David Howard: The 2006 Latino Peace Pilgrimage to End the Iraq War

(Courtesy of Rebecca Glasscock)

Gandhi in California: The 2006 Latino Peace Pilgrimage to End the Iraq War
By David Howard
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Saturday 11 March 2006

Seventy-six years ago, on March 12, 1930, Mohandas Gandhi began the Salt Satyagraha, a seemingly quixotic journey of nonviolent protest against omnipotent empire, a march to the sea powered by what Gandhi called his inner vision. Joined by thousands of ordinary Indians, Gandhi walked 400 kilometers (241 miles) from Ahmedabad to Dandi, Gujarat.

The British then held a monopoly on salt, and Gandhi knew that the proceeds of the salt tax helped finance the forces of empire at the expense of the impoverished masses - the campesinos.

When he arrived at Dandi on the Arabian Sea, Gandhi picked up a grain of salt and spoke prophetic truth to arrogant power: "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire."

The truth and beauty of Gandhian nonviolence resonated around the world. Here in the United States, it inspired some of our greatest social justice heroes: Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, American untouchables from the cotton-picking Deep South; Caesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, children of campesinos from the strawberry and lettuce fields of the Mexicano Southwest. Their simple acts of civil disobedience - refusing to sit in the back of the bus, demanding service at whites-only lunch counters, boycotting grapes - changed our world.

On March 12, 2006, the seventy-sixth anniversary of the Salt March, as the world suffers the intended and unintended consequences of a hideous war of aggression against Iraq, Latino conscientious objectors and parents of fallen soldiers begin their own two-week march of nonviolent protest.

Like Gandhi in India, they will walk 241 California miles between Tijuana on the Mexican border and the Pacific Bay city of San Francisco. Each stop on the march for peace and justice is important to the history of the Latino movimiento: la frontera, the border between North and South, privilege and poverty; La Paz, the burial site of Caesar Chavez; Camp Pendleton, where generations of troops have trained for the killing fields of Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The march will end in San Francisco's Mission District on March 26-27, where participants will donate blood for both soldiers and civilians in Iraq.

The leaders of the march are Fernando Suarez del Solar, whose Marine Corps son was among the first US soldiers to die in the Iraq War; Pablo Paredes, the Navy seaman who was court-martialed for refusing to board an Iraq-bound ship; Camilo Mejiaa, who chose military prison over redeployment in Iraq; and Aidan Delgado, who was granted conscientious objector status while stationed at Abu Ghraib prison.

We in Ventura County, California, will honor these peace marchers in the spirit of Gandhi, King, Parks, Chavez and Huerta. On Monday, March 20, we will house them in the sanctuary of Oxnard's Congregation for Peace. We will walk with them to teach our children at Oxnard High School. We will join them in protest in front of Oxnard's military recruitment office, and we will arrive together at the County Government Center to call upon attorneys, judges and elected officials to help us end the war.

No one knows when the Iraq War will end. No one knows who among the children at Oxnard High School will heed Gandhi's message and who will fall prey to a multi-billion-dollar military propaganda program hell-bent on persuading them to fight.

But we do know that 75 years from now, our great grandchildren will remember our grain of salt. They will stand at our humble milestones and recall how we contributed our drop of blood, sweat and salt tears to help end an obscene war of immense cruelty and folly. They will remember not because our gestures are unique or grandiose, but because they reflect a perennial vision of peace transmitted across borders, cultures and religions. A vision worth a mere grain of salt; a vision that shakes the foundations of empire.

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David Howard is co-chair of Ventura County Citizens for Peaceful Resolution/CPR.