When I think of war protests, I invariably picture people in the ’60s, marching in the streets against the Vietnam War, getting sprayed by fire hoses and chased by riot police. In my head, it wasn’t a pretty scene. Protests, to me, were angry, visceral demonstrations of people who were fed up with the way things were and planned to do something about it. The protest against the war in Iraq I attended Saturday was radically different from the picture I had in my head, and maybe that’s why I find myself conflicted about it.

The attitude in the Boston Common on Saturday seemed to be optimistic, if a bit laissez-faire. Filled with college students and all sorts of left-wing activists, at times the scene resembled a hippie love-in more so than an actual protest against the war in Iraq. Bored-looking police were lined up along Tremont Street, yawning and occasionally joking with the protesters. A friend asked me, “How can they call this a protest if people aren’t going to get angry about it?” I wasn’t sure. The crowd seemed split between activists with some vague notion of impeaching President Bush, and kids who showed up just to see what all the fuss was about. I wasn’t really sure what group I fell into; there was a lot of spectacle but there were also some powerful speakers and lots of raw, real emotion permeating the scene. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly I thought was missing.

I think the wide array of leftist causes hurt the impact of the protest. I didn’t come to the Commons to free the imprisoned Black Panthers or support the glorious socialist revolution; I came to protest the goddamn war in Iraq. I wanted to hear from veterans who were in Iraq and people who have been hurt firsthand by the invasion and subsequent civil war. I didn’t want to listen to protesters making tired arguments about how “Amerikkka” is evil or how we “sheeple” are responsible for all the injustices in the world. At this point, public opinion has swung drastically against the war. There’s no reason to alienate people by having all these fringe groups spring up alongside the issue at hand. I’m as liberal as the next guy, but something about the whole thing just struck me as opportunistic, as if these protesters were trying to solve every social ill through one giant demonstration.

I know it’s a nice sentiment to think an outpouring of peace and music will win over the hearts and minds of the government, and that Bush will hear protesters playing a Bob Dylan song and decide that maybe war isn’t such a good idea after all, but I don’t think it’s a particularly realistic one. Even if peace is the ultimate goal, nobody is going to listen unless the activists start to mean business. If protesters want the government to start paying attention, people need to make them nervous. They need to clog the streets and cause disruptions. People need to get arrested. They need to make Bush realize just how low his favor has fallen. Half-heartedly chanting “no blood for oil” or “Bush lied, people died” isn’t going to cut it.

The only people I saw who seemed genuinely angry were a few of the speakers and a mass of protesters huddled outside the Armed Forces Career Center on Tremont Street, yelling and banging and generally causing a big scene. I thought that was a pretty good show of emotion, even if I’m not sure anybody noticed except the crowds walking past. But it struck me how times have changed since the ’60s. People were angry about Vietnam. There was a real unease in the country at that time, and protesters were getting gassed, chased by dogs and beaten up in the street. The attitude today strikes me as somehow fundamentally different when the college students aren’t quite as passionate, and it seems almost impossible to get as worked up as we did when boys were getting drafted out of high school and sent to die in some far away jungle. The situation is different, but the message is the same: Our government started a war, it was a mistake and they won’t acknowledge it. It’s taken us a real long time to get angry about it, and now that we have, it seems almost like that protest was scheduled a couple of years too late.

Adan Berkowitz, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].