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A Pacifist's Diary: November 15, 2001
Ottawa, Nov. 15, 2001
Today our newly printed T-Shirts and sweat shirts arrived. Under the bold heading,
"101 Alternatives to Bombing", the list of 101 positive acts, illustrated
by graphic artist D.P. Morin, are even better than I imagined. The shirts are a fund
raiser for Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada. We will sell them at the teach-in at St.
Matthew's Anglican Friday night and on Saturday.
At 6:00 p.m., we held our regular third-Thursday meeting of Nonviolent Peaceforce
Canada. To prepare for the peaceful march on Saturday, November 17 at the G-20, Ottawa/Outaouais
members made a banner. We created a white banner with blue letters that say "Build
a Nonviolent Peaceforce", with two doves on the end. (Thanks to kindergarten
teacher Nancy Lauder of the Unitarian Congregation of Ottawa for her instructions
on how to make a banner!)
We shared bread, soup, eggplant and apple pie, and brainstormed ideas for our Spring
2002 training series. We have booked the first Saturday afternoon at the Quaker Meeting
House in Ottawa from Feb. 2 to June 1. The group contributed a list of ideas for
topics, including Speaking for Social Change, Videography for Peace, Pacifist movements
and defensive Aikido, Clowning, Photography for Peace / Photography in a War Zone,
Everyday Nonviolent Intervention, Peace Guides or Peace Marshalls at Demonstrations.
Members suggested resource people for each of the sessions. The Projects Committee
of Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada (Mary Girard, Sybil Grace, Renee Martyna and Carl
Stieren) will take the list and make the final decisions, which will then be put
before the Co-ordinating Committee for approval.
Our spirit were lifted by good news: Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada has been given
the Civil Society Award for 2001 by the Canadian Centres for Teaching Peace. Last
year's winner of this award was Mennonite Central Committee. You can read about the
award at http://www.peace.ca/peaceawards.htm
More good news: we found a location our annual retreat that only costs $78 per person
for two overnights and all meals! The dates are January 18 to 20 and the place is
Gracefield Camp and Conference Centre, 91 km north of Ottawa in Gracefield, Quebec.
The retreat will again allow members and supporters of Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada
to rub elbows and share meals with the international Interim Steering Committee of
Nonviolent Peaceforce. The ISC will be holding separate meetings at the same time,
and we will share evening events. The ISC members will be coming from Thailand, Guatemala,
the UK, Germany, Holland, India and the USA. The co-authors of the proposal for a
Nonviolent Peaceforce, Mel Duncan of St. Paul, Minnesota USA, and David Hartsough
of San Francisco, California, USA will also be there.
We left the meeting with our new T-shirts and sweat shirts and ready to speak up
for peace and to model behaviour for nonviolence at the weekend events.
A Pacifist's Diary: November 16, 2001
Ottawa, Nov. 16, 2001
Today I stayed at work until 5:30, so I didn't get to attend the march and vigil
at the Human Rights Monument on Elgin Street (on Friday the 16th). At work, colleagues
told me that a someone had broken the windows in the McDonalds on Rideau Street (the
other side of the G-20 meeting place from the monument). "Was that a comment
on its menu?" asked one co-worker. (At the church that night, J., a regular
attender at the Ottawa Quaker meeting, told me that she and her friends had been
tear gassed at the monument by police, even though NO act of violence or threat could
be found by any of the protesters who looked around and asked for any evidence of
such a threat.)
When I arrived at St. Matthew's Anglican Church at Bank and First for the Teach-in,
the church was crowded. There were 300 there and numbers grew to 400. We sold $400
worth of T-Shirts and sweatshirts with the text "101 Alternatives to Bombing".
