On the 6th anniversary of the US occupation in Iraq, people took to the streets across the country to protest injustice in many forms. Photo by Michael Parks, The Huffington Post.

The past weekend marked the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. As they’ve done the past few years, protesters across the country came out with signs, banners and chants to tell the administration they are against the war in Iraq.

About 10,000 anti-war demonstrators in Washington D.C. marched from the Washington Mall to the Pentagon. But even those not at the heart of the nation’s military headquarters stood tall March 19-21 in cities stretching from California to the Great Lakes to the South.

Most rallies addressed more than indignation with the situation in Iraq. Protesters called for an end to troops in Afghanistan and US’ support of Israel. Some events expressed solidarity with oppressed peoples in Africa and Latin America.

Tying in the current economic crisis, many of the demonstrations connected the US wars to the government’s lack of spending and attention on domestic issues. People marched to fund jobs, working families and health care.

This article gives a good run-down of the various events.

People across the country have recognized the dire situation in Afghanistan - and are calling for people to take action.

A country that’s been ravaged by international forces, terrorist regimes and inter-tribal conflict has been on the forefront of people’s minds across the United States. From talks in Washington D.C., to a lecture in Lincoln and then to a call-to-action for students in Connecticut, many are refusing to let the situation in Afghanistan be ignored.

President Obama announced this week that the United States is losing the war in Afghanistan. He is exploring different strategies, primarily within the military, to use in the region during the upcoming months.

Amid the whirlwind of this talk in nation’s capitol, Lincoln residents had the opportunity to listen to one women’s personal proposal for Afghanistan policy. Reporter-turned-activist Sarah Chayes spoke at the Lied Center as part of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues on Wednesday.

Sarah Chayes spoke at University of Nebraska-Lincoln's E.N. Thompson Forum. The reporter-turned-activist talked about life in Afghanistan.

Chayes investigated and broadcast the fall of the Taliban for National Public Radio in 2001. After a year, she left the sidelines – where, as a journalist, she was forced to remain – and jumped head first into the chaos that was post-Taliban Afghanistan. For the last seven years she has worked as an activist in the country.

Describing herself as an idealist, she talked about what needs to be done inside the country’s borders to give its people economic, political and psychological freedom. She also put forward her ideas on what Washington D.C., must do to stabilize this war-torn region.

Whatever your own ideologies lead you to believe, it is nearly impossible to argue with one point she strove to drive home: Afghanistan’s development in the next few years will have far-reaching and profound effects on the entire world for the remainder of the 21 century.

For this reason, we should all fight for its prosperity, she said.

This idea is surfacing nationwide and taking hold in the form of student activism. At Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., Muslim civil rights leader Imam Mahdi Bray encouraged students to take on the injustices of the Muslim community. He told the audience that students have always been the leaders of progress and change, according to an article in the school’s newspaper. “Students really have to be vigilant about Afghanistan and they should start now,” Bray said.

Nearly 100 Lincoln and Omaha residents marched through downtown Lincoln Saturday to commemorate lives lost in recent Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza violence. Photos by Patrick Jones.

They walked in silence. Some bowed their heads, some held chins high. They all wore black clothes and white masks.

A piece of cardboard hung around their necks with the name and age of an innocent victim from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza. A banner with death totals from these three regions led the group of activists who marched through downtown Lincoln Saturday in recognition of the individuals who have recently died.

It was a peaceful protest against lives lost and the United States’ role in each of the conflicts. The students and community members paused for each stoplight, turning to face the passing traffic.

Nebraskans for Peace, the Palestinian Rights Task Force and Sisters of Mercy planned the event, which mirrored similar demonstrations held recently in cities such as Washington D.C., and Philadelphia.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln professors and community members spoke before and after the march about the wars and how Nebraska citizens can tell local lawmakers they oppose state support of the conflicts.

The marchers turned plenty of heads during the afternoon walk but met no confrontation from passer-bys or the police.

Sometimes it’s an accident, sometimes it’s in self defense. Sometimes governments have more sinister motives but use these excuses. This is what some people are charging the Greek government of doing recently.

Sometimes it takes governments 25 years of legal hee-hawing and planning to kill someone. This is what some people are charging the state of Nebraska of doing, in the form of the death penalty.

Debate and activism erupted this week in Nebraska and around the world in response to the government’s idea of murder.

About 200 activists joined Nebraska lawmakers Thursday for the Judiciary Committee’s hearing on two bills, one to adopt lethal injection for state executions and one to completely abolish the death penalty. In a show of solidarity, the advocates against state execution wore white to the hearing, and their ages ranged from college students to senior citizens. Three retired women said they had protested the death penalty at the Capitol every Monday for the past 30 years.

