On a soggy, chill autumn morning, the Polish tourists stood at the base of the Capitol steps and confusingly eyed a duo lying bundled in heavy comforters.
Amid the handmade placards at the duo’s feet, the tourists’ interest seemed as limited as their English. But a few minutes later, a Virginia schoolgirl and chums did inquire, prompting one of the bundled heads to move from a 45-degree angle to a 90-degree one.
“We’re protesting the treatment of that woman there,” said a female voice, alluding to a picture on a poster at her own feet.
“This was the first Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament but she’s been in jail since 1994 for speaking out.”
“You mean, it’s something unconstitutional?” asked the freshman.
“Yes,” said Kathryn Cameron Porter, the protester who is also the wife of Rep. John Porter, a Republican from Chicago’s North Shore.
What the freshman did not realize was that Porter and her distinctly prone companion, Kani Xulam, were not just cold but rather weak. They were on the 25th day of a hunger strike of sorts.
This is a town where symbolic demonstrations are both art and occasional annoyance. Richard Gere here for Tibet one day, Bianca Jagger on Guatemalan atrocities the next, and Rev. Jesse Jackson for, well, you name it.
At the same time, commitment and passion can be reflexively derided as mere theatrics. As reporters strive to get their mugs on TV, lobbyists to cut legislative deals and politicians to be given credit for anything, the notion of putting heart and soul on the line can seem quaint, even wayward.
Case Study No. 1: Kathryn Porter.
“Oh, you mean the Illinois guy’s wife on the steps? Man, she must be nuts,” said a top assistant to a Texas Democrat when I asked for an opinion.
Well, the reason is that Porter, 49, is from a species that can make many here uncomfortable: human rights activists. She’s president of the Human Rights Alliance. She has an especially keen interest in Turkey, has visited prisons there and is convinced the Kurdish minority is in need of our help.
She has visited prisons here, too, which helps explain her hunger strike. She and her husband are longtime friends of Kani Xulam, a fairly well-known Kurdish activist who the Turkish government claims is a terrorist.
The Porters, and many others, think that’s bunk. But Xulam has had lots of legal problems in this country, including being arrested and accused of lying on passport applications. He was stuck in a District of Columbia jail without bond last year but, partly with the Porters’ help, was released and avoided deportation.
Together, Kathryn Porter and Xulam are on a somewhat atypical hunger strike.
Porter protests just a stone’s throw from her four-wheel drive Mazda with “KCP” plates, parked in the members-only area at the Capitol and thus guarded by Capitol Hill police. There have been many congressional honchos, such as Newt Gingrich, who have passed by and said hello as she gets slightly more weary.
She is also the rare protester who can amble up the steps with a very ill fellow protester and into the House members’ dining room. She did that one recent evening, arriving for needed nourishment and a chat about the Turkish situation with UN Ambassador Bill Richardson.
And if you want real disjoint, try this: As we spoke last Thursday morning, her cell phone rang. Donna Barr, her daughter from a first marriage, took the call, which included word from John Porter that he just had been invited to play golf on this bleak day by Bill Clinton.
(In case you wondered what Clinton does when Hillary is out of the country, Chelsea is in college and Saddam Hussein is expelling Americans, we now know. Porter was asked at 11:15 a.m. about joining Clinton a mere 45 minutes later. He declined, but Clinton found somebody else and hit the links).
“John just better bring this up with Clinton,” Kathryn was saying a few minutes later, alluding to the imprisonment of the prominent Kurd.
She has lost 8 pounds along the way, not more only because she has diabetes and is taking one meal a day, usually in the evening with her husband.
“I would be doing this whether or not I was married to a member,” she said. “I am atoning for my country’s contributions to the deaths of innocent women and children in southeast Turkey.”
She thus ridicules U.S. policy toward Kurds and the government of Turkey. She takes the basic premises of our policy toward Turkey–that it’s a strategic ally and a bulwark versus Islamic fundamentalism–and insists they are wanting.
She monitors her blood sugar closely, finds it’s somehow becoming more stable and jokingly asserts, “I’m going to recommend this as a way of treating diabetes.”
She does not feel odd as people stare at her posters, then her, then walk away.
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“Knowing all the machinations inside the
Capitol, I feel more a part of the larger world being out here on the cold steps.”
She concedes that the juxtaposition of her work and the Washington social scene can make her queasy. She rarely attends political fundraisers these days, though she won’t necessarily keep her distance from power.
Instead, she uses all her connections, as she did with Xulam, in helping Leyla Zana, the Kurdish female elected to Turkey’s Parliament. Awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Peace Prize, Zana is serving time for alleged “separatist speech.”
Porter mentions several supportive officials in the Clinton administration, “though I haven’t heard anything from Madeleine’s office,” referring to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
Her husband “couldn’t be more proud of what she is doing to stand up for human rights all around the world and for the rights of the Kurdish people. I am very concerned about her health because she is diabetic and we are watching her as closely as we can.”
Kathryn, who has been married to John Porter for 24 years, says he has been supportive but, ah, well, is not especially happy with her fast.
“He’s threatened to have my mother come down from Rockford,” she said.
Yikes. If the mom reads the Tribune, this could be her first knowledge of the hunger strike. If family disarray ensues, we apologize.
Cozy is as cozy does
The New York Times’ front page Friday went on at length about the return of “sharp partisanship” to Capitol Hill.
Don’t buy it. It’s still a cozy club.
Just before the Senate adjourned for another cushy, long break (these guys earn $133,600 a year but won’t be back until nearly February), sharply partisan Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) late Friday evening introduced “Senate Resolution 159.”
Its purpose was “to commend the exemplary leadership of the Democratic leader.”
Lott proceeded to suck up to sharply partisan Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), underscoring, “I do enjoy and appreciate the relationship that I have with the Democratic leader. We have developed a relationship that’s based on trust.”
Well, Daschle then introduced “Senate Resolution 160.”
Its purpose was “to commend the exemplary leadership of the majority leader.”
“I am very grateful for the generous remarks of the distinguished majority leader,” Daschle said. “I, too, have enjoyed this relationship and I believe over the long run this has been a very productive one. . . . I look forward to working with him in the second session of the 105th Congress and appreciate very much his friendship and the relationship we’ve had.”
Sharp partisanship? Blah, blah, blah.