At the Teach-In, Steve Hellinger of Development GAP, USA, told us how he and his
colleagues had persuaded the then-president of the World Bank to work with them to
study the effects of globalization in 10 countries. In the end, they only studied
8 because Mexico and the Philippines wouldn't let them in. The results of their study
were damning: since the 1970s, the poorest fifth of the population (in the US?) got
a 11 per cent smaller share of the GNP, while the richest fifth's share increased
by more than that amount. Everywhere they studied, developing countries suffered
from globalization. They also collected quotes from the IMF, the World Bank, and
the CIA admitting that globalization did not help the poor.
Another speaker, Oronto Douglas from Nigeria, told of the suffering of his father,
a 70-year-old fisher, who could not fish any more because of the pollution that multinationals
dumped in the waters of Nigeria
But it was Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians who stole the show. She told
of her witness of the WTO meeting in Qatar which she and fewer than 400 NGO representatives
attended ("You have to understand that they consider the Business Council on
National Issues an NGO," she said. The numbers of civil society NGOs were a
faction of that 400.)
"We came in to the session with tape over our mouths," she said. "Later,
authorities told us that if it hadn't been a WTO meeting, we would have been arrested
for that act."
At Quatar, she said the deal being brokered would put Canada's water on the table
and would abolish any non-monetary barriers to environmental services. "This
is just where we NEED those non-monetary restrictions for hazardous environmental
waste, and for nuclear waste," she pleaded. She confronted Canadian Trade Minister
Sergio Marchi with this deal and showed it to him. "It was clear from the look
on his face that he hadn't seen this document, being signed in the other room,"
she said.
One of the speakers, ANtonia Juhasz, from the International Forum on Globalization
in the USA, came up to me afterwards while I was selling T-shirts and admired the
shirt design (thanks to graphic artist D.P. Morin of Ottawa for his generosity!).
She also said that the Development GAP website was the site they used for the most
detailed, authoritative critiques on globalization.
Ninety per cent of those there were mainstream people - members of churches and mosques,
and a LOT of young people. "One of the things that most bugs the World Bank
is that we have the youths and they don't," Steve Hellinger added.
Yes, the Trotskyists were also there - and I was handed an interesting document -
a 28-page booklet titled "An Anarchist Critique of the Global Economy"
... with academic sources listed (no footnotes, though).
There were a lot of people I knew from local churches, peace groups, development
NGOs. From the Nonviolent Peaceforce, Sybil Grace, Pam FitzGerald and Renee Martyna
were there.
Just now I heard another two friends, Jan and Ria Heynen (Ria is a former attender
at Ottawa Friends meeting who now goes to the Unitarian Church) speaking on CBC Radio
in Ottawa about how they had been tear gassed at the Human Rights Monument yesterday
- corroborating the story from J. earlier).
Well, it's 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, and I HAVE to leave now to get to the house of
a staffer of one of the NGOs who agreed to have their names mentioned on the "101
Alternatives to Bombing" before the rally - she ordered a bunch of shirts!
A Pacifist's Diary: November 17, 2001
Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 17, 2001
I and other Quakers, plus members of Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada, set off for the peaceful march - the one that a number of Ottawa Quakers had worked so hard to KEEP peaceful - against the protests of those demonstrators from groups who argued for "a diversity of tactics" (code words for "violence is OK if we say it is").
At 9:00 a.m., between 2,000 and 3,000 demonstrators turned out at LeBreton Flats at Scott and Booth - a huge wasteland where "urban renewal" decades ago had destroyed a working-class neighbourhood. Nothing has been built there since. Just recently, the Canadian War Museum announced that it would build its new museum there.
At the rally before the march, we members of Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada sold our T-shirts and sweatshirts with "101 Alternatives to Bombing" and unfurled our new white-and-blue banner that says "Build a Nonviolent Peaceforce".
We were there to support the right to free speech and freedom of assembly - basic human rights. We had no idea that we would act as a peace team or stand between police and demonstrators. But that indeed was what happened.
When we started the march, Ontario Provincial Police were standing in the road, but not forming a barrier. We walked between them, a truly scary experience, considering that they had face shields and plastic shields and bandoliers of what may have been tear gas or plastic bullets - I couldn't tell for sure.