While I wished the number of death-penalty opponents would have been larger, I was glad to see that at least some attend the nearly five-hour hearing, and the passion of these individuals should be anything but downplayed. However, no Nebraska newspaper mentioned the activists at the hearing, even though they filled both the hearing room and an overflow room. Neither did any AP story I saw.

In Greece, citizens accused the government of shooting one of their own police officers and blaming it on the unruly young anarchists the administration has rammed heads with recently.

Word on the street, or rather, word on a large collection of blogs, says the government arranged the shooting, which was not deadly, in an effort to appease those who were still angry about the December incident where a police shooting shot and killed a teenager. News websites have since reported that a left-wing military group shot the police officer.

Many still believe the shooting was staged by the administration, which has been accused of executing similar tactics in the past. A Greek history and politics professor told me this.

Response to state-sponsored killing in Greece has garnered following across the globe.

Some groups in the United Kingdom don’t buy what the major news organizations have reported, either. A blog dedicated to the Greek riots advertises several solidarity and revolt events taking place across the UK in connection to the situation in Greece.

Baton Rouge citizens will have the opportunity to examine activism in an unusual manner the next three months. The Baton Rouge Gallery’s upcoming video art program links the term terrorism to all reformists groups in a surprising, but illustrative, look at activist strategy.

The series of video art, titled, “Subversion: Anarchy, Art & Activism,” focuses on the social and political action taken by radical individuals and organizations during the last 50 years.

I suppose the above statement can be considered the definition of terrorism. However, the films and documentaries that will be on display will not be featuring terrorists in today’s sense of the word. Contrary to the image “terrorist” generally invokes, the protagonists will not be Islamic fundamentalists, but young, passionate individuals from Western society.

The production profiles a wide variety of activist affairs, ranging from the 1969 Chicago riots against the Vietnam War to the anarchist movement during the 2001 G-8 Summit.

The goal of the art project is to analyze plans to subvert culture norms, coercing society to abandon current political or social thought process, the gallery’s Web site said.

But the tactics used by these radical groups can be classified as terrorist activity, according to the site.

Call the actions what you want, but the Baton Rouge Gallery’s ambition to give an in-depth look at the motives, goals and reasons activists use is laudable.

http://www.batonrougegallery.org/pages/movies_music.html

]]> http://cassiefleming.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/activism-and-terrorism-one-in-the-same/feed/ 0 cassiefleming flatscape_frnt_mechcopy_0001 flatscape http://cassiefleming.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/violence-and-activism/ http://cassiefleming.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/violence-and-activism/#comments Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:39:29 +0000 cassiefleming http://cassiefleming.wordpress.com/?p=17 ]]> Buildings at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln suffered a small bout of vandalism during winter vacation. Someone, or an unknown group, throw bricks through windows at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and the Lied Center for Performing Arts, according to a Daily Nebraskan article.

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/vandals_shatter_windows_at_lied_center%252C_sheldon

This event has nothing to do with activism. Or violence. Or the First Amendment. I don’t think it does, anyway. It seems these acts were simply senseless, bone-headed acts of vandalism committed by someone walking through the university after the bars had closed. Maybe they were committed with an intention of making a point. I doubt it.

However, the vandalism brought to my attention recent conversations and activities that have occurred around the world, the country and in Lincoln that highlight violence as a means of activism. Although this is not, by any means, a new topic, it is one that continually proves to be relevant.

As I strolled by the boarded up windows on campus the days following the vandalism incident, I thought about other boarded up windows I’d seen recently.

The wooden panels reminded me of buildings I saw in Greece one month ago.

Mass protests erupted in nearly dozens of cities across Greece after an Athens police officer shot a teenage boy on December 6.

What began as outrage over the young man’s death evolved into the worst civil unrest the country has seen in decades, according to a New York Times article. For weeks, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, throwing rocks and home-made bombs through windows and at police and setting buildings, cars and trash bins on fire.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/europe/08greece.html?ref=world

As I talked with some of these rioters, the motivations for protesting varied. Some said they wanted revenge for the dead teenager: an eye for an eye. Others said they were using this high-profile opportunity to demand much-needed changes from the Greek government.

Protesters in Oakland, Calif., last week similarly destroyed buildings and set cars on fire. This violence began at a peaceful demonstration after – similarly – a transit system police officer shot a 22-year-old man, according to a New York Times article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/09/us/09oakland.html

Small protests over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have taken place in downtown Lincoln this week. However, the students and community members who peacefully held signs on street corners did not garner much attention.

As these protesters talked about ways to make the community more aware of their cause, one young man joked that he could set a car on fire.

Jokes aside, the merging of violence and activism is not an unusual phenomenon. The constitutionality, effectiveness and morality of such tactics stump me, but I hope to look further into these issues and examples in the next few weeks.