FOR members protest the war, worldwide

Yesterday, on the 5th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation lifted up their voices across the globe in protest of the war and the continuing occupation of Iraq. What I find hopeful in several of these stories is the sense that, even as many peace activists feel exhausted by the neverending war, and many have the sense that major media outlets are buying into the Bush administration's framing of the Iraq war using language that "the surge is working" (see today's New York Times, for example), new people are speaking up against the war and joining these protests every month, at vigils and marches and witness gatherings.

Some FOR members participated in the major actions in the nation's capitol, during which more than 30 people were arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience at the Internal Revenue Service's headquarters in Washington. In that story, a young schoolteacher from New York City was interviewed as he engaged in civil disobedience for the first time, saying "We need to find lots of different ways to resist the war, and I decided to try this."

FOR in England (known in the U.K. as "FoR") cosponsored major actions in London and Birmingham, too. In partnership with several Christian groups, they organized (or as they say in Britain, "organised"!) events covered in the Church Times, among other publications.

Local actions were also held in communities around North America. FOR members in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which was featured in today's Times-Trubune paper.

In Olympia, Washington, the great, energetic FOR chapter worked in partnership with Veterans for Peace as well as Women in Black to create a visible witness. Glen Anderson, the FOR Olympia organizer, was interviewed along with others in an article in The Olympian.

Overall, the stories paint a picture of a peace movement that continues to organize to resist the war, despite the evidence that it doesn't appear it will end for many years to come.