Fwd: Prison and Protest: What Democracy Looks Like

Dear family and friends, among the stuff I've read to date on the April 16
and 17 Washington protests against the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, I find this one engagingly simple and thought-provoking.
Dave Rushton. P.S. If anyone wants to be removed from my mailing list for
these occasional items, please let me know.  
________________________-
>Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 23:05:08 +0000 (GMT)
>From: Rania Masri <rmasri@leb.net>
>To: PEACE STUDIES <peace@csf.colorado.edu>
>Subject: Fwd: Prison and Protest: What Democracy Looks Like  
>X-MIME-Autoconverted: from QUOTED-PRINTABLE to 8bit by csf.Colorado.EDU id
RAA29355
>Reply-To: rmasri@leb.net
>Sender: owner-peace@csf.colorado.edu
>
>
>Dear all,
>
>Out of the 20,000 people protesting the IMF/WB policies of economic
>destruction and control, approximately 1300 were arrested.  Apparently,
>there are still about 150 in jail today.
>
>PLEASE take the time to read the detailed report below written by Ramsey
>Kysia. His report is a moving tesimony of what happened in DC (the
>most moving that I've read). Ramsey speaks of pacifism and strength and
>devotion -- and, most of all, hope and righteous anger.
>
>Please write to the e-mail addresses below or call and ask that the
>remaining protesters be released from prison.  Thank you!
>
>-Rania Masri
>--------
>".. not to believe in the possibility of dramatic change is to forget that
>things have changed, not enough, of course, but enough to show what is
>possible. We have been surprised before in history. We can be surprised
>again. Indeed, we can do the surprising." --Howard Zinn, 'You can't be
>neutral on a moving train.' (p.83)
>-----------------------
>
>
>>From: "Ramsey Kysia" <mbakery@erols.com>
>
>***please distribute freely***
>
>Friends,
>
>Below is an account of my experience under arrest in DC. Please take a
>moment and call Chief Judge Hamilton of the Superior Court, Miss Jackson,
>at the DC Jail, and Chief Ramsey, and politely request that they release
>the hundreds of protesters that still remain imprisoned for peaceful,
>non-violent resistance on Monday, A17.
>
>Chief Judge Hamilton: 202-879-1600
>Warden Jackson: 202-673-8201/ 8000
>Police Chief Ramsey: mpdcchief_org@excite.com
>DC Metro Police Dept: mpdc_org@excite.com
>phone: 202-727-4218
>fax:      202-727-9524
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Prison and Protest: What Democracy Looks Like
>by John Doe #561523
>
>Power is the ability to move, or not move, our world. And it doesn’t come
>from governments—it comes through them, through us, from a higher power.
>It comes from the wonder of our own creation. I did not help organize any
>of A16 or A17, but my thanks go out to everyone who did: their hard work
>helped show me what democracy looks like, and it helped show me what Hope
>looks like.
>
>I was arrested Monday afternoon, along with several hundred other
>non-violent resisters, for crossing a line in my street that my government
>drew to protect a fundamentally undemocratic and unjust system of control.
>The World Bank and the IMF are just two of the tools that finance
>capitalism uses to impoverish our world, and enforce that poverty. On A16
>and A17 we drew our own line: where institutions put profits over people--
>we said, NO.
>
>We occupied Pennsylvania Avenue at 20th Street. We set-up camp. Those
>risking arrest locked arms, sitting peacefully in the intersection. We
>sang, “this is what democracy looks like, we are what democracy looks
>like.” The police surrounded us with barricades, took off their badges,
>and took up their billy clubs. We sat peacefully and sang, “we’re
>non-violent, what about you?” The National Guard joined the police in full
>riot gear. They put on their gas masks. We sat peacefully and sang, “we’re
>the people, don’t gas the people.” The tension was strong, but so was the
>joy. And I did find joy in that moment. Not because of the building
>confrontation. I had no desire to be clubbed and gassed, or to see my
>friends clubbed and gassed. I found joy because in that moment I knew, in
>some small way, what it felt like to march in Soweto. I knew, in some
>small way, what it felt like to stand in Tiananmen Square. I knew how the
>abolitionists, suffragettes, union organizers, and Freedom Riders felt. I
>wasn’t just singing it, in that moment I learned what democracy feels
>like.
>
>Risking arrest shouldn’t be a casual thing or it loses its meaning, and it
>seems silly at times to voluntarily submit to the indignity of arrest. I
>wrestle this - with my commitment to social justice, and to pacifism. So I
>sat there and thought, it’s easy to risk arrest under the highly
>controlled circumstances of most protest, knowing that my personal cost in
>the arrest is low. It’s something else entirely to face hundreds of police
>and national guardsmen in full riot gear, billy clubs, pepper spray and
>tear gas at hand. Pacifism isn’t passive, and it isn’t easy. As long as we
>do not have peace, we must not let it be easy. It is, and always has been,
>by definition, a radical philosophy that challenges every element of
>worldly power and violence.
