By Season Osborne
Even Superman can’t break a Kryptonite bicycle lock, so when Jennifer Copestake wanted to lock herself to the gated entrance of the British High Commission that’s what she used.
Copestake, 19, was protesting Britain’s involvement in the war on Iraq.
Last month, the petite Carleton University political science student and five other Global Peace Coalition activists, put bike locks around their necks and locked themselves to the four gated parking and pedestrian entrances to the British High Commission at 8:30 a.m.
The police managed to cut locks off two protesters, and then arrested them for mischief, but they couldn’t cut Copestake’s lock.
The event at the British High Commission drew a large number of protest supporters, including a children’s rally from Gatineau and the women’s activist group, the Raging Grannies.
The crowd is typical of the cross section of people who join protests. They range in age from teenagers to seniors.
“It worked, ‘cause we shut down the commission’s business for the day, so people couldn’t get any passports or visas,” she says.
At 5 p.m., fellow protester Wangui Kimari opened Copestake’s lock with the key and they left before the police could arrest her.
“It’s not easy to do these kinds of things because there’s always a risk that you could get arrested. And I really admire her courage,” says Federico Carvajal, one of Copestake’s supporters at the protest.
Kimari says people like Copestake “care enough and disregard the things that can happen to them because you can’t equate it with what’s happening in Iraq.”
Copestake was introduced to social justice issues by her Brampton , Ont. high school teachers.
In April 2001, when she was 17, she joined thousands of demonstrators in Quebec City at the Summit of the Americas.
She says being in Quebec City and being pepper sprayed by police was “depressing and very surreal.”
“Just makes you think more carefully about who the government is and what you’re up against as a citizen and what your role in society is.”
The summit in Quebec City was the catalyst for her involvement in street protests.
Last November, Copestake helped build symbolic miniature wooden oil rigs for the “No War for Oil” demonstration on Parliament Hill. Five hundred people participated.
She says there have been protests on the Hill every month since and attendance has quadrupled.
After the United States-led attack on Iraq, more than 5,000 people turned out to the March 22 rally.
Nick Aplin was one of the thousands who chanted “Peace, now” at the protest that Saturday.
Aplin, who turned 70 in March, has never locked or chained himself to anything in protest, but he has been marching regularly in demonstrations for five decades.
“I think there’s a kind of passion for justice that’s at the base of the motivation for people to get out into the streets,” he says.
“That when you see something’s wrong you just gotta speak out against it.
The biggest peace march Aplin participated in was a “Refuse the Cruise” rally in 1983, when 100,000 people took to the streets of Vancouver to protest cruise missile testing in northern Alberta.
Veteran protesters like Aplin have a lot of credibility with modern movements.
“People like Nick make it worthwhile cause he’s seen a lot; thought about things for a long time,” local protest organizer Jamie Kneen says.
“If he thinks something is interesting it probably is.”
Aplin was introduced to social justice early in life.
His father returned from the Second World War passionately committed to the peace movement.
As a teenager, Aplin got involved, helping his father organize huge peace picnics in Toronto at the Canadian National Exhibition grounds.
In 1964, Aplin went to an engineering conference in Chicago and ended up participating in a civil rights march with the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee.
He came back to Ottawa and organized support for the committee and for anti-Vietnam War activities.
He was warned that continuing with his work in the ‘60s peace movement would be bad for his structural engineering career.
It may have affected his chances for promotion or raises, but he says he’ll never know. He disregarded the warning.
“Seems to me that we have to guard our civil liberties,” Aplin says.
“We have to guard our democracy, otherwise we’ll lose it.”
Over the last 50 years, Aplin has participated in hundreds of protests. He has marched with his parents, his children and also with his grandchildren.
“When I started I was not a grey head, now I am,” he says.
Copestake also sees herself as a grey-headed protester one day.
“It doesn’t stop till you get what you want, ‘cause you have to speak for people in other countries who can’t otherwise get their voices out there,” she says.
“I have the opportunity to use my voice, so why wouldn’t I use it and keep using it when I’m older? I don’t understand why I would stop.”