"Go Gandhi, go Gandhi, go!" So comes the cry from the sidelines, one simultaneously hoarse and fresh, fevered by a sickness that purges the body of all inhibition and a general sense of propriety. "Shake what Mahatma gave ya!" So comes the return call, hips swiveling and bottoms wiggling, tens upon tens of lower bodies gesticulating wildly. And then, with a final strain of the vocal chords, so it is repeated: "Shake what Mahatma gave ya!" With that cheer and its corresponding shake still rifling down the field, the Indian Independence team scores another goal and cements its position as soccer champion. Meanwhile, the Suffragettes--partners in peace, rivals in soccer--can do little but gape and mouth the faint remnants of their own token cheer, for which all puns fail: "We want the vote! Rock the boat!" (accompanied by swaying bodies, legs spread as if straddling a rowboat, and one or two dames fainting from seasickness). What is this? The casual telescoping of time and space, in which social movements of the past meet in the present to demonstrate their respective athletic prowess? Mahatma Gandhi and Susan B. Anthony reduced to figures whose Holy Grail is as material and modest as a soccer trophy, Freedom and Equality withering in the sight of Competition and Sportsmanship? Peace traded in for the beginnings of war? No, no; rather, it is the Peace Olympics at Camp Kinderland, in which--with tongue only lightly tickling inner-cheek--social movements of the past meet again in a present, their spirit carried forth in the vessels of eight- to sixteen-year-olds. Through the immediacy of water polo and ultimate Frisbee and soccer and half-mile races, the past becomes as vibrant as each flushed face and sweat-drenched bandana. I began attending Camp Kinderland when I was nine because many friends from school were going. In the beginning that reason sufficed, but in the third week I realized my attendance was imperative to my very self. Peace Olympics 1994, the theme oppressed countries, Mozambique dancing down to the waterfront, clad all in purple: "Mozambique has got the beat! Mozambique has got the beat! Whoa, Mozambique!" And the whole team spins with that Whoa, and I--although on Mexico, red my clothes and "Tierra y Libertad" my cheer--am caught up in that spin, head to heart to feet and back again. I have been going to Kinderland ever since, up through the CIT program and then, this past summer, as counselor. During counselor orientation a one-hour workshop about camp's cultural program became a three-hour workshop, became a heated discussion lasting outside the confines of mediated dialogue, became a conversation that reappeared throughout the summer. It is not a new topic. Kinderland is called a "progressive Jewish camp," its history intertwined with the IWW and the Communist Party--debates have long flourished over how to balance this ideology with traditional camp activities like swimming, hiking, and popsicle stick crafts. The Peace Olympics is only one arm of its Vishnu-like program: there are also the bunks, named after figures like Eugene V. Debs and Anne Frank and Harriet Tubman; the songs by Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan that have usurped long-reigning "Kumbaya" and "Greamy Grimy Gopher Guts" in classic Marxist tradition; the letter-writing campaigns about issues as varied as child labor, the bombing in Vieques, and clemency for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Every year new criticisms arise. Is camp really just full-scale propaganda? Does such a single-minded atmosphere breed apathy? Or, worse--hypocritical elitism? Some argue that it is camp's responsibility to teach progressive ideology--in a world where schools are adopting corporate sponsors and textbooks are host to countless advertisers, Kinderland has to remain the one place where socialist values and generic cola can flourish. Others counter that, rather than instill in its campers a capacity for social change, Kinderland instead gives them blinders and prevents them from engaging in proactive discussion. As a camper and CIT I had always been a vocal participant in these arguments, if unsure as to where I actually stood. This summer, however, I sat silently and listened to the back-and-forth. These discussions were valid and important, I realized, but to my experience largely irrelevant. Sure, the program could stand to be tinkered with--more direct social action, definitely, along with community outreach and forums for debate. However, minute details matter little. Kinderland was and is most important to me when it lets its history speak for itself and, doing such, turns itself over to the people. The cultural program is vital, granted, but nothing when not fueled by the campers. Peace Olympics, summer 1999. Theme: nonviolent resistance. Teams: Ban the Bomb, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, the Suffragettes, Indian Independence. I: CIT, aged 14, heading up the creation of the Indian Independence mural, heat exhaustion keeping me from most sports activities and sore throat from most spirit activities. It is six hours before the presentation of the murals. We have just stuffed our bellies with lunch (corn-off-the-cob, hamburger of a suspiciously dun hue), but our mural is emaciated and poor, nothing but a whitewashed plywood board bending in at the middle. I have a collection of campers curled in front of me for a brainstorm session. No one seems very interested. I make some suggestions for the mural's design and they nod in agreement--or in the beginning manifestations of sleep. And then I remember Mozambique's dance to glory, five years earlier. We can have our own march, our own dance, splattered across this 7-foot wooden board. "Why don't we paint the Salt March?" I say. "It shows the non-violent struggle of many. It shows everyone, you know, united for a common cause." And with that addendum, Indian Independence has found its proper beat: "We need Gandhi in there!" "We have to have swirling skies and seas!" "We have to have a sunrise!" "We could use silver glitter to show salt!" Paintbrushes are thrust into everyone's hands, I sketch as the campers direct me, I take a moment to reenact our soccer win, we all pause to sing a Guthrie song. The hours shuttle by; we eschew dinner (macaroni and beef, suspiciously orange in color) to paint orange clouds beneath beefy sun. The painting is a narrative: first working the fields painted into the landscape of a British flag, the people then begin to escape and stand tall, finally joining everyone else in a march to the ocean, on whose tempest-tossed shore sits a magnificent Gandhi. He has emerged from my pencil as elfin and shrewd, all beneath him candied and jeweled-colored, included in his entourage a Teletubby and a porcupine. The mural is simultaneously hideous and glorious, superfluously loud yet stupendously glamorous. We have made this, together. This is what Kinderland looks like. This is what democracy looks like. Shake what Mahatma gave ya.