The demonstration itself was wonderful - people dressed with fairy wings and tutus to be playful and to de-escalate the situation, signs that said "People not profits - drop debt not bombs", "Pour une gouvernement anti-guerre". There were mostly brightly coloured and most were hand-made.
Margaret Clare Ford (who is also Co-Clerk of Canadian Friends Service Committee) looked even more beautiful than usual in her Quaker gray dress and cape, decorated with flowers, and a floral scarf and hat. Margaret Fell would have approved. Margaret Clare Ford carried a tapestry sign that said, "The earth is kind - share its wealth" and "We all need bread and roses". It had a loaf of bread encircled by roses in its centre.
I found myself holding hands in our line with the banner with another beautiful woman named A. (her smile and peacefulness of bearing made her seem like an angel). I am sure that we just the right people with the skills to de-escalate in our line.
One demonstrator was grabbed by police and attacked by a police dog, but escaped. At another point, I witnessed a policeman grabbing a demonstrator and throwing him to the ground and pointing some strange sort of a gun (a stun gun?) at his head. But these were the exceptions, and all but a few demonstrators were allowed to proceed to the Supreme Court. What is fascinating is what happened on the way.
For a reason I couldn't fathom, police had decided to make a barrier across Laurier Avenue, blocking the march. Some younger demonstrators, clad in black and carrying Anarchist and other banners, confronted them. The first line of the demonstrators was sitting down in the street, which de-escalated the situation, but others were calling rather provocative chants. We all held hands on either side of our banner and moved to the side, because eight of us were not enough to do much more.
We were trying to keep out of the way of the confrontation, but what we wound up doing was providing one wall of a gap on the side, through which police and demonstrators could pass. When the demonstrators in the back of the police line rushed up and nearly surrounded the 30 officers on foot, things looked like they were going to get ugly. But the channel we had formed, allowed the police to put on a brave front, assemble in a line two officers wide, and march out like a column of soldiers, making a retreat look like an advance.
Once we saw what we had been able to do - prevent violence - we decided to keep up our "peace team" throughout the demonstrations. Sue Hill, a member of Ottawa Quaker meeting, was holding one end of the banner. She hesitated and by doing so kept us strung out along Lyon Ave. at the corner of Laurier, separating the retreating police from any demonstrators who might want to provoke them. We all made it without further incident to the Supreme Court.
There, we strung our banner - and our line of just five Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada members and supporters - across one street intersecting Wellington, where some marchers were going to go to the "green zone" (nonviolent protests only), while others went to the "red zone" (where 'diversity of tactics' might be used and there was greater danger of police reaction).
Before the march began, Renee Martyna and I went up to the OPP and told them what we were going to do, so they would realize we were there to separate and to de-escalate rather than to provoke. They were receptive, and I politely ignored one overture from the police to try to turn me into an informer.
We got as far as the war memorial at Elgin and Wellington - a sacred symbol for most Canadians. The fact that it was may have been one factor in discouraging the police from using tear gas there. Another was the millieu - the fact that "This is Ottawa, and we - neither police nor demonstrators - do ugly things here."
At Wellington and Elgin, the "red zone" protestors went straight down Wellington to the Congress Centre where the G-20 was meeting. The "green zone" protestors turned down Elgin to go around the meeting place and protest at the Byward Market. When the "green zone" folks stopped shortly after turning off, we stayed with them, guarding the end of the march. The Green Zone folks did a wonderful spiral dance, and then ate the bread, beans and carrot salad that Bread Not Bombs had provided for demonstrators. Finally, the Green Zone demonstrators headed off down Elgin and turned left on Laurier. We went along. I had been so tense that when we came across a family who had been shopping in the Rideau Centre, I nearly hugged them. At last some people who were neither police nor demonstrators!
