A Mad Tea Party

When is a Tea Party not a Tea Party?  When is a political event not a political event?

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” the Mad Hatter would reply.  

The Hatter of this event, of course, would be Glenn Beck, the Fox News rhetorician who has built his career on controversy.  On Saturday, August 28th, he descended upon the Nation’s capital with an estimated 87,000 of his supporters in tow, spearheading an event called “The Rally to Restore Honor.”  

Despite claiming to be an apolitical event and lacking official affiliation with any Tea Party movements, the rally was unmistakably targeted at mobilizing and energizing Tea Party constituencies politically.

On the one hand, many facets of the rally were as expected.  The crowd was a mostly-white, largely rural population, representing the finest of Sarah Palin’s “Real America.”  But surprises abounded around every corner as well, adding an unexpected madness to the Tea Party.

Most striking about the rally participants was the marked difference between their reputation and their demeanor.  The rally felt more like a giant Fourth of July picnic, complete with lawn chairs and wistful Americana, than a gathering storm of political revolution.

The much vaunted anger that supposedly fueled Tea Party activists had either been checked at the door, ebbed, or was not their primary driver to begin with.  A pair of participants from North Carolina (who refused to give their names) insisted that their motivation was “not anger,” but rather “love for our country.”  Karen Freeman, a 26-year old activist from Philadelphia (and one of the few African Americans in the crowd) insisted that the media, which gets a better story from highlighting the angriest and most offensive people, was to blame for such misconceptions.  “You’ll always have those hateful people in there.  Just like any group.  You’ll always have the bad egg to spoil the batch.”  But Freeman, who has traveled with the Tea Party from California to the District selling merchandise, believed that “the policy itself is good.” 

However, the inflammatory rhetoric of Mr. Beck and other Tea Party pundits and politicians was not so easily brushed aside by all.  Among the crowd, armed with her trusty signs, stood Lori Thomas, the teacher from Rochester who spent July Schooling the White House on education.  This time, she came to urge people in both the Glenn Beck rally and the Al Sharpton “Reclaim The Dream” counter-rally across the way to converse constructively.  “We have in this country one of the greatest constitutions in the world and that constitution guarantees us freedom of speech, and we have to respect that in one another.  Everyone has the right to come out and say how they feel.  But not in hate,” said Thomas, eliciting approving nods from nearby ralliers. 

Interestingly, Thomas found herself in agreement with some of the Tea Party’s principles as well.  “The message of the Tea Party is a good one.  We do have to change our government, we have to find people of integrity to lead our nation.  We can’t keep going status quo.  But you don’t put people in who are just as bad as the people who are in.”  

Finally, the political diversity of the rallying hoards was, within conservative limits, fairly broad.  Throughout the crowd, political organizations of remarkably different stripes sought an audience.  Members of DCVote, a group advocating full voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia, attempted to capitalize on the Tea Party imagery.  Their slogan, “No Taxation Without Representation,” is borrowed from the original Boston Tea Party, and drew mixed responses from the passersby, eliciting everything from smiling approval to contempt.  Another organization, called GOOOH (pronounced “go”), sought to gather support for a new political system, free of special interests.  An ultra-conservative group claiming to defend “Tradition, Family, and Property” distributed pamphlets outlining 10 reasons to reject socialism.  A libertarian from New Jersey lamented the struggle for the Tea Party’s soul, represented by the socially conservative Sarah Palin and the traditional “small government”  views of Ron Paul.  “We’re not republican, we’re not democrats, we’re constitutionalists.  That’s all we care about,” affirmed Michaelina and Guy Miconi, Italian immigrants who moved to New Jersey in the 1950’s.

While people clearly took issue with President Obama and his policies, few pointed to him or his administration as the cause of the “lost honor” the rally claimed to restore.  “It started during Bush, maybe even before that, some of Clinton,” the anonymous North Carolinians said of the country’s downward trajectory.  The Miconi couple saw the problems extending even further back.  “We have veered off incrementally from the Roosevelt Era,” said Michaelina.  “We’re trying to restore our country back to what it was: constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and we the people rule.”

