THE BIG BANG THEORY OF ANTI-WAR PROTEST
IN LAFAYETTE SQUARE, DRUMMERS POUND THEIR MESSAGE HOME
By Megan Rosenfeld
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 6, 1991
; Page C01
Sorry, Mr. President: They're still at it.
At his press conference yesterday, President Bush said the peace drummers
on Lafayette Square across the street from the White House -- "incessant
drummers," he called them -- had been "moved out of there" after patrons of
the high-priced Hay-Adams Hotel had complained about the noise. "The drums
have ceased, oddly enough," he said.
Just as Bush was speaking, alert reporters could hear a muffled thumping
from not too far away. The drummers were drumming again.
"Karma," said one of them, Sandra Kroger, to explain the serendipitous (to
them) timing.
Summoning memories of other presidents who have looked unhappily at
anti-war demonstrators in the park, Bush has mentioned the drummers several
times since a changing cast of characters started the vigil Dec. 13. At one
point he even said "those damned drums" were keeping him from sleep, a claim
he denied yesterday. "There was a slight hyperbole there because the drums
could only be heard from one side of the White House," he said. " ... I am
sleeping quite well, as a matter of fact."
Nothing could make the protesters happier than knowing they have entered
Bush's consciousness. Nothing except an end to the Persian Gulf War. That is
why they are there, they say, and that is where they'll stay, despite 74
arrests so far for disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct. One man,
William Thomas, was arrested twice in one night, his wife, Ellen, said
yesterday. A park regular since 1984, Ellen Thomas said signs that had been
deemed acceptable by the U.S. Park Police since then had recently been
confiscated, leaving one 4-by-4-foot painting on plywood that shows a white
dove against a purple background and the words "God Is Love" and "Love Heals."
As she talked, Thomas beat a drumstick wrapped with silver tape against a
shallow white drum, one that had been left behind by Native Americans from the
Ojibwa tribe who started the protest with a tribal ceremony that concluded
with drumming. When they left, others took up the drumming, on pots, old
hubcaps, plastic buckets and real drums, picking up a slow, steady rhythm and
trying to keep the sound below the regulation 60 decibels. The Park Police
come by regularly to measure the sound, but several demonstrators said that in
the past few days people have been arrested even when the sound was low.
"That's not true," said Capt. Hugh Irwin, who is in charge of the
Lafayette Square patrol. "No one would have been arrested if it was below 60
decibels." Irwin said he had complaints from the hotel and offices around the
park, which prompted the crackdown. Signs like Thomas's were removed because
they had grown since they were originally approved, Irwin said, as had the
scope of the demonstration.
Bush had evidently been briefed on the regulations because he mentioned the
60-decibel limit. "And lo, people went forth with decibel count auditors. And
they found the man got up to -- this drummer, incessant drummers, got over 60,
and they were moved out of there, and I hope they stay out of there because I
don't want the people in the hotel to not have a good night's sleep," he said.
"This was a spontaneous outpouring," said Thomas as she thumped away. Next
to her sat 23-year-old David Mericle, from Harrisonburg, Va., who was hitting
a battered hubcap with "Thou Shalt Not Kill" lettered on it. "This is our
voice, the people's voice, the mother's heartbeat," Thomas continued.
Nearby was June Yasuda, 42, a Buddhist with a shaved head and round wire
glasses who sat on a bright blue square of blanket. In front of her was a
small purple cloth underneath a tiny statue of Buddha. On the blanket a
wristwatch was laid out neatly. Yasuda struck an Oriental drum that looked a
bit like a hard round fan, chanting as she hit the circle with a stick. She is
there every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., she said. "It is the tradition," she
said. Where is she from?
"Everywhere," she said.
A jovial man named Tony, wearing a blue shirt and white shorts and barefoot
in the springlike weather, shouted somewhat incomprehensibly through a
cardboard megaphone. He paused later to offer a reporter a foreign cigarette.
Meanwhile, a man who identified himself as E.L. of Washington pounded a bass
drum that belonged to Kodiak Easterwood of Louisa, Va., who was taking a
break.
There was a stroller with a baby sleeping in it, under a sign that said "We
Want Peace." Another sign rested on an IGA EcoSac grocery bag. There was a man
in a multicolored knit cap hitting a copper-bottomed saucepan. Other
demonstrators said there have been as many as 100 drummers banging at one
time, a great sound, they said.
"One reason {to do it} is that it bugs the president," said 18-year-old
Jonathan Stang, who had taken the day off from Woodrow Wilson High School to
protest -- with his government teacher's permission, he said. "I have to write
a paper about what I learn," he said. "The drumming is also unifying; instead
of listening to rhetoric, it's a rhythm, a harmony of life, sort of going with
the trees and with what's really there."
"It's like the heartbeat of every troop in Saudi Arabia," said E.L. "When I
first came down here I did it {drumming} for five days straight with no sleep.
I had a lot of anger to get off my chest. Now it's a more peaceful sound."
Staff writer Ann Devroy contributed to this report.
Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington
Post and may not include subsequent corrections.
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