Photos by Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
Glen Anderson (left) thanks Kermit Poulson for helping deliver a message of nonviolence last week in Olympia. Poulson had relocated to Olympia a few days earlier from Port Townsend and was hoping to continue his political activism, he said.

Anderson's message of peace drew an angry response from jogger Michael Baram of Olympia on Sept. 28.

Voices of peace see more debate

Call for nonviolence brings positive and negative reactions

LORRINE THOMPSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Sunday, March 10, 2002

OLYMPIA -- The months since Sept. 11 have been busy for Glen Anderson.

He is, after all, a peace activist.

But they haven't been much busier than usual. At noon every Wednesday, you can find him at Sylvester Park in Olympia, holding a peace vigil, just as he's done for 22 years, rain or shine, through times of war and peace.

Anderson also speaks at schools, churches and community organizations when asked, coordinates a speaker series, and oversees the Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation -- something he's done since 1976.

What Anderson has noticed since Sept. 11 is more community response and debate during the vigils and speaking engagements.

"When there's a hot international crisis going on, we get more responses, both positive and negative," he said.

"But the positive responses go up even more than the negative," he said.

'Two-bit punks'

Anderson believes that's because people in favor of a war response have plenty of support, but people interested in peace don't know where to go or how to express their worries.

"We had three people at the vigil (Wednesday) who were participating for the first time," he said. "One woman said the U.S. militarism was getting out of hand, and she just had to come by."

A talk last week on nonviolent responses, particularly in regard to Sept. 11, drew 50 people to downtown Olympia, Anderson said. "A lot of people out there really want peace," he said.

What Anderson and other peace activists want is for the United States to use international criminal courts and processes to punish those guilty of terrorist crimes, rather than dropping bombs and sending in troops.

Not only is a war response destructive and violent, but it also doesn't work, they say -- like throwing gasoline on a fire.

"What I see is our government making things vastly, vastly worse. It's unleashing more violence," Anderson said.

In addition, the war is elevating the status of terrorists, giving them publicity and encouraging copy-cat attacks, he said.

"It builds more status on a lot of two-bit punks," Anderson said.

He said he'll continue the work he began 26 years ago, because "there's a need to help people understand that war isn't a solution, that nonviolence actually has a lot of power."

He points to the end of apartheid in South Africa, the end of the Marcos regime in the Philippines, the end of the cold war with the Soviet Union -- all achieved without war.

Spreading the word about nonviolent responses to human conflict takes a lot of time, Anderson said, and he has no plans to stop.

"It just needs doing," he said.

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