February 15, 2003:  The Day People All Over The World Demonstrated For Peace

As a night person who rarely turns in before midnight, I hate having to get up early in the morning. This is especially true in winter, when it feels so good to pull the covers up and get another hour or so of sleep. After having dutifully paid my taxes for more than forty-five years, I am entitled to a little rest; I have earned the Medicare card in my wallet.

Today, I am less willing to take physical risks than I used to be. While I still enjoy downhill skiing, I avoid the triple diamond runs, and no longer have aspirations to compete in the Olympics. As for jogging, I find a leisurely twenty-minute stroll with my dog (also a senior), or a walk around Trexler Park with my wife, Cecelia, sufficient exercise to keep my limbs functional.

The threat of terrorism hasn’t motivated me to duct tape my windows or speed to the Army Navy store to buy a gas mask, but these days I would think twice before opening a package that mysteriously appeared on my porch, especially if it had wires protruding from underneath the wrapping.

Another thing – I don’t like crowds.

Since this is the case, why did Cecelia and I get up on an icy February morning while it was still dark, wiggle into our thermal underwear, don two pairs of socks, our warmest sweaters, coats, hats, gloves and scarves, and set out to meet our friends, Ursula and Hans Wuerth, at the buses that would take us and others from the Lehigh Valley to the New York City peace demonstration?  Wasn’t my old hometown one of the prime targets named by our leaders when the dreaded Orange Alert was issued? Hadn’t the weather forecast called for snow, which would make driving conditions hazardous, not to mention how unhealthy it would be to stand out in the open for hours? Didn’t we know that the Big Apple’s leaders had not only denied the demonstrators a marching permit, but refused to provide portable toilet facilities? If my oversized prostate could have spoken, I’m sure it would have begged me to stay home.

As for Iraq, no one could deny that Saddam Hussein is a murdering bully who deserves cruel and unusual punishment. And I have little doubt that he has hidden away a large supply of  so-called weapons of mass destruction. Even if this is so, Iraq is but one of many countries besides the United States that possesses such weapons. Great Britain, France, Russia, China, Israel, Pakistan, India, Iran, and North Korea have arsenals far more destructive than any Saddam could possibly have accumulated. Does anyone actually believe that Iraq is a more imminent threat to America than say, North Korea? Why, then, are we poised to launch a war against the former, while willing to talk to the latter? Is not the definition of a bully one who only attacks those who do not have the power to effectively fight back? Do we really want to set the precedent of preemptive strikes? If we do follow Mr. Bush’s agenda, how will we be able to condemn the Chinese if and when they attack Taiwan? Or the Russians when they decimate Chechnya? 

The charge that Saddam Hussein is aligned with Osama bin Laden is also unproven; in fact, all of the evidence I have seen leads me to the opposite conclusion. The fanatical bearded terrorist and the brutal mustached tyrant hate each other almost as much as they hate us, and it is disingenuous to link them together. It is offensive to see the horrendous tragedy of 9/11 used as a political tool. If anything, Iraq and al-Qaida have been driven closer together by Mr. Bush’s obsession to avenge his father. The irony here is that if we invade Iraq without approval from the world community, the greatest victor will be bin Laden. No recruitment campaign for al-Qaida could ever hope to attract the number of volunteers that our high tech onslaught will. If bin Laden is still alive, he must be praying more than the traditional four times a day for the coming war.

During my tenure as a Cedar Crest College professor, for more than thirty years I  offered a course centered on the Holocaust. In recent years, this offering was expanded to include other historical genocides, a number of times team-taught with my friend and colleague, Dr. Hans Wuerth of Moravian College.  In addition, my historical trilogy dealing with war and injustice has been published both here and abroad. One of the major themes in my books and one that both Dr. Wuerth and I repeatedly stressed in our seminars was the moral imperative to speak out against injustice whenever and wherever we witness it. I can think of no greater injustice than to sacrifice thousands of innocent lives because of one man’s crimes and another man’s ego. February 15 was a collective refusal to remain silent, a day when millions of people poured out into the streets of Madrid, Rome, London, Sydney, Paris, New York, as well as in many other foreign and American cities. Their message was clear:  we must do everything in our power to avoid war. Before we unleash our sophisticated machines of death, we must first exhaust all other means to achieve our stated goal of eliminating Hussein’s ability to do any more harm. The United Nation inspectors are there for this purpose, and have reported progress in their work. The majority in the Security Council wishes to grant them more time to complete their task, as do the millions of people all over the world who spoke out on February 15 with their physical presence.

As I have said, these days I don’t like to get up very early in the morning, nor am I able to withstand cold weather as well as I once could. In addition, the availability of a nearby bathroom has taken on increasing importance. Nevertheless, neither Cecelia nor I regret for a second having added our presence to the hundreds of thousands of other Americans who also felt strongly enough to travel to New York City on a cold winter day, and while we hope that it will be unnecessary to repeat it, we will not hesitate to do so when and if that time comes. The police may pen us up like animals, but by speaking out we will preserve our collective humanity. Unless I am badly mistaken, there will be an even larger crowd surrounding us than the one that did on February 15.

Don LoCicero of  Allentown, is Professor Emeritus of International Languages and Humanities at Cedar Crest College.