Different Support for Cindy Sheehan et. al.: A New Paradigm for Protest
by Marcelle Cendrars

“Sanctions continue to malnourish and kill…undermining the cultural and educational recovery of Iraq, and will not change its system of governance. Sanctions encourage isolation, alienation and fanaticism. Sanctions destroy the family, undermining women’s social and economic advances…. Sanctions constitute a serious breach of the United Nations charter on human rights and children’s rights. Sanctions are a counterproductive concept that has led to unacceptable human suffering.” — Former U.N. Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Denis Halliday, in testimony to the U.S. Congress after he resigned his position in protest of the sanctions regime in 1998.

“It is absolutely flabbergasting to me that our world will be soon commemorating the 5th year since George Bush announced that the US had commenced “Shock and Awe” against Iraq.”

This is how Cindy Sheehan begins her latest posted piece online, “Come Together, Right Now!” See http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/11/come-together-right-now/. Five paragraphs later — replete with a delineation of our well-known status quo downside — she calls for a SUMMIT!

One well-meaning individual responded with:

“Sheehan and Peter Camejo should run for President and VP on the Green Party ticket in 2008. Right now, the anti-war vote is behind Ron Paul (puke) and the Dems other than Hillary.”

Directly below I lead off with my immediate response to both writer and readers…which was posted in the commentary section of Dissident Voice. I present the unedited blah blah here because it embodies an emotional dimension (plus) that I believe has value:

“It is really tiresome –to say the least– to hear anyone recommend this or that person to run for a given political office…without offering up a new way in which to do so. A “ticket” and a “platform” are typically suggested…and then everything is set up for the electoral system to swallow up the good intentions. Don’t you get it, people. There’s a need for a new paradigm if you’re going to use the electoral system for change. I’ve been offering to get together with people in California to discuss that…but –so far– no takers. With the best heartfelt motivation and more here we have Cindy reminding us that there will be a summit coming up. In all humility, and all respect for readers and writers here…PLEASE…take note that summits will not produce anything more than Camejo’s run for Sacramento’s seat did a few years ago. A lot of people missed the whole point of what it meant for him to get only 5% of the vote…running with the Greens…in Santa Cruz…a supposed bastion for The Left. No, the days of summits are gone…in terms of what people expect of them. Bonding one-on-one…in confidence (so that an element of “surprise” can be maintained) is essential. I have a proposal that I’d like to share with Cindy in person….alone…or with a few select supporters. Contact me at bcendra@yahoo.com ASAP. As a motivator…please note that in an effort to get the wonderful Death Penalty in Focus people to rendezvous with me over a plan to place a moratorium on the death penalty in California by 2010…I have received no response. Those people are putting all their eggs in the basket of an upcoming SUMMIT in San Jose. That won’t do it. My plan would. Take a leap of faith, Cindy (OR SOMEONE)…and contact me.”

A Dave Cline/MLK Memorial Peace Summit for January will NOT do the trick. That is what Cindy is urging for January…as she underscores that “five years” are quite enough. Of course there is some value in having such a rendezvous, but — at this juncture — surely one and all feel the need to weigh the two columns, Advantages and Disadvantages.

Anyone who has been around long enough has to have a sense of the limitations of great gatherings. The cost in energy and $$ required to put them together vs. the fruit they bear. The February 15th, 2003, street show of force, which Cindy cites, was — of course! — monumentally important…in a very limited, too limited sense.

That’s not to say that such a demonstration shouldn’t take place any more than I am suggesting that Cindy’s proposed summit shouldn’t materialize. As long as all that energy expended doesn’t preclude supplementary action, a new approach, a different primary focus.

It should be clear by now that the moment something (alternatively) beautiful rears its sweet head in a huge hall…it will be talked to death. Or walked to death — ultimately –in the form of those old “marching in circles” demonstrations. Or other obsolete practices.

There is also the very real consideration — bound up, undeniably, with our historical record — that “leaders” who represent anything truly threatening to the powers that be will be eliminated in short order…regardless of the state of the country. One shouldn’t have to underscore that too much for anyone invoking the name of Martin Luther King.

People are, unquestionably, stuck in thinking within worn-out parameters. And there is little faith in one’s own imagination these days. The potential for creativity. It’s quite like a business person arguing that OF COURSE one has to have a cell phone today. Or a parent claiming that a child MUST be educated at an educational institution. Or a citizen thinking that it’s MANDATORY for taxes to be paid to the Feds.

Or…like activists talking about the abominations in Iraq as if they began five years ago. The day that the major activists in this country decided to pick that March date of five years ago as their focal point for protest an enormous mistake was made. For it undermined the memory of The Sanctions Period, simultaneously shortening our horrific history in Iraq and, thereby, bolstering (by sin of omission, default) the credibility of Democrats.

No one could possibly have harbored any hope in the person of Nancy Pelosi, for instance, if they had had such history firmly planted in their mind. But what became securely ensconced in the brains of activists instead was the notion that we had to rollback a much more short-lived abomination.

So, in short, the kind of summit Cindy is recommending…falls short. It is off on the wrong foot from the start by pinpointing the wrong timeframe. Also, the format being embraced needs revision.

Just like one can come up with alternatives to flying around the world to participate in another World Forum…so that a more environmentally sane behavior can be embraced, one can come up with another way to jam locally to “strategize and brainstorm more effective ways of challenging war and injustices” using the electoral system in a new way. Making use of that old military stand-by, The Element of Surprise.

So that something politically gorgeous doesn’t get cut off at the knees. All present (”other”) parties — as currently constituted — can be considered a form of masochistic socialization, straight out of an abnormal psyche textbook. I mean, are people still counting on seeds being planted in a mileu which will not allow them to blossom in national debates? What historical precedent — appropriate for citation today — suggests that old models for independent parties could possibly be viable in this unreal world?

Appeal to Nancy Pelosi to impeach Cheney? What bizarre expectations do we nurture?

In this surreal world where it’s difficult to get three people to do lunch together, a new approach would not require mass meetings. Ever. In this control-freak age, a fresh paradigm would avoid media publicity (and its guaranteed threat of negative spin) totally. And, to pick just one more of many elements, a model for change must do without…change (as in fundraising). For I submit (for several reasons), that if — for you –money is required to make inroads, you might as well go back to sleep, count yourself as one of the sheep.

On the other hand, IMAGINATION we do need.

Zapata gathered his folks together over a love of a landbase that hardly exists anymore. Today — in the U.S. — the only shot we have is to find a counterpart to that “landbase” which resides in the human heart. Now almost completely buried. Distracting itself with old paradigms as the final clumps of dirt are shoveled onto our collective coffin.

I am holding a key of sorts, waiting for someone to take a leap of faith…and contact me, in confidence. Again, alone or with a small, trustworthy select set of colleagues. For the purpose of meeting in person briefly.

I don’t feel the least bit presumptuous in requesting this here, this way. Rather, it seems as if it would be presumptuous for editors not to post this plea, this call for a New Paradigm.

Come together? In a large, predictable group again? With a huge, high-profile effort? If you ask me, don’t let it be.

Marcelle Cendrars, Algerian-American journalist, can be reached at bcendra[at] YAHOO{DOT}com. She was in the Safwan village area of Iraq when it was saturated with a high concentration of radioactive depleted uranium waste...more than five years ago.