel that the peace protests should not just be about stopping the war but about stopping Bush -- quite specifically -- and that the Democratic party should be involved. My reaction was to think, I agree an opportunity may be lost here. What do you think? Should the peace protesters now evolve into something which (and this is sense of what I heard) targets our internal, as well as international, situation?

Tartarin---YES. This war seems inevitable, but the protests should continue, stronger than ever.

Targeting Bush and our internal situation is vital as those are where this whole mess started. And the Democratic party had better get involved if they have any hope of removing the 'gutless wonder' sign thy've been wearing on their backs.

Diane:

I agree--but we need to be CAREFUL, and that there needs to be more invoilvment from the Demos.

Or at least getting the Demos to listen to the "True Democrats"(Dean, Kucinich, Lee[both of them], Saunders, etc).

As I said--I'll be elaborating on this later.

I don't honestly think the Democratic Party "belongs" anymore to us. If you look at the New Democrats and Terry McAuliffe, their personal and political goals, I'd say they're out to become the cynical, rich cousins of old-fashioned centrist Republicans.