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Students not in our name { November 21 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/11/21/3ddca309f293ahttp://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/11/21/3ddca309f293a
Student activists protest
Hundreds gathered at City Hall yesterday to decry possible war.
By Emily Sanders
November 21, 2002
There was chanting -- "They want us silent, they want us tame, the war on the world is not in our name!" There was poetry, and there was even a little 1960s protest music, like John Lennon's "Imagine" and Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth."
Indeed, it was not the average day at City Hall yesterday as several hundred student protesters gathered from all over the city to protest the war on Iraq.
As part of National Student Day Against the War in Iraq, sponsored by the umbrella group Not In Our Name and organized locally by Youth PAWR (Philadelphia Area War Resistance), area students joined with students from around the nation in a movement of solidarity against the possible war.
Students from Penn, Princeton, Temple, Drexel and Villanova universities, Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford colleges and even some local high schools joined the protest locally.
Plans for the event came about in the wake of the Oct. 6 nationwide and Oct. 26 Washington anti-war protests. Annie Day, a local organizer affiliated with the group, said that after the October protests, Not In Our Name held several large conferences to address why there has not been significant overall resistance and why colleges and high schools have not been hot beds of opposition.
"We felt we needed to further the momentum and motion from Oct. 6 and Oct. 26," she said. "We need to send a message that youth and students will not be drafted and will not comply with this war."
The idea of the event is three fold, Day said. "We, as the U.S., are taking responsibility for what the government is doing in our name, we have a common cause with the people of the world and a call for resistance to war and oppression."
Action at Penn, for the most part, was headed by Spencer Witte, a College junior who transferred from Temple this year. Witte, who is a member of Youth PAWR, contacted various organizations on campus and organized the dissemination of over 10,000 flyers about the event.
"The point of this rally is to be as inclusive as possible, to send a message that you don't have to be on the far left to oppose this war," Witte said.
Witte also collaborated with various groups and individuals on campus to organize the march portion of the protest. At 2:15 p.m., a group of close to 100 Penn, Princeton and Drexel students met at 34th and Walnut streets to march to City Hall for the rally.
Though small, the group was nevertheless spirited, clapping loudly and chanting "1, 2, 3, 4 -- we don't want your oil war; 5, 6, 7, 8 -- stop the killing stop the hate." They also toted American flags and signs with slogans such as PEACE IS PATRIOTIC, SADDAM IS NOT IRAQ, and PENN AGAINST THE WAR as they marched across Hill Field toward City Hall.
Eric Norman, a College senior, helped Witte get the word out. "We want to make this more mainstream," Norman said. "Lots of people are against this war, but there's not a lot of action."
Christina Schoppert, a College junior attending the march, said she was saddened that the Penn community "seems indifferent" as a whole to the issue. The turnout for the march "doesn't look great," she said, "but since lots of groups are meeting up at City Hall, it should look better."
The rally at City Hall, which began at around 3:30 p.m., featured speak-outs by students and representatives from different pro-peace organizations in the city.
"I'm happy that we got to meet up with other schools," said Tara Purnell, a senior at Penn carrying an ATTACK IRAQ AND IT'LL COME BACK sign at the rally. "There's so much positive energy."
Haverford senior Molly Glenn had been in the city since early in the morning, helping out with Haverford's human chain formation of "No War."
"We as Americans have to show the innocent people of Iraq that we do care about what happens to them," Glenn said. "This isn't about revenge, it's about invading a sovereign nation to remove a leader that we don't like, and that makes us just like the people who committed the Sept. 11 attacks."
Christy Hochrine, a sophomore at Temple, marched down to City Hall with almost 100 other Temple students, stopping at high schools and even the naval site to recruit protesters. Though not many joined along the way, "it's good that we have a lot of support [over all]," she said.
And students were not the only people attending.
"I am here to support the students," said Robert Smith, a staff coordinator for the Brandywine Peace Community, adding that the turnout was impressive.
"Over the years, we haven't seen that many youthful faces, so this is a hopeful sign -- a gift for the future," Smith said.
Several plain clothes police officers stood around the protesters, with around 25 uniformed motorcycle patrol officers along the street.
Captain William Fisher, the commanding officer of Philadelphia Police's civil affairs unit, said the officers were there more for traffic controlling purposes than anything else.
"With the two different groups marching from Penn and Temple, there were bound to be some issues with traffic, especially since this is a pretty busy area," Fisher said. But, so far, "there haven't been any problems."
Witte had mixed feelings about the rally.
"Obviously, the timing could have been better -- especially since people had class and such," Witte said. "The turnout was good, though, in terms of the diversity of people that were there."
"If nothing else we increased awareness on campus," he said.
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