Appropriately, this Mad Tea party recalls another scene from Alice in Wonderland.  Standing at a crossroads, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for directions, but admits she is not sure where she wants to arrive.  “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” replies the Cat. 

Given that the movement is based upon vague and lofty principals that do not easily translate into one particular policy or another, the attendant political diversity makes sense.  But the only clear thing about which path the Tea Party will end up choosing is that it will lead Rightward.

(Special Thanks to Thomas Sanchez for the first and fourth photos)

-Niv Elis

The Borders of Free Speech

It is not unusual for the Borders bookstore on the corner of 18th and K St. in Washington to host talks by authors promoting their books.  What is unusual is for the speaker to inspire a protest.

But when the speaker in question is Pam Geller, a blogger of the extreme right and one of the loudest voices against the Islamic Center at Park 51 near ground zero, a protest seems inevitable.

“There’s a huge wave of hatred in this country now,” says Tom Judd, the unaffiliated activist who organized the protest.  “We’re trying to bring attention to the fact that this woman is a hate monger, a racist, someone who supports racists and hates Muslims.” Judd hopes to shame Borders for giving Geller a platform by calling attention to the event.

Geller responds to the accusations by averring, “I don’t hate Muslims and it’s a ridiculous premise.  It’s just a smear campaign.”  Why are the protesters targeting her?  “Your guess is as good as mine, you’ll have to ask them.  Because 70% of Americans oppose the idea of a mega-mosque at Ground Zero, in a building that was destroyed by the plane.  That building is part of ground zero.  I’m just one of millions of Americans.” [Note: a Time poll estimated the that about 61% oppose the center, and the plane parts destroyed only 3 stories of the building].

Despite her claims, it is not difficult to see how the protesters came to believe that she hates Islam, even if not individual Muslims.  On her blog, in which she provides “original reportage,” she frequently equates Islam with radicalism and murder and has even gone so far as to call for the removal of Islam’s third holiest site. “It is sitting atop the great Jewish temple. The dome has got to go.” 

Similarly, Geller runs an ad campaign for potential victims of honor killings, which directs people to a website entitled LeaveIslamSafely.com, as opposed to, say, LeaveDangerSafely.com or EscapeExtremismSafely.com.  Regarding her book, the Washington Post listed it among a slew of inflammatory, polemical titles that it called “rude, self-righteous and inflammatory.”

Indeed, the “9/11 Mosque” is one of the most divisive issues of the summer.  Jesse Zarley, a self-described socialist who heard about the protest through the Coalition to Stop Islamophobia, says he is “disgusted by the racism and Islamophobia being whipped up around the question of the Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan,” and ranks Geller at “the ugliest end” of such views.  The feelings are mutual.  In her own blog post about the protest, Geller called it “a tiresome exercise in ‘dialoguing’ with rude morons.”

But in an environment in which activists are yelling past each other, people may not recognize the consequences of their actions.  For example, several passersby who had never heard of Geller walked into the store to check out her book after seeing the protest.  “Protesters usually attract people to come in to what they’re protesting against,” said one newly interested bystander.  Judd, the organizer, admits that Geller is “not someone of any real note, but because of the mosque protest, that’s gotten her a lot of face time.” 

Such protest also raise questions about the limits of free speech.  Should Borders (or the numerous media outlets that have provided Geller a platform, ranging from WorldNetDaily and Fox to CNN and NBC) deny someone a platform just because she has unpopular or radical views?  Do they have guidelines as to whom they will and will not host?  Given that providing a platform does not imply an endorsement of views, should such limits exist?  Does boycotting the institutions that do provide such platforms stifle free speech?  Borders did not return a phone call seeking a clarification of their policy.

According to Eric Sapp, a Founding Partner of the Eleison Group, a political consultancy specializing in religion, one consequence of a lax media and unregulated blogosphere is the insertion of chronic misinformation into the public debate.  One example is the recent Pew Poll, in which 20% of Americans misidentified President Obama as a Muslim (he is, in fact, a Christian).  