>
>I sat in the rain with thousands of others, and faced down the expression
>of that power through our police. I thought about all the people around
>the world who, facing much greater hardships and risks, struggle for their
>basic daily needs. I thought about all the governments my government has
>undermined because they sought to provide for those needs at the expense
>of Global Capital; my government often going so far as to assassinate
>democratically elected leaders such as Patrice Lumumba of Congo, and
>Salvador Allende of Chile, and install tyrants like Mobutu and Pinochet in
>their place. I thought about the financial institutions that supported,
>and support today, the rule of tyrants, lending monies used to enrich
>despotism rather than democracy. I thought about the “development
>projects” those monies go to, destroying ecosystems, displacing indigenous
>peoples, and poisoning the land. I thought about the odious debt built up
>over generations of terror loans. I thought about the austerity measures
>finance capitalism insists on to keep the money flowing from the Global
>South into the institutions of the North and West; denying people
>healthcare, social security, labor rights, and environmental security.
>UNICEF puts the annual world wide death toll due to this forcible
>impoverishment at over 500,000 children a year.
>
>Speaking truth to power, the energy in our assembly became something
>amazing. The songs helped: from funny, “we’re here, we’re wet—let’s cancel
>the Debt,” to funky, “there ain’t no power like the power of the people,
>cause the power of the people don’t stop,” serious, “1-2-3- 4, break the
>Bank and feed the poor,” and empowering, “who’s streets? Our Streets!
>who’s world? Our World!” But it was more that, more than songs-- more than
>not knowing when or how (or how violently) our peaceable protest would be
>ended by our police. It was the incredible congregation of students,
>workers, and long-time activists all committed to ending the injustices of
>Global Capital and forging a just world. It was our assembly itself that
>was amazing.
>
>When the police began clubbing people, we did not fight back. When they
>began spraying down the front lines with pepper spray, and pushing their
>barricades forward, we did not fight back. People screamed in pain,
>medical support rushing to them to flush their eyes and skin with water,
>but we did not return violence for violence. We did not riot. We took
>their blows. Our lines moved back from the police, but we remained seated
>and did not leave. And magically, wonderfully, their assault stopped. They
>stopped attacking us, and agreed to talk to us instead.
>
>For the next hour or so, things remained tense. We could have been
>attacked again at any time. But, slowly, we talked them down. We convinced
>the police to put away their riot gear, and put their badges back on. They
>agreed to move aside the barricades, and, in small groups, to let us try
>and finish our walk. We marched on and were arrested by the hundreds for
>crossing a line in our street that our government drew and we refused to
>recognize.
>
>Our hands were cuffed, painfully tight, behind our backs. We were
>searched, and some of our property dumped unceremoniously into the street.
>After the search and confiscation, I was escorted, by the cuffs, to wait
>by a bus. I stood by that bus, shivering, in the cold and rain for over an
>hour. During that time I asked an officer about my cuffs, and also one of
>our legal aide staff. The officer grabbed my hands, which had become
>almost totally numb, and told me I was alright. I didn’t feel alright. He
>said that my numbness might have been because of the cold, rather than the
>cuffs, so he wasn’t obliged to do anything about it. When I asked what
>difference it made, he couldn’t find an answer. I spent the time quietly
>singing “We Shall Overcome” to myself. It’s corny, but it did help with
>the cold and pain.
>
>We were searched again, and after a 20 minute ride arrived to our
>processing center at the Police Training Academy. We petitioned, as a
>group, for four of our members, who were in extreme pain, to be given
>looser cuffs. After some discussion, this request was granted. It was
>moving to see the looks on the officer’s faces when they cut away our
>cuffs and saw the deep red, purple and black welts that the cuffs had cut
>into our wrists. The police I met were, by and large, good and decent
>people who were obliged to commit acts of brutality in defending an unjust
>system. The officers I spoke with before and after my arrest honestly
>believed that they were there for our own protection as much as for
>anything else. Confronting them, emotionally, with the effects of that
>“protection,” pepper sprayed and tear gassed faces, and broken or bruised
>bodies, is a moral and political imperative.
>
>We were recuffed, less tightly, and forced to remain, cold, wet, and
>bound, on the bus for four or five more hours. Finally entering the
>makeshift processing center, we were searched again, and any remaining
>property we had was bagged. We then had to sit on the floor and wait. We
>were given blankets if we asked, which was a blessing, but, still, it is
>very painful to sit flat on the floor with your hands cuffed behind your
>back. Half an hour later I was taken upstairs to be fingerprinted. We had
>all agreed before being arrested that we would stay in solidarity with one
>another and demand that we all be charged alike, given the same, joint,
>trial date, and released together. As part of our jail solidarity, we
>refused to give our names, and I became John Doe #561523. This number was
>written on my forearm with a dark blue marker. I asked the officer if he
>could please find some other way, perhaps with a bracelet, to identify me,
>but I was ignored. Having that number written on my arm, in blue ink no
>less, was the most humiliating, disturbing, and dehumanizing part of this
>entire experience.
