"We Don't Ask Police For Protection" -- Tale Of CNVA's Peace Walk

The marchers had been walking for more than four hours, and now they had come to a rest on the lawn of the Quincy police station. A large group of local youths who had been trailing and taunting the marchers gathered nearby; gradually, they wandered over and began talking. Two of them approached a marcher, who was sitting exhausted under a large tree.

"Did you know," said one of the boys with calm and deliberate hostility, "that you are a roaring, screaming, flying asshole." He repeated the declaration several times, but got no response. The marcher sat quietly, slowly running his hand over the smooth grass.

A few minutes later, he got up, and, along with more than 20 others and three police cars, completed the first leg of a peace walk from Boston to Provincetown, at the tip of Cape Cod. The first day had been uneventful--that is, the marchers had been jeered everywhere they went; they had been cussed, called cowards, and belted just a few times with eggs and tomatoes. None of this was unexpected; it's part of the routine of peace marches, and those who participate in the demonstrations understand it well.

Anger Persists

What was not precisely routine was be absence of more serious violence. Last spring, members of the committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), he pacifist group that was sponsoring the Boston to Provincetown walk, were beaten severly in front of a South Boston courthouse. The angry mood that led to these attacks had not disappeared, last Saturday; it was merely frustrated by a Boston Police department, which, embarrassed by a conspicuous absence in front of be court, provided the march with heavy protection. In fact, wherever the march went, local police covered well. But it took only one slip to inform that the demonstrators were no more welcome in August than in April: on Monday the patrol care observing the walk disappeared momentarily outside of Marshfield, allowing 40 men and teenagers to set upon the demonstrators, briefly beat them, and destroy a number of their signs.

"It was a pretty tense situation," said Jim Hayes, the leader of the march. But he had no criticism of police. "We don't ask for police protection--we just try to talk to people instead." Wherever they go, violence is likely, Without police, the likelihood becomes a virtual certainly. Again, this has become routine, and the marchers pass over it almost glibbly. But their refusal to ask for protection separates them from most other protestors. It is an important distinction.

Almost Religious

These people are pacifists, not simply protestors of the war in Vietnam in fact (none of their signs contained a reference to Vietnam). Pacifists have been out of style for many, many seasons, and they are more likely to remain so. Their demonstrations seem as much religious expressions as political protests. When the war in Vietnam is over, they will still be marching.

But in peacetime, pacifists are tolerated. They march, distribute leaflets, and are quickly passed by; in peacetime, talk of peace is almost irrelevant. It is only during war or threat of war that it becomes meaningful, and therefore emotional. But the same events that can generate new support for peace movements, usually produce even more powerful countervailing forces.

As they began their march Saturday, the pacifists encountered these forces. Their own appeal was based on their fundamental beliefs, not upon political reasoning or expediency. "Together," said a pamphlet they distributed, "we shall liberate one another from the bondage of insensitivity and restore moral virtue to human affairs. FOR WE SHALL DEVELOP THE SPIRITUAL ATOM BOMB and with it destroy the walls of hate and violence." And the response the received was also based on fundamental beliefs.

It came in various forms:

* The "how can you call yourselves Americans" feeling: Almost universally, the marchers were seen as unpatriotic. "You're all yellow bastards," one man yelled at the group. The pacifists tried to argue that America had no right to impose its will upon Sough Vietnam. "If there were an election in South Vietnam," said one pacifist to a hostile spectator, "and if a majority of the people said they wanted the Communists and wanted to distribute land to everyone, would we have a right to say NO?" Without hesitation, the boy responded "Yes, we could," and then proceeded to explain why. Repeatedly, the argument came to "if we don't fight the Commies in South Vietnam, we'll be fighting them in Hawaii or California."

