Laura Hawbaker

"Usually I’m the torturer," says 16-year-old Kristen Brooks. "This is the first time I’m being tortured."

March 20, the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War. Kristen Brooks, a Mother McAuley High School student, is participating in a protest against waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique that the Bush administration claims is within the limits of the Geneva conventions, but which many condemn as torture.

Taxis whiz down Wabash Avenue and art students with long hair and pin-covered book bags lounge on the ledges of Columbia College’s 623 building. On the sidewalk just outside the building’s entrance, the teenaged Brooks wears a bright orange jumpsuit and a black bag covers her head. She is bent backward over a wood pedestal. Two other protesters hold her down and thrust an empty water bucket over her mouth. Brooks gasps and sputters as if choking on water, while her tormenters shout, "What are you hiding!?" Afterward, Brooks describes the experience. "With the yelling and brutality, I feel so dehumanized."

It is a brutal, gut-wrenching display, and the students witnessing it are silent. Nearby, another protester, Samantha Hamlin, shouts into a crackling loudspeaker, "What kind of society does this to other human beings? We have to stand up and say NO! We are not going to be complacent in torture!"

Brooks and Hamlin are a part of World Can’t Wait, a protest group that aims to derail the Bush administration’s policies and "mobilize millions to express their outrage and form an organized political resistance." The group’s Chicago chapter is a large campaign; they usually protest on the streets at least once a week.

Today, World Can’t Wait has numerous protests happening around the South Loop that include a collaborative painting outside the campus’s U.S. army-recruitment center, as well as a reading of poetry written by Guantanamo Bay prisoners. But, by far, the largest crowd has gathered around Brooks and the waterboarding demonstration.

A few of the watching students snap pictures on their phones

"I don’t want to be a part of the Me Generation," says Brooks, in reference to the thought that today’s youth is too narcissistic and entitled to have any interest in world affairs. "So many people want change, but they don’t get involved. We’re a visual that you can show your voice and work together. We can make change in our government."

(2008-03-25)

Also by Laura Hawbaker

Five Long Years
Within spitting distance of the United Center, a Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign sign hangs askance from a chain link fence; it’s the only indicator a poster revolution is taking place. Inside the otherwise nondescript brick compound, volunteers in ink-splattered jeans use stencils, silk screens and spray paint to create hundreds of anti-war posters. They’ll paste their work in neighborhoods across the city to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the Iraq War on March 19
(2008-03-18)

The Pursuit of Chicagoist
It’s Thursday night and a raucous group from Chicagoist.com gathers in the candlelit back room of Sheffield’s for a Trivial Pursuit smack-down.
(2008-03-05)

Monster Mash
"Ten bucks gets you a credit in the movie!" hawks Jamye Graham, producer. It's Thursday night, and Graham is manning the merchandise table at the wrap party and fundraiser for local indie monster movie, "Hellcat and Tala"
(2008-02-26)

Everyone's Got Issues
Kingsley Quigley stands on a podium in East Pilsen’s Rooms Gallery. She twirls. She jiggies. She shouts, "Let’s dance for the cause! Let’s save ‘em!" Her T-shirt reads "Save the Whales," and she sports a curly fro and metallic blue spandex pants that would make Richard Simmons proud. Quigley is one of nine contenders in the gallery’s "Political Science Fair"
(2008-02-12)

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