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How our obsession with revolution led us to the Womens March on Washington

The U.S. border official at Pearson International Airport didnt understand why we were going to Washington, DC, for the inauguration.

We didnt tell him we protested with hundreds of thousands in Kiev during the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, wrote a guerrilla folk opera about our experiences and are now touring the world to share what it means to take part in a protest that eventually overthrows a reviled yet democratically elected president.

We tried not to give him any reason to turn us away like the Montrealers who openly stated their anti-Trump views and never made it to Washington. We said wed been watching the presidential campaign and were just “interested.” Eventually, he tossed our passports on the counter and waved us through.

We werent lying. We werent interested in getting hosed while throwing bricks with Black Bloc anarchists or standing shoulder to shoulder with Bikers for Trump in the wall of meat. We didnt plan on donning pussy hats, nor do we think Donald Trump will make America great again.

We wanted to watch, listen to and feel how the capital of the most powerful nation in the world changed over the course of three days as millions of people from all over the country arrived either to celebrate Trumps victory or protest his rise to the top of American politics.

Its a sickness, some of our friends say, this interest, a masochistic symptom of post-traumatic stress to want to relive the 2014 protests.

Others believe that people march to feel good and think they have accomplished something. In a trending New York Times op-ed Tuesday, David Brooks characterized the social experience of marches as a deluded descent into the language of mass therapy.

Our assessment? When you live through something deeply, you search for ways to make meaning for yourself. Sometimes that search becomes an obsession. In this case, it led us to Washington for the Womens March.

During our stay, our strongest sense was that no one knew what to expect next from Trump or from those who oppose him a sentiment we were very familiar with in relation to our experiences in Ukraine.

No one knows what the future holds for America, but here are some differences and similarities we noticed that may help us all begin to wrap our heads around whats to come.

Duration The Womens March lasted 12 hours on a Saturday the Revolution of Dignity lasted six months. While both happened in the dead of winter, Kievs protesters endured weeks on end of -20C temperatures, while Washington stayed above zero.

Numbers In both cases no one expected so many people to show up. Overwhelming support gives people faith in their own agency, in the idea that they can change things. This can be as detrimental as it can be affirming because it can simultaneously empower extremists and result in more hollow cheering than action.

Sloganeering and remembering the important tasks at hand At the Womens March, every third person was carrying a placard. In Ukraine, the placards were all hung on an iconic Christmas tree in Independence Square. Then people got over them and took to more important tasks.

Another difference: when a call was initiated in Independence Square, the response resonated with a force far greater than the number of people screaming, because we were together. On the Mall and in the streets of DC, people were shouting slogans and screaming constantly, so it was noisy, but we didnt hear a unified group shout that shook our rib cages.

Non-violence There were some 200 arrests in Washington, but no reports of police brutality. In Kiev, police brutality and suppression are normal remnants of Soviet times. Note: its illegal for citizens to carry arms in Ukraine, but legal in the U.S.

Co-opting the cause In Ukraine, priests, politicians, musicians, racists, anarchists, etc, came out of the ether to use the protest for their own ends. This didnt happen at all on January 21! And government-paid thugs werent sent in to disrupt protests and instigate violence in DC!

Centralization and disorganization The Womens March had a mainstage and a plan to eventually walk together to the Ellipse just south of the White House, but the organizers were not prepared for so many people and had no way of communicating to the masses (internet connections and cell service were iffy at best), so people just walked in every direction until they got tired and hungry and then went home.

In Ukraine there was a mainstage with a speaker system, as well as several administrative offices, indoor and outdoor kitchens, libraries, educational facilities, medical centres, legal offices, training in security, etc, all either set up in army surplus tents on the square or in occupied buildings. People were organized into volunteer battalions, so word travelled very quickly and in an organized fashion.

Acting globally Urban centres across Ukraine held their own protests in support of Kiev. Ukrainian diasporas supported the revolution by congregating in their hundreds outside their embassies on weekends. Supporters of the Womens March across the U.S. and the world totalled an estimated 1 million people, their respective protests garnering media attention in and of themselves.

Business as unusual In both Ukraine and Washington there were street-side sellers of wristbands, buttons, T-shirts, etc. In DC, the same vendors often hawked different merch during the inauguration and the march. People in pussy hats and Make America Great Again caps ordered coffee from the same baristas. In Kiev, if you had a business on Independence Square or Kheshchatyk Street, you either helped protesters or you boarded up your shop and left it to eventually be occupied.

Bathroom issues There were porta-potties left over from Inauguration Day all over the place. No such luck in Independence Square. Some say thats the real reason buildings got occupied in Kiev.

Food for thought In Washington, as soon as happy hour/dinnertime rolled around, the streets emptied. Every restaurant, fast food joint and pub from the White House to Chinatown had a two-hour wait everyone was hungry and needed to unwind after a long day. In Kiev, protesters were fed on site with food brought and prepared by volunteers, and didnt unwind until… never (or rarely), nor did they go out to bars or restaurants. There was nothing to celebrate, even when the president finally fled, leaving a trail of bodies shot dead by his snipers.

Whats at stake In Washington: basic human rights, womens rights, immigrant rights, respect, dignity, all the things associated with quality of life. In Kiev: life.

Future goals The goal of the Womens March was not to take down Trump or even to demand that he apologize for his remarks. No ultimatums or deadlines were given. The goal for women was to assert themselves in numbers without violence or confrontation, and to give an indication of the kind of mass action that is possible if the president continues his behaviour in office. The protests were legal, and the protesters respected government barriers (e.g., the White House was off-limits). The Ukrainian protesters had a concrete list of demands and a timeline, including the resignation of the president. Their protests were considered illegal. People came and went, but a small group (which grew larger) stayed put and created a community that accommodated their unwillingness to stand down, even at risk of death.

Post-protest In the U.S., Trump started his term by making cuts to health care and reproductive rights support programs and signing executive orders to advance both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Further anti-Trump actions are planned, 10 over the next 100 days, to be exact. In Ukraine, unarmed protesters were shot to death by snipers, the government was overthrown and re-elected, Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the Donbas region. Ukraine is still at war with Russia.

Mark and Marichka Marczyk met and fell in love on Independence Square in Kiev during the Revolution of Dignity. They co-created Counting Sheep: A Guerrilla Folk Opera and perform with Lemon Bucket Orkestra across the globe.

news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto

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