Posted on 03/28/2003 8:46:14 AM PST by bullseye1911
Schneider: In Canada, a brave defense of our flag
EAST LANSING - A strange thing, war, with its endless opportunities for savagery and nobility.
In an e-mail and subsequent interview, Bobbie Rosencrans of East Lansing described a remarkable act of courage she witnessed last week.
It involved a hostile crowd, an American flag and a Muslim woman.
"I just hope that what we are and what we're doing are worthy of that woman's courage," Rosencrans said.
On a research mission to the Museum of Civilization, Rosencrans was in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, on the day the United States went to war - and the Canadian government decided against sending troops.
Rosencrans was staying at a hotel close to both the Parliament building and the U.S. Embassy, where 6,000 people gathered to protest the war. There were about 200 protesters left when Rosencrans waded into the crowd, identifying herself as an American. She spoke to people from a lot of different countries, including Yemen, Iraq and Jordan - and encountered no hostility.
"To a person, they said they did not believe the American people wanted to go to war," Rosencrans said, "and expressed their dismay at the Bush administration."
Daring rescue
But this was the incident - as described in Rosencrans' e-mail - that moved her:
"Some young men decided to burn a U.S. flag about 15 feet from me. The crowd became more agitated. Suddenly a woman in her 30s, brown skinned and wearing a traditional Muslim head cover, bolted forward, grabbed the flag and would not let it go."
The crowd, Rosencrans said, turned against the woman, who had three small children in tow.
"Those above her, on the barricades, began shouting at her, 'Shame! Shame! Shame!,' and pointing their fingers at her. But the woman refused to relinquish the flag, even when the rest of the crowd picked up the chant.
"She managed to wrap the flag around her arms and clutch it to her chest."
Then, in what Rosencrans described as "a pure act of defiance," the woman brought the flag to her lips and kissed it.
The woman stood her ground until the police stepped in and escorted her out of danger.
"I do not know her politics or motive," Rosencrans wrote. "I assume she was against the war, since she was at the march. Maybe she was an American - maybe an immigrant from terror and repression. I only know that she displayed remarkable courage in the face of a lot of social pressure."
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