“The difference between this President and others is that they did not have a 24-7 ‘news’ and blog machine spouting lies and half-truths in an attempt to plant seeds of doubt in voters minds,” says Sapp.

When President Obama commented on the Park 51 project, he noted that although the legality was clear, the “wisdom” of the project was more complicated. 

The same might be said of free speech, and how the participants in this debate are choosing to exercise it.

-Niv Elis

The Ruckus - August 23, 2010

Nudity, Houses of Worship, and Choreography.  No, it’s not a revival of “Hair,” it’s this week’s edition of The Ruckus, giving you the latest trends in the world of protest!

• As the maelstrom surrounding the so-called ”Ground Zero Mosque” spun into a fury, thousands gathered at Ground Zero, denouncing plans for the Islamic Center.  The craze spread around the country, manifesting more virulently anti-Islamic protests, staged at mosques in Tennessee, California, Wisconsin, and Connecticut, among other places.
• Meanwhile, in Warsaw, Ohio, it was a Church that found itself the object of a considerably more attention-getting protest.  Strippers from a local club, protested and harangued for several years by the Church in question, decided to turn the tables and protest the Church instead, clad in their Sunday best bikinis. 

• If bikinis are risque at Church, they are simply oppressive at Venice Beach.  Sick and tired of the legal double standard applied to female and male regarding toplessness.  Some 200 women with red-tape-covered nipples and men with red bikni tops marched withs signs urging women to “Free your breasts! Free your mind!” and “Demand topless equality.”
• In what must be the first-ever case of pretzel controversy, concerned activists in New York quietly opposed the new tagline for “Pretzel Crisps.”  On ads in bus-stops and phone booths reading “You Can Never Be Too Thin,” protesters added the phrase “Yes You Can,” along with notes decrying the slogan, which they believed promoted skewed body image. 
• In China, “wildcat unions” have sprung up demanding an end to working conditions that literally work people to death.  An estimated 600,000 people a year die from overwork in China, a condition so common that a new word, “guolaosi,” was coined to describe it. 
• A group of activists staged a song and dance routine in a Target store, protesting its recent donations to an anti-gay and anti-union gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota.

Finally, the protesters of Dream University, covered here earlier this summer, have found success in their cause.  The Obama administration decided that it would not deport students who came to the United States as undocumented children.

That’s all for this edition of The Ruckus!

Protest v. Protest: Battling Over Gay Marriage

It is a dreary Sunday on Capitol Hill.  The anti-gay National Organization for Marriage (NOM) pointedly sets up their rally by the nation’s legislature, turning its back to the high court just across the road.  The courts have not been kind to their cause of late, overturning the ban on gay marriage in California just days before. 

Although the rain had let up an hour earlier, the organizers are agitated.  After 22 other stops in 19 states on its “Summer for Marriage Tour,” NOM knows that the chances of pro-LGBT groups staging a counter-protest are fairly high; they have done it at every other stop.

“Everyone has a first amendment right to stand up.” NOM President Brian Brown remarks pensively.  “As long as they don’t try to interfere with our rally they’re fine.”  According to Brown, counter-protesters in previous rallies stormed the podium, asked protesters “if it’s OK to raise your kids as little bigots,” and attempted to drown out their speeches with a bullhorn.  “Behavior that’s not civil at all.”

Officially, a counter-protest in support of gay marriage called “The Big Commit” is planned for Freedom Plaza, on the other side of town.  That event has a larger, more cheerful crowd, complete with rainbow snow cones and musical performances.  Alexandra Andrea Beninda, a transgender woman and political activist who moved from Virginia to DC to enjoy its stronger LGBT rights sees the rally as a sign of progress in their battle.  “Today is a celebration of where we’ve come locally, and to make a statement with our numbers to that group down the street.”

