Is the Anti-War Movement a Dying Shark?

“The most glaring weakness of the movement against the war in Iraq was the limited involvement of people of color, especially African Americans, “ Barbara Epstein writes in the Monthly Review.
How glaring? How about white anti-war protesters marching in the Martin Luther King Day parade along King Blvd in Los Angeles with hundreds of blacks simply watching.

More glaring: virtually everyone, black and white, appeared to be anti-war.

Why then weren’t they all in it together? Why was there not a single unified roar down King Blvd that morning? Why has the anti-war movement had so little success?

Walking alongside the parade, I kept thinking of a scene from Woody Allen’s 1977 movie Annie Hall . Leading character Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) and his girlfriend Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) are on a plane from Hollywood to Manhattan and they are at the point where they know the affair is going to end. Alvy explains it this way: “A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

Watching the interaction (or lack thereof) of the anti-war protesters and their colored audience, I couldn’t help thinking of that shark, stalled, mired, stagnant, gasping. If sharks die, the sea dies. But no one was looking in the direction of the shark; everyone was busy doing their own thing. As a result, what could ensure its survival – the common opposition to the war – was strangling the shark, very quietly.

At the head of the parade as it started off, at the corner of King and Western, was the Veterans for Peace. The group is headquartered in Saint Louis, MO and has in its membership veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, other conflicts. Wearing tee shirts that said “2200 Dead; How Many More,” they carried mock coffins – twelve in all – draped in the US flag. Not all of them were white, but none were black. Leading the group of ‘pall bearers’ were two graying white men, straight-backed, tall, solemn. They bore the ‘coffins’ with great purpose and seriousness, and much the way the white man has always carried his burden: from a position of detached supremacy. All they had to do was lead and the rest would follow.

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