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My First Protest

Avy Malik, 15, at his first protest.

By Avy Mallik

“1- 2 - 3 - 4, WE DON’T WANT NO RACIST WAR!” These loud, forceful words of protest (the double negative didn’t seem to bother anyone) were followed by: “5 -6 -7 -8, STOP THE VIOLENCE, STOP THE HATE!”

I was in a rather unique position, marching amongst hundreds of people down Mission Street in San Francisco, many of them being fellow students. On any other Saturday morning, I would be lounging in bed and fending off my mom, who was under the severely warped notion that I should spend my weekend doing more productive things. But this Saturday wasn’t like any other Saturday.

On Sept. 11, the World Trade Center was destroyed, the Pentagon was turned into a Quadragon and planes seemed to be falling out of the sky indiscriminately. A backlash against Arab Americans seemed to be sweeping the nation. Actually, it didn’t stop there. Most racist rednecks can’t be bothered to tell the difference between Middle Easterners and South Asians. And worst of all, enough lives had been lost to dwarf the number of casualties in Pearl Harbor three times over. Needless to say, this teenage South Asian with a Muslim-sounding name was feeling a bit edgy.

I had come to the Mission to take part in a youth gathering to protest Bush’s plans to bomb Afghanistan. Even though the flyer I had been given touted the fact that it was a youth rally, it seemed like most of the protestors were from the ‘make love, not war’ era. Even so, the blend of different races, generations, and political views was quite impressive. They all seemed to have one thing in common, though: “down with Bush!”

Ever since the bombings on that fateful morning two weeks ago, life had changed. Like everyone, I was stupefied that anyone could be driven to such a degree that they would give up their own lives and the lives of over 6000 others for a cause. It just doesn’t fit with what most juniors in high school perceive to be the Big Picture.

But, in my opinion, none of this can be used as a means to justify what the U.S. government intends to do now. United States’ planned retaliation against Afghanistan won’t solve anything. I mean, come on, who are you going to bomb? I doubt that destroying a war-torn country that has been in the midst of a civil war will make anyone hold up their Stars and Stripes with pride. At least, I hope not.

It was reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only one thinking this way. Like most high schools, my classroom lessons were suddenly transformed from reading Faulkner to dealing with terrorism. Most of my classmates’ opinions are similar to mine. Perhaps it’s the fact that San Francisco is ultra-liberal, or that there is has a huge immigrant population. But I found out that an overwhelming majority of teenagers thinks that military retaliation is a bad idea. One of my classmates quipped, “Everybody is saying nuke THEM, kill THEM, bring THEM to justice, but who exactly is THEM?”

While I was marching down from 24th and Mission to Dolores Park, I managed to strike up a conversation with some other Asian Pacific Islander Americans. Most of the people I spoke to were annoyed at the fact that America could be planning another Vietnam. But curbing hate crimes in the United States was also a major issue. I met a young Pakistani American from South San Francisco named Atif. Concerning the President’s gung-ho attitude, he said: “Bush has to be willing to respect sovereignty of others countries and respect [their] laws. His attitude of ‘us versus them’ is terrible. If Bush plans on killing innocent Muslims for no reason, then I’m afraid that I can’t join his side.”

Another protestor I talked to was a young student by the name of Amy Ng. Her antipathy towards Bush was not unique. At the protest, there seemed to be practically an equivalent number of anti-Bush posters as there are McDonalds in this country.

“Bush is encouraging hate crimes,” Ng lamented. “He even said that he sees no distinction between terrorists and those harboring them. Bush is practically screaming for Americans to take matters into their own hands and attack Arabs.”

As we reached Dolores Park, I had a growing feeling that this was what San Francisco must’ve been like during the late 60’s. Speakers from Bay Area universities were talking about how Bush was going to send America’s youth to die in war. Spanish chants such as ‘BUSH FAMOSO, TU ERES MENTIROSO’ (Bush the famous, you are a liar) were repeated over and over. One young speaker got on stage and gave quite an apt analogy of Bush’s actions: “Bush only comes to give us a booty call. He only calls to screw us. He never calls to give us scholarships, or builds a hospital, he just wants to f— us.”

I’m not saying that I agree with everything that was said at the rally. I’m not an anarchist, or a communist, or any type of radical with an “-ist” at the end. I’m just a high school student that doesn’t want to be ‘punked’ on because of my race. I don’t want to have to explain that I’m a Hindu, and that my homeland is hundreds of miles from the Middle East, and that, ‘No, I didn’t happen to bomb the World Trade Center.’ Of course, I want Osama Bin Laden, or whoever’s responsible, to be brought to justice. But, like the students who organized the youth rally, I don’t believe that Bush is going to use discretion when he exacts revenge on the world. I have a sickening feeling that a lot of innocent people are going to die for the actions of a few renegade terrorists.

If, however, someone comes up to me years after this incident and tells me that I was wrong — that Bush had, in fact, not started a major war and that he had brought the people responsible to justice; that an impoverished country had not been decimated and that I had been wrong all along — I would be the happiest person alive.

Avy Mallik has lived in India, France, Kazakhstan, Singapore and China. He is 15 years old.