Local Activists March in Silence To Protest Conflict in Iraq

Paul G. Nauert ’09 rallied the crowd of black-clad college student protesters in Boston Common just before dusk on Friday afternoon with a simple cry: “I’ve got markers and tape, let’s get this started!”

Wearing signs that read “Another ________ Against the War,” a group of 100 people—composed mostly of students from Boston-area colleges and universities, but also spectators who joined in along the way—marched in silence for four miles from Boston Common to Marsh Plaza to protest America’s involvement in the Iraq conflict.

Marchers filled in the blank on their signs with everything from the general—“Student”—to the specific—“Photographer,” “Scientist,” and “Painter”—to the humorous—“Geek” and “Left Wing Wacko/Fidelista.”

Even the path they marched upon became part of the protest when a participant taped a sign on the ground, reading “Another Sidewalk Against the War.”

“We wanted to do something a little more creative, a little more dramatic,” said Jonathan R. McIntosh, an event organizer. “We didn’t want this to be something that people could just look at and write off.”

Most of the Harvard students who marched were part of the Harvard Anti-War Coalition.

“There’s a definite feeling of detachment from the realities of the war,” coalition member Adaner Usmani ’08 said of the anti-war environment at Harvard. “I think people feel, for various reasons, powerless at times.”

Echoing his favorite Joan Baez quote, Usmani said, “To my mind, the only antidote to this kind of despair is organizing, is action.”

Echoing his favorite Joan Baez quote, Usmani said, “To my mind, the only antidote to this kind of despair is organizing, is action.”

“People need to take that to heart at Harvard,” he added.

Despite the Bush administration’s stated unwillingness to consider a pullout from Iraq before the country is more stable, Nauert said that students need to stay active.

“You have to undertake this with a sense of hope,” said Nauert, an inactive member of The Crimson’s editorial board.

The group that organized the protest, which does not have an official name, chose to march on Friday in conjunction with Iraq Moratorium, a national campaign in which protestors are called to devote the third Friday of every month to ending the war.