Ian Clysdale, a Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada member, had been helping Indy Media with their web servers ( http://www.ontario.indymedia.org ) , so we stopped in while he checked the electronics. When we felt we could go no further, we stopped at a Second Cup (a Canadian alternative to Starbucks) and had some cappucinos. We were nearly frozen by that time, so it felt like heaven.
We decided we should go to the perimeter (the barrier) of the Green Zone. When we got there, we were told that 400 people had been dancing in the streets, but it was over when we arrived. We unfurled our banner at the barriers, and there were only a few dozen people hanging about. We were relaxed, and so were the police on the other side of the barriers (simple waist-high aluminum tubing braced so it couldn't be pushed over). It really changed the atmosphere to see one riot officer remove a helmet and faceplate and expose her flowing blond hair.
We went back to the Rideau Shopping Centre where Ian was getting his film developed at a one-hour photo shop. We were just having a bite to eat at a food court when someone heard a policeman being called out onto the street. We went out and found 200 to 300 young angry protesters heading toward the barriers. We went up to see if we could be witnesses. There were too few of us to interpose ourselves between police and demonstrators - we would have needed 50 people to do that. Then, the tear gas began to fly, though not in the quantities of Quebec City on April 20 at the Summit of the the Americas (FTAA negotiations). Ian, as well as Marna Nightengale decided to stay and take photos and to be witnesses.
It was 4:30 p.m. and the sun had set. I had had enough tear gas, and was tired enough that I decided to leave. To get back to my car at LeBreton Flats, I had to walk east (the opposite direction), and catch a bus that took me all hell and gone around the city centre. Finally, I reached my car and put in the banner and the Council of Canadians' loud-hailer that we had found abandoned, and drive home.
We had done our part in reducing tensions - and even violence - this day. Our unplanned peace team succeeded far beyond our expectations.
A Pacifist's Diary: November 18, 2001
Ottawa, Canada, Nov. 18, 2001
Thank God for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This morning, Michael Enright's Radio One programme told what really happened during the demonstrations yesterday. If you read The Ottawa Citizen and then listened to that program, you would be sure they were talking about different events. The Citizen had a front-page photo of menacing-looking youths in black hoods (a tiny percentage of the 2,000 demonstrators). Michael Enright interviewed demonstrators from all backgrounds, including some who did not rule out violence - but it was obvious that the overwhelming majority of people were there for a peaceful protest. Enright reported on the police seizure of individuals, forcing them to the ground and setting police dogs on them.
This morning at Quaker meeting for worship, I spoke about our peace team's experience in reducing violence during the demonstrations on Saturday. One member of the meeting, during announcements period, reported that the 40 demonstrators arrested on Saturday were not allowed to call their lawyers. They were told they had to accept the lawyers provided by the police. "If anyone doubts that we're living in a police state, this should end those doubts," she said. There is a chill over Ottawa.
At noon, a number of Nonviolent Peaceforce Canada members went to the Human Rights Monument, where Starhawk led us in a sacred circle and a dance. Participants then walked to the War Memorial, where they planned to hold a "die-in" (falling down as if dead to represent those killed in Afghanistan by the bombings and by the policies of the IMF and the World Bank).
At 2:00 p.m., I joined nearly 400 others at a special screening of the film, "Life and Death", about the effects of the World Bank and IMF policies on Jamaica. Interspersed comments from a top IMF official and from Jamaican leaders such as Michael Manley left no doubt in most peoples' minds that the IMF and World Bank policies had destroyed the banana exporting industry in Jamaica, and that the free trade zone in Jamaica had introduced a new form of slavery. Discussion after the film drew between half and two-thirds of the theatre-goers, a high percentage. A woman from Jamaica told of similar experiences she had had with officials of the World Bank and the IMF. Anna Kikwa of the Tanzania Gender Networking Program in Tanzania told of school rooms in Tanzania that had 100 students.
This weekend was a success for peaceful protest - and a moment of shame for the police.