On the way to class yesterday, I stopped a moment to take this photo of a group of anarchists frozen in a pose raising a peace flag, a la the staged Iwo Jima photo, under the flags on Flint Loop.
The message is less than clear, but it made you think. It did so in a way that for me, the many demos of the last few weeks did not. Their quiet stillness made me think. It also gave me hope that there remain a few people who are not afraid to speak out quietly at the most difficult time to wage peace.
4 Comments
That’s really interesting. Was the flag allowed to remain for any length of time beyond this photo-op?
Why aren’t there anarchist roaming my neighborhood?
Barbara: I should have been clearer, this is precisely the pose they kept for some amount of time (I don’t know how long). It was–perhaps intentionally–a difficult pose to hold for any length of time… I don’t think their intent was to plant the flag :).
A stunning picture. I, too, find that mass protests lose their relevance quickly. Because they are turned inward? Because they are essentially invisible, just one more piece on the news? Because their messages are less abstract, less iconographic? Up here on the Mass/Vermont border on weekends for a while, every overpass on the main artery holds a silent person with an american flag — the repetition of it all makes it most successful, in my mind.