St. Francis Transit

Two guesses what the demonstration du jour was this past weekend in the downtown Civic Center Plaza. Yes, on the day headlines around the world were relaying Israel's threat of escalation and thousands of Europeans were taking to the streets, San Francisco protestors gathered to speak out against the bombing in Gaza.

The most ardent demonstrators appeared ethnically linked to the conflict, many driving in circles around the Civic Center waving huge Palestinian flags from their cars to show solidarity with their relatives and compatriots being attacked on the other side of the world. Others were just there in sympathy and in the interest of peace. The event’s organizer revealed herself to be a public school teacher, staging demonstrations in her own time after work. Most of the other coordinators were students; all were volunteers.

The event was entirely nonviolent, though on the way there I personally witnessed a white man in a BMW lean out his window to tell a woman and her young daughter, who happened to be holding a 'Free Gaza' poster, that she "might as well put a swastika on that sign." The little girl tripped and fell.

Several local musical acts appeared, including some authentic Middle Eastern performers and at least one rapper. "P-A-L-E-S-T-I-N-E, Palestine will be free!" the refrain rang out from the stage. Otherwise, a constant torrent of rhetoric from several speakers kept the crowd cheering and chanting, with most leveling their criticism at US funding of the Israeli military, and some going as far as to link American complicity in the Middle East violence with the murder of Oscar Grant, still a sore issue in the Bay Area for sure.

The day after the pro-Palestine demonstration in the Civic Center, a group of about one hundred gathered there in the plaza. As they marched down Market Street to the Powell cable car turnabout shouting, “We are Oscar Grant!” their ranks doubled and police in riot gear were called out to confront them, though no arrests were made. Authorities initially claimed the surveillance cameras at the scene had malfunctioned and not recorded the shooting, but several videos shot by witnesses on cell phones have appeared, confirming testimony Grant was not only lying in submission when shot, but was in handcuffs with a knee on his kneck.

Tuesday evening, Johannes Mehserle, the officer who shot Grant and had since resigned from the police force, was arrested near Lake Tahoe and charged with murder. At the same time, word was coming through that Hamas and Israel were possibly negotiating a new ceasefire with the help of Egypt and the US. And no matter what side of these issues anyone is on, it's a positive step.

I don't know if these demonstrations here in San Francisco or around the world played a role in these tentative resolutions, but I can see they were cathartic for the participants. And they reaffirmed my desire to live and go to school and maybe even someday work down here at the Civic Center Plaza. What is clear in all of the activity the last few days is this is the place people come when they want to connect with the larger issues, with each other locally and the rest of the world. It's where they come to express their visions and dreams about what civilized society should be like. And, that, more than any particular cause, is what draws me here.

לְמַ֤עַן צִיּוֹן֙ לֹ֣א אֶחֱשֶׁ֔ה וּלְמַ֥עַן יְרוּשָׁלִַ֖ם לֹ֣א אֶשְׁק֑וֹט עַד־יֵצֵ֤א כַנֹּ֙גַהּ֙ צִדְקָ֔הּ וִישׁוּעָתָ֖הּ כְּלַפִּ֥יד יִבְעָֽר׃
‎ ‏וְרָא֤וּ גוֹיִם֙ צִדְקֵ֔ךְ וְכָל־מְלָכִ֖ים כְּבוֹדֵ֑ךְ וְקֹ֤רָא לָךְ֙ שֵׁ֣ם חָדָ֔שׁ אֲשֶׁ֛ר פִּ֥י יְהוָ֖ה יִקֳּבֶֽנּוּ׃