Last year, I came across this Kickstarter project, We Are Many – a feature-length documentary film “about the never-before-told story of the biggest protest in history, on 15 February 2003, and its legacy, through the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement. The day that saw an estimated 30 million people in over 700 cities around the world, gave birth to a new global social movement.”
I was compelled to participate because I was there (pictured with my friend Dave). A bunch of folks from the Albany, NY-area took buses down to New York City to protest the threat of war in Iraq, which nevertheless started the following month.
But I also contributed because there seems to be this revisionist history that the American people were fully behind that military action when this was hardly the case. Personally, I participated in at least 20 vigils, and at least one large rally in Albany before 15 February 2003 in protest against the warmongering talk.
The documentary, scheduled for the 10th anniversary of the rally, “will tell the real story.” You are invited to “share your own reflection and invite people you know who marched/were against the Iraq war to tell their stories too” at this site. Or go to the Facebook event page.
Oh, the most unlikely thing about 15 Feb 2003 is that, among that throng of thousands of people walking down the streets of NYC, I ran into my old college friend Uthaclena, his wife, and their daughter (who was celebrating her birthday that very day) who had come from an hour south of Albany to protest as well.