What struck me most about the streets of Rome was the silence. The parade was too big for the route, and the majority of the city center had been closed to traffic, so you could walk anywhere and find a river of rainbow flags and people. There is no way to realize the noise that traffic brings until it’s gone.

Businesses were open and bustling, and there was time in the day to do some shopping or grab a meal. Police presence was low-key, and the crowd featured more singing and dancing than shouting. One truck played Brazilian music and sold beers from either side as it floated through the streets. There was no clear boundary between being in the march and watching it.

Our train ride from Bologna had taken 5 hours. We were so packed, so crowded, that we could not even move from one end of the car to the other. There was no way for the conductor to check tickets. There was no room to sit. Yet there were smiles on the faces soaking up the Italian countryside that slowly rolled by. At the other end of the car, a group of young Italian students sang Vietnam-era peace songs like "Don't Let Them Bombs Fly Over Me" and "Blowing in the Wind;" older protestors joined in. I eagerly approached them in English but realized that they knew English songs well but preferred Italian for conversation. They did not realize where I was from and I asked if they hated America for what she was trying to do in Iraq. Their response: America? We love America.

That's where these songs are from. America is full of great things, but now she is not living up to her songs, her ideas, her ideals.

When some other students found I was from the United States, they made room for me on the edge of a seat and we shared cookies and stories of past rallies as the train crept slowly south.

People ask why I protest, partially to understand my motivation for being against the war, partially because they doubt what a protest can accomplish and partially because they see protests as negative – complaining without helping things.

My explanation would be the same if I had to explain why I eat breakfast: I eat because I am human, because I am hungry, because it settles the mind, connects me to my community, and fills my belly in the morning. The human need to gather in the face of injustice is even stronger than hunger. Manifestazione is itself a creative act, not simply "anti-" and reactive.

Manifestazione acts to create community, and on Feb. 15, more people than ever before were able to physically and collectively participate in a community that was truly global in scope. Such actions create a new sense of identity both for participants and those watching them. This new identity (still crawling, gaining strengths in its legs, not yet able to walk) – giving people allegiance to humanity, to the planet – is fundamental to ultimately attaining the peace that we all desire. In short, we are at these gatherings because we simply could not conceive being any place else.

Heidi Giulianni, the mother of the boy killed at the G8 protest in Genoa, says that the real question is not what the protests might accomplish, but whether you can live with yourself in the future, whether you will feel satisfied that you did all you could.

Participating directly in politics – taking action both personally and collectively, on scales both local and global, without the distance and the muting of a representative: that’s one part of history being written now. We are fortunate that in these times we have more participants and ways of participating than we ever have before.