Beninda, who is bisexual, has a particularly unique perspective on marriage equality. Before she transitioned legally and physically from being a male, she was only allowed to marry a woman.  Now, as a female, she is only allowed to marry a man.  “You should be able to find the one person you love and want to marry and you shouldn’t have somebody telling you that.”

In a message to participants, “The Big Commit” organizers urged restraint.  “Every time NOM gets what they deem an ‘angry’ response from justifiably angry counter-protesters, they use that to incite fear and spread lies, which in turn nets them an average of $100,000 from their supporters.”  But that didn’t stop a handful of activists from various organizations showing up at the NOM rally, some to simply to show opposition, others geared for a confrontation.

On the sidelines of the NOM podium, LGBT allies begin lining up with signs reading “NO More hate” and “How dare they try to end this beauty?”  Some more light-hearted activists brandish signs with humorous, mocking slogans like “God Hates Bags” and the ever versatile “I Have a Sign!”

Among them are Megan Miller, 19, and Rob Ciano, 22, who drove down from New Jersey just to protest the NOM.  “You have to stand up and say what you think is right and what you think is wrong,” said Ciano.

NOM’s turnout is somewhat dissapointing.  Buses are delayed, some supporters seem to be on the wrong side of the Capitol, and one of the speakers is missing.  But with about 100 activists waiting, the show must go on.  Brown opens with a warning of counter-protests to come, urging his audience to “meet any form of hatred here with love,” and eliciting a collective eye roll from the counter-protesters. 

Things remain calm, even as the next speaker, the vehemently anti-gay Bishop Harry Jackson of Washington’s Hope Christian Church, begins his speech by calling for a round of applause “for Jesus.”

Then it begins. 

Marching past the Capitol, equipped with signs, T-shirts, and the dreaded bullhorn, self-declared Queer activists spread out behind a large yellow banner reading “Equality Delayed, Equality Denied, We are Dying.”  Over the loud-speaker comes the planned disruption.  “We would like to take a few moments to honor our dead, LGBT Americans who were murdered by people who were influenced by groups like the National Organization for Marriage and use homophobia to justify killing us.”  The Queer activists’ signs depict the victims of hate crimes, who had been murdered for their sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Because the counter-protesters had arranged a permit for the other side of the lawn, not the road by the NOM protest, the police quickly usher them along.  In order to avoid arrest, they are forced to keep the whole party moving as they read their admonitions, slowly making their way beyond the anti-marriage rally.  “NOM’s words keep our families from being equal to straight families under the law.  But more tragically, let us never forget, NOM’s words lead to murder!” they cry from increasingly farther away.

Several NOM protesters go over and engage with them, sparking yelling matches between people armed only with words and video cameras.  Others set up camp next to the more innocuous counter-protesters, as if to diffuse their influence by blending them into the crowd.  Most of them remain unmoved by the display. 

Two Virginia women, Anne Bowden and Darci Nelson, say they came to protest because in their view, the gay marriage debate is part of the greater issue of “the natural order.”  Ms. Nelson believes that legalizing gay marriage would simply encourage a habit of sin, high levels of which can undermine the strength of any nation.  “Just look at the Roman Empire, or Sodom and Gomorrah!”  People should not construct laws simply to justify their lusts or sexual choices, she says. 

As the confrontations die down, Dan Kaufman, a longtime gay rights activist who moved to DC to participate in more protests, stands patiently on the sidelines.  He holds a lengthy sign, part of which reads “Your morals, sexuality, child-rearing abilities, upbringing, and faith are none of my business, and mine are none of yours.” 

Yet even Kaufman believes that nobody on either side of the debate is likely to be convinced by the others.  Such events, he dryly observes, “are rally calls for people who already know what they want to do.”

-Niv Elis

Tweeting the Revolution

Mehran Divanbaigyzand had steered clear of Iran activism for nearly 30 years.  Two things pulled the Iranian expatriate back into the cause.  One was the flagrant election fraud last June, which blocked the reformist Mir-Hussein Moussavi from the Presidency in favor of the hard line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sending thousands of Iranian protesters into the streets.  The other was Twitter.

