Making call for peace
Area residents join worldwide celebration of women's roles

During what is perhaps the 11th hour before a U.S. war with Iraq, hundreds of area residents joined hundreds of thousands worldwide Saturday to celebrate women's roles to promote international peace.

At the "Women's Voices for Peace" event at the Downtown Community Plaza, a set of female area activists echoed the message that more peace, not violence, is what the world needs most.

Folk singers and other performers got an audience composed largely of women and children to participate with call-and-response or sing-along songs such as Buffalo Springfield's "For What it's Worth" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."

Representatives from groups such as the National Organization for Women and the Green Party set up booths, and people carried signs with messages such as "Support Our Troops by Keeping Them Home" and "War is not the Answer."

"You are the answer," speaker Heart Phoenix told the audience, explaining later that it is up to each individual to promote compassion.

"It's not enough to protest (the war), it's about being the change we want to see," she said, adding that that is how Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. effected change.

The afternoon began with dual "peace walks" from the Plaza of the Americas at the University of Florida and Citizens Field in east Gainesville to the downtown plaza.

Intentionally, the tone was not to stand in opposition to war with Iraq, but to stand up for the importance of nonviolence, friendship and tolerance, and building a sense of community, event organizer Cathy DeWitt said.

DeWitt said organizers took their cue from an international grass-roots movement called "Gather the Women," which selected Saturday because of its significance as International Women's Day.

Throughout the history of IWD since the late 19th century, March 8 has been seen as a time for asserting women's political and social rights as well as for reviewing the progress that women have made over time.

Gainesville resident Alice Simpkins said she attended "Women's Voices for Peace" because she wanted to support the cause.

"I think women tend to be very wise," she said. "We handle disputes through talking and not fighting.

"We're life givers, of course we're pro-peace. The loss of life doesn't compute to us."