I spent most of last weekend in jail. It was easily the most important thing I’ve done in my life so far.
As part of the group Witness Against Torture, and in solidarity with numerous groups performing similar acts around the world on that day, thirty-seven of us marched up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, DC wearing orange jumpsuits and black hoods to protest the torture and indefinite detainment of the captives at Guantanamo prison.
Another forty-five of us waited inside the Court, disguised as tourists, until the opportune moment arrived to spring into action with our outrage, our protest songs, and our demands for justice. The Supreme Court was evacuated and then closed for several hours. We were detained, processed, and held in jail until the following afternoon. Each of us used the name of a Guantanamo prisoner, refusing to reveal our true identities until the final moment of our release, because we were determined to get these names into the U.S. court system ourselves.
Our action was timed to coincide with the six-year anniversary since the first prisoners arrived at Guantanamo, where there are now nearly 300 persons still imprisoned. The United States government, under the direction of President Bush, officially considers them to be unlawful combatants, and therefore unworthy of humane treatment. They face brutal living conditions and brutal treatment by their American captors, and are being held without any charges filed against them and without any access to legal recourse.
All of this is well-known, and yet it continues. While such injustices are abhorrent wherever they occur, it became increasingly important to me that these crimes at Guantanamo are not only carried out by Americans, but are funded by American taxpayers. This includes me (though not for long!). So while it may be everyone’s responsibility to act against torture and unlawful imprisonment, I felt that as an American I bear a direct culpability, and an even more urgent responsibility to act.
But turning words, and an increasing sense of personal responsibility, into action has not been easy for me. I don’t come from a family of activists, and I’d never been arrested before. In fact, my family has always attempted to be so apolitical that I’m not sure if any of them have ever even voted for President. And while I have little doubt that each of my closest friends would gladly denounce the treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo as repugnant and shameful, I didn’t personally know anyone who had ever tried to do anything about it.
I’m still trying to figure out why that is. Is it that my generation is too afraid to stand up to the government? Are we out of ideas? Or, is it that my generation is too self-consciously cool and ironic to do something as sincere as putting one’s own freedom on the line for the justice and freedom of another? I struggled with this myself.
There is a feeling of inevitably among many people I know – that the world and its problems are too big for us, and that there’s no way to stop what has been set in motion, whether it be the war in Iraq, or the environmental destruction of our planet. One of my friends summed it up best when he recently told me, “You know, I basically feel the same way you do about everything, the only difference being that I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it.”
And who can blame him? It seems like an eternity now since a majority of Americans became opposed to the continuation of the war in Iraq, and yet it continues with no end in sight. We are told over and over that we live in a democratic society, the greatest in the world, and yet we are so easily ignored, time and again. How is it that our individual financial resources are so easily used for purposes that we find abhorrent? How is it that our government is able to force us, against our will, to support torture, indefinite detainment, foreign invasion and occupation?
From a young age we are told to equate democracy with voting. We are told that we have the opportunity to participate in our government only once a year, on election day, when we cast a vote for our representative leaders. But last weekend, by acting against the will of my government, and in disobeying its laws that attempt to curb our freedom and demands for justice, I experienced, first hand, the true nature and power of democracy.
Democracy is not about voting, democracy is about acting. Democracy is not about waiting for representative leaders to act; it’s about taking direct action ourselves, often in opposition to the will of such leaders.
Last weekend, we failed to close Guantanamo and end torture. At best, I can only hope that the actions of our group, and those of the other groups acting in similar fashion around the globe, may have aided in some small way towards eventually alleviating the pain and suffering of those unjustly abused at Guantanamo.
But sitting in jail, and experiencing the unjust criminal process first hand – one that willingly punishes those opposing injustice – I got a glimpse of something. They’re scared of us. They’re terrified of us disobeying en masse. The DC Metropolitan jail system was practically bursting at the seams with a mere eighty extra occupants. What will they do with a thousand? What about ten thousand? How will they ignore us then?
As long as we limit our dissent to permitted demonstrations and confine our protests and outrage to the confines of the metal barriers set up for us, then our unjust government has little to fear. As long as we limit our political participation to the electoral process, they point to us as a glowing endorsement of democracy, a sign that all is well and just in democratic, free America.
But when we disobey, they tremble. We must stop the war in Iraq ourselves. We must shut down Guantanamo ourselves. We have waited patiently for too long. We may have failed to close Guantanamo this time, but we’ll be back, and next time we’ll bring larger numbers. The world is waiting.
// Top photo is from the Associated Press (I’m in the bottom row, second from the right; they were rather slow to arrest us because of the simultaneous action going on inside the Court). For more info about the action, including photos and links to media coverage, visit the Witness Against Torture website.