“A few days after the election I got on Twitter and that’s where I saw instantaneous news, sometimes directly from Tehran,” says Divanbaigyzand, now a math teacher and chess coach in the D.C. area. 

The prominent role of Twitter points to how protest serves as a means of communication.  Beyond the obvious function of delivering a message to the government, the protest encourages like-minded citizens in their activism by demonstrating that they are not alone in their views.  In other words, it helps build a community around a common cause.  

The Iranian theocrats are no strangers to using technology to rally people around an idea.  The Islamic Revolution that brought them to power in 1979 was nicknamed “The Cassette Tape Revolution” because Ayatollah Khomeini, the charismatic leader then exiled in Paris, smuggled inspirational speeches into the country on cassette tapes, which were dubbed and distributed to supporters. It is, thus, no surprise that the Iranian government believes it necessary to deter people from participating in public anti-government demonstrations and preventing other citizens from hearing about them. 

When, in the wake of the election, Iran retaliated violently against protesters, imposed media blackouts, and jailed activists, Twitter provided a forum for subversive communication, event organization, and reporting the latest developments.  Online activists could “retweet” bits of information from one another, tag important searchable keywords, link to each others’ comments, and even hold public conversations with relative insulation from the government.  In the process, Twittering functionally became the protest: it brought people together to deliver a specific message and built a community around a cause by increasing their visibility.

Beyond helping the Iranian activists find each other, Twitter helps them connect to a network of supporters beyond their borders.  “The ability to also network with other activists around the U.S. and even in Europe has been really wonderful to be a voice for what goes on in Iran,” says Divanbaigyzand. 

Furthermore, Twitter serves to unite activists from factions with vastly different political ideologies around their common cause.  According to Maria Rohany, who organized last week’s anti-execution protest for Mission Free Iran, ”There is more strength in working together for a common goal: there may be possibilities for engaging in more concerted work across all of the ideological perspectives to support the movement for freedom in Iran.”  For example, the usually solitary and always controversial Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization, designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States, participated in the Mission Free Iran protest. “It had never happened before that MEK members came out to collaboratively support an event held by a non-MEK organization,” Rohany wrote in an e-mail.

Over a year since the election fraud in Iran, Twitter continues to be a central forum for activists around the world like Joanne Michele.  At the D.C. protest, she noted that “every single person here that I know I met through advocating on Twitter.”  (Notably, that’s how your devoted blogger heard of the protest as well).

 That’s one reason that the Iranian regime, which for years tried to “export the Islamic Revolution” to other countries, now desperately works to prevent dissidents from importing the next revolution electronically.

-Niv Elis

Asking the World to Pay Attention

“The only way that the Islamic Republic can stay in power is to kill and maim and rape and torture.”  So says Maria Rohaly, a co-founder of Mission Free Iran, a group devoted to supporting the democracy movement in Iran.  Rohaly has been active in the cause since her friend, a member of the pro-democracy movement in Iran (not to be confused with the Green Movement, which advocated reform within the Islamic regime), was arrested last September.  In calling attention to the human rights abuses, political repression, and executions carried out by the Islamic Republic, Rohaly hopes to help undermine the regime, or at least curtail their human rights violations. 

The protest Rohaly organized in front of the White House was one of 17 being held in concert around the world, specifically focusing on the plight of seven condemned dissidents, whose executions are imminent.  “They’re going to be killed for chanting, for demonstrating.  For doing what we’re doing right now, it’s a death sentence,” says Joanne Michele, a fellow activist. 

The political landscape in Iran has been volatile since the already restricted presidential elections were rigged last June, sparking a wave of street protests reminiscent of the Islamic Revolution that brought the ruling mullahs into power in the first place in 1979.  The government came down violently against the protests, shooting into crowds and arresting activists, like the seven now set to be executed.  Worldwide, Iran is second only to China in the number of executions it carries out each year.  