* The "my brother is over there" feeling: Any talk of peace smacked of withdrawing support from American troops now in South Vietnam, and that was an intolerable, unmentionable thought. The marchers said they simply wanted to bring the troops home, but to most of the spectators, it seemed that the marchers were degrading American troops. One young man in Quincy, who said he had just returned form Vietnam, summed it up this way: "What you're really saying is that all the guys who are over there and have been over there are just a bunch of assholes." Opposition to the war, in short, was opposition to American trops. For many, this was just another overtone of the patriotic appeal, but for many others, whose relatives are in the army, there was something deeply and personally offensive about the march.

* The "what was good enough for me is good enough for you" feeling: On the Boston Common, one elderly man shouted out, "I've fought before and I'll fight again." And another man, standing in front of Donovan's Tavern in South Boston, yelled "Have you guys ever been in slit trenches. . ." There was resentment over the unwillingness to serve, and a feeling that the marchers should be allowed to escape a common duty.

* The "if you don't like the country, why not ship out" feeling: the hecklers seemed to find that the march was questioning not only the American position in the war, but the correctness of many of the country's most fundamental institutions and practices. For example, in Dorchester, as the marchers approached a church, a group of children who had been following them began to yell, --"Don't walk by a Catholic church... Don't walk by, you're not good enough." There seemed to be an ambivalent feeling: the spectators seem to assume that the marchers felt superior to everyone else; the natural response were constant taunts of "scum." Nor, in many cases, did the marchers' response dispel initial impressions. The quiet, "let's be reasonable, "can't we talk about this" approach was simply alien and frustrating.

Overreaction?

All this is a bit much when one considers the size of the actual threat posed by CNVA's peace march. There were only about 60 people in the march when it began Saturday from the Boston Common; but even this number dwindled rapidly. By the end of the day, there were only 25, and on Sunday there were 15. Surely, in itself, this represents little real power; with hardly any effort, you could miss the entire demonstration.

To explain this overreaction is difficult. The simplest, if not the most complete, explanation is that the marchers represent a real or imagined threat much larger than their own numbers. There is little discrimination between types of protest; this march is like all the others, and represents all others. Or, perhaps one must simply classify the overreaction as "irrational." But whatever the causes, one thing about the overreaction is certain: it is predictable. CNVA understands this--and the question one has to ask is why they keep coming back for more and more.

Here, of course, there are a number of traditional explanations. Publicity? But CNVA hardly tries to increase the size of their demonstrations, and numbers like 10 and 15 do not seem calculated to produce big newspaper headlines. Establishing the right to protest? But CNVA has almost ignored this angle. It does not ask for police protection, and last spring, when there were protests against police inaction, it was the American Civil Liberties Union, not CNVA, that took the lead.

It is possible that CNVA hopes to draw public opinion to its side by providing clear-cut instances of public brutality and police inaction. Yet again, CNVA makes no significant organizing efforts, and leaders rarely complain about the police.

If there is a fundamental motivation to CNVA, it is something that personally motivates each member. Many of the younger people in the group have burned their draft cards and face court prosecution. CNVA's political goals are only the broadest in nature. There are few specific objectives, such as there are in the civil rights movement, for example. In this, CNVA is different from many of the so-called "New Left" organizations, which have specific policy ideas and are constantly experimenting with ways to implement them.

CNVA, in fact, is by choice a rather small group. It has a major headquarters on a farm in Voluntown, Conn., where many members live off and on; but there are hardly ever more than 50 or 60. In Boston, CNVA demonstrations have rarely involved more than 10 or 15 people. CNVA is not selective, but merely non-aggressive in its recruiting, and as a result, it draws only those who have a deep personal commitment to pacifism.

All this makes for the peculiar brand of CNVA activism--it is far more morally than politically motivated. It is the kind of activism that prompts John Phillips to set out on a personal peace walk, unannounced and unpublicized, from Boston to Providence. "I would just saunter along and start to talk to people," Phillips says. He had hoped that the Boston to Provincetown march would do the same thing on a larger scale, but even from his perspective, it is proving a mild disappointment.

"When I walk alone," he explained last Sunday, "it's easy to stop and talk with someone. Here it's almost the opposite. We're all carrying signs and nobody wants to stop."

That, as Phillips found out, wasn't exactly true. People stopped all right--but not to talk