Rachel's War: Diary of American peace activist Rachel Corrie alt politics usa misc
Cosima Richardson
This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was
crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli
army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of
emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life
Tuesday March 18, 2003
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,916299,00.html
February 7 2003
Hi friends and family, and others,
I have been in Palestine for two weeks and one hour now, and I still
have very few words to describe what I see. It is most difficult for me
to think about what's going on here when I sit down to write back to
the United States. Something about the virtual portal into luxury. I
don't know if many of the children here have ever existed without
tank-shell holes in their walls and the towers of an occupying army
surveying them constantly from the near horizons. I think, although I'm
not entirely sure, that even the smallest of these children understand
that life is not like this everywhere. An eight-year-old was shot and
killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here, and many of the
children murmur his name to me - Ali - or point at the posters of him
on the walls. The children also love to get me to practice my limited
Arabic by asking me, "Kaif Sharon?" "Kaif Bush?" and they laugh when I
say, "Bush Majnoon", "Sharon Majnoon" back in my limited arabic. (How
is Sharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharon is crazy.) Of course this
isn't quite what I believe, and some of the adults who have the English
correct me: "Bush mish Majnoon" ... Bush is a businessman. Today I
tried to learn to say, "Bush is a tool", but I don't think it
translated quite right. But anyway, there are eight-year-olds here much
more aware of the workings of the global power structure than I was
just a few years ago.
Nevertheless, no amount of reading, attendance at conferences,
documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the
reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see
it - and even then you are always well aware that your experience of it
is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army
would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, and with the fact that I
have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and the fact, of
course, that I have the option of leaving. Nobody in my family has been
shot, driving in their car, by a rocket launcher from a tower at the
end of a major street in my hometown. I have a home. I am allowed to go
see the ocean. When I leave for school or work I can be relatively
certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier waiting halfway
between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint with the power to
decide whether I can go about my business, and whether I can get home
again when I'm done. As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in
Rafah: a city of about 140,000 people, approximately 60% of whom are
refugees - many of whom are twice or three times refugees. Today, as I
walked on top of the rubble where homes once stood, Egyptian soldiers
called to me from the other side of the border, "Go! Go!" because a
tank was coming. And then waving and "What's your name?". Something
disturbing about this friendly curiosity. It reminded me of how much,
to some degree, we are all kids curious about other kids. Egyptian kids
shouting at strange women wandering into the path of tanks. Palestinian
kids shot from the tanks when they peak out from behind walls to see
what's going on. International kids standing in front of tanks with
banners. Israeli kids in the tanks anonymously - occasionally shouting
and also occasionally waving - many forced to be here, many just
agressive - shooting into the houses as we wander away.
I've been having trouble accessing news about the outside world here,
but I hear an escalation of war on Iraq is inevitable. There is a great
deal of concern here about the "reoccupation of Gaza". Gaza is
reoccupied every day to various extents but I think the fear is that
the tanks will enter all the streets and remain here instead of
entering some of the streets and then withdrawing after some hours or
days to observe and shoot from the edges of the communities. If people
aren't already thinking about the consequences of this war for the
people of the entire region then I hope you will start.
My love to everyone. My love to my mom. My love to smooch. My love to
fg and barnhair and sesamees and Lincoln School. My love to Olympia.
Rachel
February 20 2003
Mama,
Now the Israeli army has actually dug up the road to Gaza, and both of
the major checkpoints are closed. This means that Palestinians who want
to go and register for their next quarter at university can't. People
can't get to their jobs and those who are trapped on the other side
can't get home; and internationals, who have a meeting tomorrow in the
West Bank, won't make it. We could probably make it through if we made
serious use of our international white person privilege, but that would
also mean some risk of arrest and deportation, even though none of us
has done anything illegal.
The Gaza Strip is divided in thirds now. There is some talk about the
"reoccupation of Gaza", but I seriously doubt this will happen, because
I think it would be a geopolitically stupid move for Israel right now.
I think the more likely thing is an increase in smaller
below-the-international-outcry-radar incursions and possibly the
oft-hinted "population transfer".
I am staying put in Rafah for now, no plans to head north. I still feel
like I'm relatively safe and think that my most likely risk in case of
a larger-scale incursion is arrest. A move to reoccupy Gaza would
generate a much larger outcry than Sharon's
assassination-during-peace-negotiations/land grab strategy, which is
working very well now to create settlements all over, slowly but surely
eliminating any meaningful possibility for Palestinian
self-determination. Know that I have a lot of very nice Palestinians
looking after me. I have a small flu bug, and got some very nice lemony
drinks to cure me. Also, the woman who keeps the key for the well where
we still sleep keeps asking me about you. She doesn't speak a bit of
English, but she asks about my mom pretty frequently - wants to make
sure I'm calling you.