But given the United States’ woefully low level of influence over the Islamic Republic, why would a group of 12 protesters in Lafayette Park, huddled under umbrellas and shielding their signs from the rain, think they could make a difference?  Because, say the organizers, they are part of something bigger and, more importantly, it has worked before.  

When Newsweek journalist Maziar Bahariwas imprisoned in Iran and accused of being a spy in 2009, the campaign for his release made its way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who mentioned his case in international talks.  Iran decided that he was “more of a liability than an asset in jail,” and finally released him.  “The prisoner’s worst nightmare is the thought of being forgotten,” Bahari would later write.  Similarly, a campaign of protests to prevent the extradition of Iranian dissident Jamal Saberi from Japan to Iran proved fruitful.  “Globally, we’re just trying to get the word out, because the strongest thing we can do is advocate for these people,” says Michele.

But results are not always so straightforward, and calling attention to an issue can sometimes backfire.  A worldwide campaign to free Sakineh Ashtiani, a 43-year old mother sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery (after her husband’s death, mind you) seemed to be making significant progress.  Protests and petitions led to delays in her scheduled execution, and Brazil’s President Lula Inácio Lula da Silva recently offered her political asylum.  Yet just this week, the Iranian government took a hard line, claiming that in addition to committing adultery, she had also murdered her husband.

Despite such setbacks, Rohaly sees the Iranian government’s constant recalculations and contradictory proclamations as a sign that the protests are working.  “It’s hard to say exactly how it gets to them, but you can watch their behavior and you know.”  Regarding the most recent execution sentences, Rohaly says, Iran reacted to increasing international attention by imposing a media blackout on the topic.  “That’s the best sign you can get that you’re having an impact that they don’t like.”  Over time, small actions can lead to more significant results. “With the worldwide attention that has come, it has forced the Islamic Republic to stop killing quite as many people as it had been.”  

Through its petitions, demonstrations, and media campaigns, Mission Free Iran is, in Rohaly’s words, “asking the world to pay attention.”  Given Iran’s success in quelling protest, reformists face an uphill battle.  But given Iran’s revolutionary history, on the other hand, the government has plenty of reasons to worry about public opinion, both at home and abroad.

-Niv Elis

Correction:  An earlier version misstated the affiliation of an Iranian activist with the reformist Green Movement.  He was, in fact, part of the pro-democracy movement.  Apologies.

The Ruckus - August 4, 2010

On this edition of The Ruckus: swearing for nature, a $1 revolution, and Chinese prostitutes.

• Environmental activists armed with only F-bombs and T-shirts have embarked on a campaign to clean up the Gulf of Mexico.  The organization UnF—ck the Gulf sells “UnF—ck” shirts in support of charities working to clean-up the BP oil spill (see their R-rated video here.)
• A new website, Armchair Revolution, aims to gather funds for worthy causes iTunes style - $.99 at a time.  Its users can channel their support for causes and participate in activism through on-line gaming.
• Thousands gathered in defiance of a curfew (intended to quell civil unrest) in India-controlled Kashmir.  Four curfew-breakers were killed and 20 injured, while similar protests erupted around the country.
• Musicians against Arizona’s controversial immigration joined together in a group called The Sound Strike to boycott the state.  The band Bright Eyes debuted a new protest song against the law.  Taking a different tack, Lady Gaga refused to cancel her Arizona concert, in which she declared, “I will not cancel my show. I will hold you, and we will hold each other, and we will protest this state.”
• In Russia, protesters gathered to demand freedom of assembly.  Half of them were arrested.
• In China, sex workers circulated a petition denouncing government crackdowns on their professions (of which there are over 4 million members).
• Over 500 pilots and flight attendants demonstrated against possible job cuts in the financially troubled Mexicana de Aviacion airline in Mexico City’s Airport.  The airline’s financial troubles forced it to cancel several routine flights this week, adding fuel to the fire.

That’s all for this edition of The Ruckus, bringing you the latest in protest from around the globe!

Lights, Camera, Immigration Rally!

