"Americans for Peace"
courtesy : Julie Wornan

Between Iraq and a hard place

Americans and Brits in Paris joined French peace groups for a massive demonstration in the streets of this capital, on February 15. As transatlantic tensions mounted and the US administration turned its war rhetoric up to “with-us-or-against-us” volume, some expats here began to wonder if speaking out while living in France could eventually qualify them as “enemy combatants”!

One of the frustrations of living abroad is the difficulty of meaningfully participating in the debate over such momentous issues as going to war. So, the demonstration was an opportunity for expression that many Americans living here decided couldn’t be missed.

Certainly not all our readers are in opposition. During February we received emails representing all shades of opinion ranging from apologizing for the Bush administration’s unkind “old Europe” remarks about France to harshly amplifying the theme. For instance, Jack Winter wrote us from San Diego: “I’m one of many tens of thousands of American military who served in Europe for the sole purpose of providing protection to all Europeans, including you ungrateful French... Your national specialty then, as now, was to be the very first to surrender. You French really, truly, have no shame. Now, you yellow fourth rate French team with the Nazi Germans...”.

Demonstrating against your country’s policies while living abroad is a tricky business. One demonstrator expressed it this way — “It feels almost unpatriotic to be with a bunch of French people chanting slogans against your own country. But, this is a global thing and I am being very patriotic. I want America to be true to its traditional democratic values that I am proud of...”.

Julie Wornan, spokesperson for the group “Americans for Peace” described the various kinds of protesters going out to demonstrate saying “as war approaches people are coming forward expressing dissent. Some of us are old veterans of a peace movement that stretches back to Vietnam, not to mention the first Gulf War. Others are teachers and students spending a year or two in France. Still others are longtime residents and leaders of our community.... We want French people to know that not all Americans follow the US administration line...”.