Love to you and Dad and Sarah and Chris and everybody.
Rachel
February 27 2003
(To her mother)
Love you. Really miss you. I have bad nightmares about tanks and
bulldozers outside our house and you and me inside. Sometimes the
adrenaline acts as an anesthetic for weeks and then in the evening or
at night it just hits me again - a little bit of the reality of the
situation. I am really scared for the people here. Yesterday, I watched
a father lead his two tiny children, holding his hands, out into the
sight of tanks and a sniper tower and bulldozers and Jeeps because he
thought his house was going to be exploded. Jenny and I stayed in the
house with several women and two small babies. It was our mistake in
translation that caused him to think it was his house that was being
exploded. In fact, the Israeli army was in the process of detonating an
explosive in the ground nearby - one that appears to have been planted
by Palestinian resistance.
This is in the area where Sunday about 150 men were rounded up and
contained outside the settlement with gunfire over their heads and
around them, while tanks and bulldozers destroyed 25 greenhouses - the
livelihoods for 300 people. The explosive was right in front of the
greenhouses - right in the point of entry for tanks that might come
back again. I was terrified to think that this man felt it was less of
a risk to walk out in view of the tanks with his kids than to stay in
his house. I was really scared that they were all going to be shot and
I tried to stand between them and the tank. This happens every day, but
just this father walking out with his two little kids just looking very
sad, just happened to get my attention more at this particular moment,
probably because I felt it was our translation problems that made him
leave.
I thought a lot about what you said on the phone about Palestinian
violence not helping the situation. Sixty thousand workers from Rafah
worked in Israel two years ago. Now only 600 can go to Israel for jobs.
Of these 600, many have moved, because the three checkpoints between
here and Ashkelon (the closest city in Israel) make what used to be a
40-minute drive, now a 12-hour or impassible journey. In addition, what
Rafah identified in 1999 as sources of economic growth are all
completely destroyed - the Gaza international airport (runways
demolished, totally closed); the border for trade with Egypt (now with
a giant Israeli sniper tower in the middle of the crossing); access to
the ocean (completely cut off in the last two years by a checkpoint and
the Gush Katif settlement). The count of homes destroyed in Rafah since
the beginning of this intifada is up around 600, by and large people
with no connection to the resistance but who happen to live along the
border. I think it is maybe official now that Rafah is the poorest
place in the world. There used to be a middle class here - recently. We
also get reports that in the past, Gazan flower shipments to Europe
were delayed for two weeks at the Erez crossing for security
inspections. You can imagine the value of two-week-old cut flowers in
the European market, so that market dried up. And then the bulldozers
come and take out people's vegetable farms and gardens. What is left
for people? Tell me if you can think of anything. I can't.
If any of us had our lives and welfare completely strangled, lived with
children in a shrinking place where we knew, because of previous
experience, that soldiers and tanks and bulldozers could come for us at
any moment and destroy all the greenhouses that we had been cultivating
for however long, and did this while some of us were beaten and held
captive with 149 other people for several hours - do you think we might
try to use somewhat violent means to protect whatever fragments
remained? I think about this especially when I see orchards and
greenhouses and fruit trees destroyed - just years of care and
cultivation. I think about you and how long it takes to make things
grow and what a labour of love it is. I really think, in a similar
situation, most people would defend themselves as best they could. I
think Uncle Craig would. I think probably Grandma would. I think I
would.
You asked me about non-violent resistance.
When that explosive detonated yesterday it broke all the windows in the
family's house. I was in the process of being served tea and playing
with the two small babies. I'm having a hard time right now. Just feel
sick to my stomach a lot from being doted on all the time, very
sweetly, by people who are facing doom. I know that from the United
States, it all sounds like hyperbole. Honestly, a lot of the time the
sheer kindness of the people here, coupled with the overwhelming
evidence of the wilful destruction of their lives, makes it seem unreal
to me. I really can't believe that something like this can happen in
the world without a bigger outcry about it. It really hurts me, again,
like it has hurt me in the past, to witness how awful we can allow the
world to be. I felt after talking to you that maybe you didn't
completely believe me. I think it's actually good if you don't, because
I do believe pretty much above all else in the importance of
independent critical thinking. And I also realise that with you I'm
much less careful than usual about trying to source every assertion
that I make. A lot of the reason for that is I know that you actually
do go and do your own research. But it makes me worry about the job I'm
doing. All of the situation that I tried to enumerate above - and a lot
of other things - constitutes a somewhat gradual - often hidden, but
nevertheless massive - removal and destruction of the ability of a
particular group of people to survive. This is what I am seeing here.
