For this week’s Sunday Issue, we invite you to “Sound Off” on peaceful protests. Specifically, is dissent a threat to national security in time of war?

By Mary Spicer

MEADVILLE TRIBUNE

Jessica Sarkis had a question: “Is dissent a threat to national security in time of war?”

In an effort to find an answer, the Allegheny College senior organized a public discussion featuring a panel of speakers with views on both sides of the question. The bottom line, according to participants at the recent gathering at Ford Chapel on the Allegheny campus, is that there is apparently no simple answer.

The session, inspired by a class Sarkis is taking this semester titled “Americans, Christianity and Social Justice,” started with a screening of “Blowing in the Wind,” a documentary video she created during her junior year that briefly outlined the series of local confrontations that have captured the public’s attention.

The roots of the ongoing local discussion on dissent can be traced back to the first Saturday after the 2004 presidential election, Meadville resident Jan Hyatt explained during the video presentation. A group of local women, taking issue with a post-election statement by President George W. Bush that his re-election represented a mandate for the war in Iraq, organized a gathering at Meadville’s Diamond Park.

The model for the group was Israeli Jewish women who came together in the late 1980s to protest the building of Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights. Their approach was to stand together in public places, often at busy intersections. Known as Women in Black because of the color of the garments they wore, many carried signs calling on Israeli leaders to end the occupation. In Meadville, Women in Black display small white flags — each one representing a Pennsylvania soldier who has died during the Iraq war.

In April 2007, a confrontation between a local Women in Black participant and a Townville resident whose husband was on his third tour of Iraq at the time inspired a number of veterans to start to gather in counter-protest.

Moving the debate off the street

In “Blowing in the Wind,” two local Vietnam-era veterans took opposing sides.

According to Phil Davis, commander of the Coming Home Association Post and a member of Veterans of Vietnam War Post 52, “the thing to do is support the president and quit protesting.”

Sanford Kelson, president of the Crawford County chapter of Veterans for Peace, argued that “people don’t join the military to go to a war where their leaders have lied to them about what it’s about.” As a result, according to Kelson, “It’s important for the whole country to rise up and be counted.”