>
>I was recuffed, hand to ankle, and dumped on the floor for another hour or
>so, before having my hands again cuffed behind my back for transport to a
>jail for the night. The bench and walls in the transport car were
>stainless steel, and sloped to prevent us from sitting fully upright. The
>first two jails we went to refused to take us, and we were in that car for
>close to an hour and half before finding a jail that would accept us.  I
>was put in a cell with 9 other men. It had a metal table in the center,
>and a toilet and small sink in the corner. We were not given food, a
>baloney sandwich, until 4am, and we were not given blankets at all. Wet
>and cold, we tried to sleep on that dirty floor. I can’t ever remember
>spending a more miserable night.
>
>At 6:30am the next morning, we were taken to the Courthouse holding
>facility, run by U.S. Marshals. Our group was searched again, split up,
>and then further split up and shuffled around into different cells, on the
>same cellblock, throughout the morning. I spent two hours in a 6ft. by
>10ft. cell with 6 other men, and six hours in a 10ft. by 10ft. cell with
>as many as 15 other non-violent demonstrators at times.
>
>The cell across from ours was fairly large, with 20 men in it. 10 had
>already been arraigned, and the other 10 were still waiting along with the
>rest of us to see a judge. At one point they were all taken out, told that
>they would be “treated human if they acted human,” and then chained by the
>ankles and wrists to be sent to the D.C. Jail. The Marshals realized that
>half the cell wasn’t ready to be moved yet, and brought those 10 back, but
>left them in their cell in chains for the next couple of hours. When
>another Marshal noticed they were still chained and questioned this, he
>was told they were to remain that way. Still another guard, apparently
>upset by our smell, emptied an entire spray can of Lysol in the hall of
>the cellblock and into each cell.
>
>We were not ever allowed to make a phone call during any of the time we
>were in custody, nor were we given access to counsel. The Marshals told us
>repeatedly that we did not have a right to either a phone call or counsel,
>and that almost all of the activists they were processing had elected to
>give up the solidarity. We were also told that if we did not give our
>names during arraignment, we would be held indefinitely, perhaps until
>July, at the DC Jail in general population. At one point, two prisoners
>who had failed drug tests in a rehab-release program and were being
>returned to DC Jail were put in our cell with us. They immediately told us
>that if we went to the Jail we would be raped by the other inmates, and
>pointed to a couple of the younger guys in our cell and told them that
>they in particular would likely be raped.
>
>While waiting in the holding cells outside the courtroom, we were finally
>allowed to speak to a woman who identified herself as being with the DC
>Public Defender’s Office. She confirmed what the Marshals had told us:
>that almost all of the activists were giving up on solidarity and giving
>their names to the court so they could be conditionally released. When we
>insisted on speaking to our own lawyers, we were told they hadn’t even
>bothered to show up at the courtroom. When we asked to be allowed, as a
>group, to make one phone call to confirm all of this, we were told that we
>couldn’t.
>
>Finally, at 3pm, a lawyer associated with our group was permitted to speak
>to us. She told us that they had been trying to contact us all day, and
>that 75% of the people arrested the day before were sticking with the
>solidarity. So the Marshals had essentially been lying to us all day long.
>
>I did not stay with the solidarity. I choose to give my name and leave
>after 28 hours in custody. But there are some 500 non-violent activists
>still behind bars. They need our support. It was very hard, on Monday, to
>face a line of police officers and National Guardsmen in full riot gear,
>knowing that we could be gassed and beaten at any time. It was very hard,
>in police custody, to be painfully cuffed with our hands behind our backs
>for almost 8 hours, to sleep in wet clothes on a cold and filthy floor, to
>be branded in blue ink, even if it was washable, and to be confined and
>lied to. And for all of that, many of my fellow resisters were treated
>much worse. Many people were much more seriously brutalized. The most
>troubling part of all of it is not that the officers hated us-- I could
>have taken their hate, tried to understand it, and, with God’s help,
>forgave it. The most troubling thing was that they did not hate us. They
>brutalized and violated us, and seemed indifferent to it. It was simply
>their job.
>
>It was, and is, hard to recognize what ultimate good comes of this
>witness. But I’ll tell you something: I’m angry. I’m angry at the fires
>raging here at home, and all over our battered world; fires that our
>government is all too often actively helping to start, and to keep
>burning. I’m angry with finance capitalism running roughshod over our
>world, and I’m angry at the Military- Industrial Complex, and
>Prison-Industrial Complex, that our government has built to protect a
>system of Global Capital that is fundamentally unjust and anti-life.
>
>St. Augustine once wrote that Hope was the greatest off all virtues, even
>greater than Love. For Love only tells us what God’s Will is, while Hope
>tells us that God will work God’s Will. St. Augustine also wrote that Hope
>has two beautiful daughters: Anger and Courage. I am right to be angry. It
>is a righteous anger. And it is a hopeful anger. It tells me that we can
>change our world, and make good and gentle all the ways of Man. My hope
>makes me angry, and it gives me courage. It tells me that I can face all
>the pain we create, because I am not defined by that pain. None of us are.
>In the end, we are all of us the sons and daughters of Love and the Hope
>of Love. We are what Democracy looks like. We are what Justice looks like.
>We are what Peace looks like. We are what Love looks like.
>
>And ain’t that a wonder.
>
>
>
>