The assassinations, rocket attacks and shooting of children are
atrocities - but in focusing on them I'm terrified of missing their
context. The vast majority of people here - even if they had the
economic means to escape, even if they actually wanted to give up
resisting on their land and just leave (which appears to be maybe the
less nefarious of Sharon's possible goals), can't leave. Because they
can't even get into Israel to apply for visas, and because their
destination countries won't let them in (both our country and Arab
countries). So I think when all means of survival is cut off in a pen
(Gaza) which people can't get out of, I think that qualifies as
genocide. Even if they could get out, I think it would still qualify as
genocide. Maybe you could look up the definition of genocide according
to international law. I don't remember it right now. I'm going to get
better at illustrating this, hopefully. I don't like to use those
charged words. I think you know this about me. I really value words. I
really try to illustrate and let people draw their own conclusions.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Just want to write to my Mom and tell her that
I'm witnessing this chronic, insidious genocide and I'm really scared,
and questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of human nature.
This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop
everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's
an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around
to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers.
But I also want this to stop. Disbelief and horror is what I feel.
Disappointment. I am disappointed that this is the base reality of our
world and that we, in fact, participate in it. This is not at all what
I asked for when I came into this world. This is not at all what the
people here asked for when they came into this world. This is not the
world you and Dad wanted me to come into when you decided to have me.
This is not what I meant when I looked at Capital Lake and said: "This
is the wide world and I'm coming to it." I did not mean that I was
coming into a world where I could live a comfortable life and possibly,
with no effort at all, exist in complete unawareness of my
participation in genocide. More big explosions somewhere in the
distance outside.
When I come back from Palestine, I probably will have nightmares and
constantly feel guilty for not being here, but I can channel that into
more work. Coming here is one of the better things I've ever done. So
when I sound crazy, or if the Israeli military should break with their
racist tendency not to injure white people, please pin the reason
squarely on the fact that I am in the midst of a genocide which I am
also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely
responsible.
I love you and Dad. Sorry for the diatribe. OK, some strange men next
to me just gave me some peas, so I need to eat and thank them.
Rachel
February 28 2003
(To her mother)
Thanks, Mom, for your response to my email. It really helps me to get
word from you, and from other people who care about me.
After I wrote to you I went incommunicado from the affinity group for
about 10 hours which I spent with a family on the front line in Hi
Salam - who fixed me dinner - and have cable TV. The two front rooms of
their house are unusable because gunshots have been fired through the
walls, so the whole family - three kids and two parents - sleep in the
parent's bedroom. I sleep on the floor next to the youngest daughter,
Iman, and we all shared blankets. I helped the son with his English
homework a little, and we all watched Pet Semetery, which is a
horrifying movie. I think they all thought it was pretty funny how much
trouble I had watching it. Friday is the holiday, and when I woke up
they were watching Gummy Bears dubbed into Arabic. So I ate breakfast
with them and sat there for a while and just enjoyed being in this big
puddle of blankets with this family watching what for me seemed like
Saturday morning cartoons. Then I walked some way to B'razil, which is
where Nidal and Mansur and Grandmother and Rafat and all the rest of
the big family that has really wholeheartedly adopted me live. (The
other day, by the way, Grandmother gave me a pantomimed lecture in
Arabic that involved a lot of blowing and pointing to her black shawl.
I got Nidal to tell her that my mother would appreciate knowing that
someone here was giving me a lecture about smoking turning my lungs
black.) I met their sister-in-law, who is visiting from Nusserat camp,
and played with her small baby.
Nidal's English gets better every day. He's the one who calls me, "My
sister". He started teaching Grandmother how to say, "Hello. How are
you?" In English. You can always hear the tanks and bulldozers passing
by, but all of these people are genuinely cheerful with each other, and
with me. When I am with Palestinian friends I tend to be somewhat less
horrified than when I am trying to act in a role of human rights
observer, documenter, or direct-action resister. They are a good
example of how to be in it for the long haul. I know that the situation
gets to them - and may ultimately get them - on all kinds of levels,
but I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend
such a large degree of their humanity - laughter, generosity,
family-time - against the incredible horror occurring in their lives
and against the constant presence of death. I felt much better after
this morning. I spent a lot of time writing about the disappointment of
discovering, somewhat first-hand, the degree of evil of which we are
still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering a
degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in
the direst of circumstances - which I also haven't seen before. I think
the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe,
hopefully, someday you will.
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Rachel's War: Diary of American peace activist Rachel Corrie alt politics usa misc
>
>This weekend 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was
>crushed to death by a bulldozer as she tried to prevent the Israeli
>army destroying homes in the Gaza Strip. In a remarkable series of
>emails to her family, she explained why she was risking her life
Good grief - one died only a couple of months ago. How many more 23-year-old
Rachel Corries are there waiting in the wings to pop out and be crushed by
bulldozers?
Steve Hayes
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm