The Progressive | November 2001 Issue
http://www.progressive.org

The FBI Knocks Again
by Ronnie Gilbert

For the second time in my life--at least--a group that I belong to is being
investigated by the FBI. The first was the Weavers. In 1950, we recorded a
couple of songs from our American/World folk music repertoire, Leadbelly's
"Goodnight Irene" and the Israeli "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena," and sold millions
of records. Folk music entered the mainstream, and the Weavers were stars.

By 1952, it was over. The record company dropped us, and television
producers stopped knocking on our door. The Weavers were on a private yet
well-publicized roster of suspected entertainment industry Reds. The FBI
came a-calling.

This week, I just found out that Women in Black, another group of peace
activists I belong to, is the subject of an FBI investigation. Women in
Black is a loosely knit international network of women who vigil against
violence, often silently, each group autonomous, each group focused on the
particular problems of personal and state violence in its part of the world.

Because my group is composed mostly of Jewish women, we focus on the Middle East, protesting the cycle of violence and revenge in Israel and the
Palestinian Territories. The FBI is threatening my group with a grand jury
investigation. Of what? That we publicly call Israel's military occupation
of Palestine illegal? So does the World Court and the United Nations. That
the Israeli policy of destroying hundreds of thousands of the Palestinians'
olive and fruit trees, blocking roads, and demolishing homes promotes hatred
and terrorism in the Middle East? Even President Bush and Colin Powell have
gotten around to saying that. So what is to investigate? That some of us are
in contact with activist Palestinian peace groups? This is bad?

The Jewish Women in Black of Jerusalem have stood vigil every Friday for
thirteen years in protest against the occupation. Muslim women from
Palestinian peace groups stand with them at every opportunity. We praise and
honor them, these Jewish and Arab women who endure hatred and frequent abuse from extremists on both sides.

We are not alone in our admiration. Jerusalem Women in Black is a nominee
for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Bosnia Women in Black, now ten
years old. If the FBI cannot or will not distinguish between groups who
collude in terrorism and peace activists who struggle in the full light of
day against all forms of terrorism, we are in serious trouble.

I have seen such trouble before in my lifetime. It was called McCarthyism.
In the hysterical atmosphere of the early Cold War, anyone who had signed a
peace petition, joined an organization opposing violence or racism, or
raised money for the refugee children of the Spanish Civil War--in other
words, who had openly advocated what was not popular at the time--was fair
game.

In my case, the FBI visited the Weavers' booking agent, the recording
company, my neighbors, my dentist husband's patients, my friends. In the
waning of our career, the Weavers were followed down the street, accosted
onstage by drunken "patriots," warned by friendly hotel employees to keep
the door open if we rehearsed in anyone's room so as not to become targets
for the vice squad. It was nasty. Every two-bit local wannabe G-man joined
the dragnet, searching out and identifying "communist spies."

In all those self-debasing years how many spies were pulled in by that
dragnet?

Nary a one.

Instead, it pulled down thousands of teachers, union members, scientists,
journalists, actors, entertainers like us, who saw our lives disrupted, our
jobs and careers go down the drain, our standing in the community lost, even
our children harassed. A scared population soon shut their mouths up tight.
Thus came the silence of the 1950s and early '60s, when no notable voice of
reason was heard to say, "Hey, wait a minute. Look what we're doing to
ourselves, to the land of the free and the home of the brave," when not one
dissenting intelligence was allowed a public voice to warn against fanatic
foreign policies we'd later come to regret, would be regretting now, if our
leaders were honest.

Today, another dragnet is out, and we are told that certain civil liberties
may have to be curtailed for our own security. Which ones? I'm curious to
know. The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech or of the press?
The right of people peaceably to assemble?

Suddenly, déjà vu: Haven't I been here before?

Hysterical neo-McCarthyism does not equal security, never will. The bitter
lesson that September 11's horrific tragedy should have taught us and our
government is that only an honest reevaluation of our foreign policies and
careful, focused, and intelligent intelligence work can hope to combat
operations like the one that robbed all of us and the lives of more than
5,000 decent working people. We owe the dead that, at least.

As for Women in Black, we intend to keep on keeping on.
--
Ronnie Gilbert lives in Berkeley, California, and is writing a memoir. She,
Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, and Pete Seeger toured together in 1984 as
H.A.R.P. The live recording, "A Time for Singing," has just been reissued in a much-expanded version by Appleseed Records.