Think pink
Since US President George W Bush made war against Iraq his primary objective late last year, nearly every major American city, and dozens of small towns, have witnessed anti-war rallies that have seen the participation of hundreds of thousands of people in total. But perhaps no group has been more earnest than "Code Pink for Peace", an anti-war coalition led by a group of women hailing from a myriad of backgrounds, reports Khaled Dawoud in Washington.
For the past five months, small groups of Code Pink members have been holding a daily vigil in front of the White House to protest the war. Any pedestrian walking along the now heavily guarded Pennsylvania Avenue cannot but notice these women dressed in pink, beating drums, distributing leaflets and asking people to sign petitions opposing the war.
On Saturday, the streets in downtown Washington were awash in pink when the group organised its largest rally. Nearly 10,000 people, most of them women, marched to protest the war and mark International Women's Day. The group's name is a play on the US government's colour-coded terror alert system, which has vacillated between "red" (the highest level) and the remaining colours in the scale (orange, yellow, blue and green) since the 11 September attacks in New York and Washington. US authorities recently lowered the alert level from "orange" to "yellow" after the threats of a possible attack by Al-Qa'eda receded.
A lively colour like pink, maintain group members, stands for peace and justice. "They say 'Code Red'. We say 'Code Pink'," protesters chanted at a rally before the march at the Malcolm X Park in north-west DC. The rally was dominated by a festive mood, with most women dressed in pink, carrying pink balloons and raising pink banners. Prominent novelist Alice Walker, Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams, novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, nuclear disarmament activist Helen Caldicott and singer Michelle Shocked were among scores of speakers. Later, they were all briefly arrested as part of a group of 25 women who refused police orders to move and end their sit-in in front of the White House.
"The best substitute for war is intelligence," said Walker. "We have hearts that believe we don't have to murder to change the people's mind," she added. Novelist Maxine Hong Kingston said, "the United Nations is a feminist ideal to save generations from war that brought sorrow to mankind. Chant what women chanted for thousands of years: bring the troops back home."
Medea Benjamin, a founding member of the group who visited Baghdad recently, addressed the crowd saying that although the group did not support Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, "We don't want to show the world the ferocity of our bombs. We want to show the world our humanity and kindness." Benjamin provoked a strong response from the crowd when she referred to Pentagon reports saying that at least 3,000 heavy bombs and missiles will hit the Iraqi capital in the first 48 hours of the US campaign in an effort to prompt a quick surrender by the Iraqi army. "These bombs will kill Iraqi women and children. We should love the world's children as though they were our own."
Women of African, Chinese, Latino and Arab origin were also among the speakers who declared their opposition to war. Two students, members of "Students for Peace and Justice", told the crowd about their experience in organising a walkout a few days earlier also to announce their stand against the likely war.
When the march started, children were in the front row chanting, "We may be small, we may be young, but we won't stop till peace is done!" and "Money for books, not for bombs." A group of older women on board a truck under the banner of "Raging Grannies" from Rochester, New York, declared: "Bush is telling stories, but we won't go along." Others chanted, "One two, three, four, we won't fight your daddy's war" -- a reference to claims that Bush's real aim is to avenge an alleged Iraqi assassination attempt on his father, former President George Bush, during a visit to Kuwait in 1992.