If all the world is a stage, then the White House is a really useful set piece.

That, at least, is how well-organized protesters with a coherent media strategy see it.  In their calculations, the best way to get their message delivered to the government is through television, radio, and written media.  When Casa de Maryland, a group devoted to the welfare of the Latino community, organized a rally on immigration (in coordination with dozens of other organizations), it needed to create powerful images dripping with symbolism to attract the media, and help them deliver their message.  As a result, every detail of the rally was coordinated to send an emotionally appealing and potent message.  For example, the rally was planned to coincide with dozens of other protests across the country on the day that Arizona’s controversial immigration law was slated to take effect (many of its main provisions were struck down by a federal court that morning).

Meghan McNamera, a volunteer with a great deal of experience organizing protests, offered her insight into how a well-planned rally can be an effective aspect of a policy campaign. 

“First of all, it gets media attention, which is really important.”  In what opponents would call an unabashed act of political theater and supporters would call a humanizing exposition of the realities of immigration law, the organizers brought together some 700 children of undocumented workers, born citizens in the United States, from all over the country.

Wearing T-shirts reading “Don’t Deport My Mom” or “Dad,” the kids chanted a variation of a Springsteen classic: “Born in the USA, don’t take my mommy and my daddy away!”  As the cameramen made their way through the crowd, the organizers set up front page-friendly poses behind banners emblazoned with pointed slogans.

“There are about 360,000-400,000 deportations every year, and what people don’t think about is the kids and the families that they leave behind when the Obama Administration deports people,” says McNamara.  “Families are separated all the time.”

Using the White House as a backdrop for the rally conveys that the issue at hand is of national importance and should be dealt with at the highest levels of government.  It also can help the message reach the intended targets.  “If you do it in key areas such as in front of the White House or if you have key speakers, you’re able to target specific members of congress that would see it.” 

Finally, it has a galvanizing effect.  Protest “gives a voice to the people and makes them less afraid to come out of the shadows, and that’s a really important part of the movement, you know, having people who are willing to speak their mind.” 

McNamera’s own experiences have shown her the human side of immigration.  “I’ve had friends who are undocumented.  I worked in the restaurant industry throughout college and I got to know them and see them as human beings rather than as illegal immigrants who need to be deported.”  Protest is important because to those who do not interact with the immigrant community, “it gives us a face.” 

Rodrigo Carreon, a dual citizen who has lived in Houston, Texas for 37 years (and is running for a position as a Judge in Fort Bend County) agrees.  He came to support his community and champion a less punitive immigration policy.  “We prefer more schools than more prisons,” he says. 

Behind the theatrics, the organizing groups have coherent political goals and specific policy recommendations.  They advocate for comprehensive reform that would secure borders, but also provide a pathway to the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country subject to background checks, fines, and taxes.  But in the information age, with its overabundance of flashing news headlines and sound bites, the President will most likely hear about a protest outside his residence if it is spectacular enough to create a story that the media, in any of its forms, cannot ignore.

Even those with serious policy recommendations, then, must put on their costumes, learn their lines, get on the stage, and perform for the cameras.

-Niv Elis

Of Exes and Expatriates

Quenby Wilcox hasn’t seen her children in over two years.  She has no access to her assets or her fledgling business.  Her life has been thrown off course by an issue that affects millions of people around the world: divorce.  As messy as ending a marriage can be on its own, Wilcox faces the added complications of competing national jurisdictions and international law.

Originally from Louisiana and educated at George Washington University, Wilcox ended up marrying a Spanish man, whose employment with a multi-national corporation took them all over the world.  As a so-called “trailing spouse,” she followed her husband’s employment to Paris, Miami, back to Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Paris again, Bogota, and finally Madrid again.  Often unable to get work permits or stay local long enough to cultivate a career, she focused her attention on raising their two children.  But over time, says Wilcox, the marriage soured and her husband became abusive (While she refers to psychological abuse, she specifies that there was never any physical violence).  When they got divorced in Spain, she says, she was left out in the cold. 

