Free Associating From Georgia

Being in the midst of a large community of people in a new place leads to a cascade of images and impressions I would not likely experience in a place that was more familiar. This is my first visit to Ft. Benning for the School of Americas Watch Vigil and it is very rich in such images and impressions.

The gathering and demonstration area is a fenced street, Ft. Benning Blvd, about 100 tables long from the last intersection to the official gate of the Fort. It has orange barricades at the public end of the street, eight foot high chain-link fence along both sides of the street, with police men and women outside the fences in clusters and individually for much of its length, and then a layer of three gates and fencing at the entrance to the Fort. The construct is of a cattle shute.

There are helicopters overhead and police men behind cameras at each end of the gathering/parade area taking our pictures. The police and the military have cherry-pickers and raised platforms with camouflaged and uniformed personnel. The Fort end of the route has a Columbus, Georgia police station to the left and no trespassing signs on the new-looking gates. In other words, nearly everything possible has been done to make the venue intimidating. In other words, they knew we were coming and they are ready for us.

But who is intimidated and who is happy? This is a festival of peace-lovers. Despite a few sober moments when horrifying statistics and sad narratives were being recited from the platform, the general mood is happy. There is wonderful music from many groups and people are dancing in the street. Drummers pound an energetic beat and all along the street thousands of people are gathered in small animated conversations. Along the edges are the police in their dark glasses, cases of tear-gas and mace strapped to their legs, and emotionless expressions on their faces. When someone extends a greeting there is a momentary slip at the corner of the mouth into a smile, but otherwise their discipline of the morose is striking.

But the police are largely invisible in the sociability and solidarity of the crowd. Even after standing on our feet for nine hours, sun-burned cheeks and fore-arms, scratchy throats that water will no longer slake; there is a bounce in our step as we head back to the convention center for an evening of workshops and puppet theatre. We are dancing in the street, laughing, rejoicing in friends and in a goal that is within sight of being won. The School of Americas will be closed soon. Then the harder work will begin. (WGBTT).