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May 2004

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Americans Abroad, A Force to Reckon With?

By Jason Kirkpatrick
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M illions of people across the world marched against Bush’s war on February 15, 2003. For many of the seven million U.S. citizens living abroad, it was a day of intense frustration and anger. Luckily, February 15 was also a day when many from the U.S. living abroad ran into each other on the streets of Prague, Berlin, Paris, and across Europe. This spawned the organization of a Europe-wide co-ordinated movement that is now called American Voices Abroad (AVA). 

My participation with AVA began as I was crossing Prague’s famous Charles Bridge, running across the Vlatava River though the heart of the old city. I was frustrated because I wasn’t home in the U.S. organizing against this Iraq war as I had against the first Gulf War when I was a student at Santa Monica College. 

When the protest got to the U.S. Embassy, there were a number of speakers. One of them was from the U.S., Arie Farnam, who I found out later was a freelance journalist and regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor .  

After the demonstration I introduced myself to Farnum and also met Gwen Albert, a U.S. citizen working at Prague’s Buddhist center, the Om Zentrum. The two invited me to a meeting in the coming week. At this meeting of students and others generally opposed to the war, we discussed organizing a press conference. 

The Czech people were 70 percent against the war at the time, but the Czech government was wavering, probably playing the U.S. in an effort to win some aid. We thought it would be helpful to support the Czech people by showing that many U.S. citizens living there were opposed to war in Iraq. 

In the next two weeks, Farnum organized a major press conference that attracted 40 of the top journalists in Prague, including one of Germany’s national public radio stations, as well as Czech print and electronic media outlets. In the next week, Farnum got us invited onto a national public TV program. We participated in a debate with officials from the Czech Army, as well as someone from the Iraqi National Congress who painted us as supporters of Saddam Hussein for opposing the war. 

After I finished working in Prague, I moved to Berlin to organize a conference called Towards Carfree Cities IV. After a few weeks of settling in, I saw a leaflet for a three-day film festival during the July 4 weekend, organized by a group called American Voices Abroad (AVA). The festival featured a number of films focusing on various U.S. foreign policy gaffes and such recent leftist films as Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election , a documentary. 

At this film festival, I signed up to be on the AVA email list and soon attended my first meeting. AVA had formed officially during the lead-up and beginning of last year’s gulf war, with various U.S. citizens organizing just as in Prague. I found out that there were a number of other AVA groups, including ones in Amsterdam and Paris. 

Early Organizational Focus 

A t its first congress in the summer of 2003, AVA agreed on a few major points. The first was that it was against the USA PATRIOT Act. The second was that AVA would support any presidential candidate opposed to Bush’s doctrine of preemptive war. 

At the time, these issues seemed easy to coordinate around. The problem was that as a campaign this would only be relevant through the Democratic primary. Furthermore, (from the information available in Summer 2003), AVA might end up supporting a Ralph Nader- type candidate as the possibility that the eventual Democratic candidate in the 2004 election may have voted for the USA PATRIOT Act as well as the Cheney/Bush war in Iraq. 

Nonetheless, AVA has been an active, visible, and feisty group. In March 2003 at the beginning of the Iraq war, AVA members were often outnumbered by journalists at its press events. The German news gobbled up the story of an estimated 10,000 people from the U.S. living in Berlin actively organizing against the war. No longer was the U.S. Embassy the sole source for a U.S. position on the largest issue of international concern. All this took place against the backdrop of a Berlin filled with “No War” and rainbow colored “Pace” (Peace) flags, flying in every district and in a very high percentage of store windows as well. 

Also in 2003, another group of radical U.S. anti-war activists had led a clever, satirical “We Love War” demonstration. This action had a large number of Anarchists donned in bright red, white, and blue garb, with signs such as “More War, More Police,” “War =Freedom & Profit,” and “Peace? No Way.” This crowd of 300 marched through the heart of Berlin and the old squat neighborhoods of the Prinzlaur Berg district, attracting bemused smiles and confusing many police. 

AVA was organizing rapidly. Members included visiting professors, filmmakers, journalists, translators, student backpackers who had first come to Berlin long ago and decided to stay and teach English to survive, and 1968 radicals who had organized in Berlin and then decided to stay. Contacts were made with local journalists. 

AVA decided that education was a priority. More film nights were organized. A National Lawyers Guild attorney toured across Europe, giving lectures about the unconstitutionality of the PATRIOT Act at large public events. Scott Ritter made it to Prague for a lecture to accompany the screening of his film about the U.S. government manipulation of the weapons inspection process. All in all, AVA was staying out in front of the public and getting coverage in the mainstream press. 

100,000 in 2004 

B y the time of the second AVA European congress in Prague (November 2003), it was agreed to start a new campaign. The “100,000 in 2004” campaign was kicked off on Martin Luther King’s birthday by AVA chapters across Europe, including chapters in Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Hamburg, and Montpelier. 

The Prague group held an all-day event at a U.S.-owned English language bookstore. The Globe bookstore had readings from the U.S. Constitution and such writers as Martin Luther King, Mark Twain, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. They also had poetry, more films, and they registered voters online. 

One AVA member had read an LA Times quote from 2000, “Republicans abroad elected Bush in 2000.” This quote inspired some members to research the process by which U.S. citizens living abroad can register to vote. Shockingly, they found that the U.S. Department of Defense is in charge of this process, which may explain why so many U.S. soldiers register to vote. Luckily for AVA, we have been experiencing a number of current and former U.S. military and governmental staff joining our ranks. 

Further inspiration for AVA comes from groups like the GI Hotline. This organization provides advice and information to U.S. military personnel that either have gone absent without leave, or may be interested in leaving the service. This group in Europe has been stunned by the number of calls they have received. They also have been designing leaflets to give out across Europe at spaces frequented by U.S. military personnel. 

AVA has taken the position that it needs to be a potent force in Europe to get a large turnout of U.S. citizens living abroad to vote against Bush. One of the top stories in the European press in mid-February was about the massive growth in Democrats Abroad. DA chapters in places such as Paris and Tokyo experienced a 400 percent growth rate in turnout for foreign Democratic Party caucuses over the 2000 figures. 

It is obvious that it is not only citizens of “old Europe” who are at odds with Bush/Cheney foreign policy. 

Colin King, who teaches Philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin, sized up why many have joined AVA: “Many of us are expatriates by choice. We feel better far from a country in which we see so much apathy, provincialism, unreflective consumer egotism and obstinate ignorance of the rest of the world—to name just a few things which could irk someone about the United States. AVA is poised to stand strong as an organizational political tool for progressive U.S. citizens in Europe and its strength and effectiveness will only get stronger.” 

Jason Kirkpatrick is the former vice- mayor of Arcata, California. 

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