“Basically, if you’re the foreigner and the spouse is the national, they win everything,” says Wilcox.

Unfortunately, such cases are not uncommon.  Few legal protection exist for expatriate spouses, even in rich countries like Japan, Australia, and many European countries. 

According to Paula Lucas, the founder of the Americans Overseas Domestic Violence Crisis Center, an American living abroad may face enormous obstacles, especially in abusive situations.  Having escaped an abusive husband in the United Arab Emirates with her children in tow a decade ago, Lucas knows the legal difficulties of seeking international custody personally.

“There’s a bias to give custody to the national, rather than the foreign parent,” says Lucas.  Furthermore, would-be divorcees often lack funds for legal help and face language barriers in court.  They may be stripped of their legal standing in the country, denied visitation rights, and have difficulty accessing their assets if they leave the country.  Worst of all, provisions of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a treaty designed to protect children from being kidnapped and taken abroad, fail to adequately account for abusive circumstances (for more information, see The Hague Domestic Violence Project). 

In the first six months of this year alone, Lucas’s Crisis center received 1,189 calls from 281 expatriated men and women, representing 254 children.  “What you think of as an American when you leave the country is ‘I can come home whenever I want,’” says Lucas.  But as Quenby Wilcox learned, that’s not always so easy.

Having spent 20 years outside the labor force, lacking a credit history, and facing a well-connected ex-husband, Wilcox returned to the United States with only a suitcase in her hand.  She found a job at a D.C. temp agency, rented a room, and sought to make inroads with U.S.-based advocacy organizations.  “All I want is my money and to go back to Spain and live with my kids.”   So far, she’s tried the State Department, the Justice Department, the American Consulate in Madrid, and even got Congresswoman Eleanor Norton Holmes to write a letter to the State Department on her behalf, but to no avail.  “Everybody just keeps passing the buck.”

Until she can get her assets unfrozen, Wilcox is working to change the international legal provisions and judicial rulings that have caused her so much grief.  And so, during her two week vacation from the temp agency, she is picketing at the White House, the State Department, and the Department of Justice, if not to change policy directly then to get support on her judicial quest.  She has demonstrated with women fighting similar issues in American courts, as well as with men fighting for better visitation rights.  Her Facebook causes page, entitled “Safe Child International,” has so far has attracted 400 supporters. 

Once she raises some capital, her plan is to revive an idea for an organization she started in Spain called “Global Expats,” originally intended to help trailing spouses with childcare issues, cultural adaptation, and finding jobs.  “I didn’t realize that one of the things I’d be doing in the future was assisting women with domestic violence situations.” 

Given the myriad financial, emotional, and legal stumbling blocks expatriates face, they could surely use the extra help.

-Niv Elis

The Ruckus - July 25, 2010

This week on the Ruckus:

• The Westboro Baptist Church staged a protest at a Lady Gaga concert in Missouri, calling her out for her pro-LGBT views, and saying that she and her fans are “heading straight to hell in a gender-confused, self-loathing, tone-deaf hand basket.“  Despite her public calls “to pay these hate criminals no mind” and ignore them, Gaga fans expressed solidarity by tweeting messages with #GodLovesGaga.

• Not to be outdone, the Westboro Baptist Church set its sites on the Comic-Con comic book convention.  Perhaps they weren’t expecting the counter-protesting prowess of Comics enthusiasts (don’t miss the pictures).

• In response to France’s lower house passing a ban on the niqab (full-body Islamic veil) in public spaces, hundreds of men in Karachi, Pakistan gathered to protest, carrying signs reading “Down with the West.”
• Unions staged protests against job cuts and decreased health benefits at Hyatt hotels in 15 cities.  63 of the protesters in west Hollywood were arrested.

In other news, 21 of the undocumented students participating in Dream University (covered in this blog last week) were arrested while staging a sit-in at a Senate office building.  Depending on whether and how they are charged, the arrests might result in deportation.

Join us again on “The Ruckus” next week for your round-up of protests near and far!