[Reader-list] rachel corrie:martyr

[Lehar ..]

Dear All,

 

The tragic story of a young American girl, Rachel
Corrie’s death under an Israeli bulldozer in the
occupied territories has been around for some time. I
am sending the note written by her parents to mark the
death of their daughter. This news item was sent by Dr
Kalim Ifrani (member Asiapeace, USA).

Best regards,

 

Ishtiaq Ahmed

Moderator Asiapeace – An electronic discussion group

Homepage:
www.statsvet.su.se/forskning99/home_pages/ishtiaq_ahmed_ram.htm

www.asiapeace.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/asiapeace

Affiliate of Association for Communal Harmony in Asia
(ACHA). 

 

Associate Professor

Department of Political Science

Stockholm University

106 91 Stockholm

SWEDEN.

Ishtiaq.Ahmed at statsvet.su.se

Rachel, an American teenager, was killed by Israeli
bulldozers in Gaza, when she was trying to protest and
protect against the demolitions. Forwarding her
parents' brief statement and an excerpt from Rachel's
e-mail sent on February 7, 2003, from Rafah, a city in
the Gaza Strip.
-Kalim


From: "Karen Rockwell" <rockwell at un.org> 
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2003 13:56:53 -0500 


The following is a brief statement by Rachel Corrie's
parents followed
by an essay she wrote during her time in Rafah.


Statement March 16, 2003

Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie

We are now in a period of grieving and still finding
out the details
behind the death of Rachel in the Gaza Strip.

We have raised all our children to appreciate the
beauty of the global
community and family and are proud that Rachel was
able to live her
convictions. Rachel was filled with love and a sense
of duty to her
fellow man, wherever they lived. And, she gave her
life trying to
protect those that are unable to protect themselves.

Rachel wrote to us from the Gaza Strip and we would
like to release to
the media her experience in her own words at this
time.

Thank you.

Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel Corrie to her
family on February 7,
2003.

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
theUnited 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
isSharon? How is Bush? Bush is crazy. Sharonis 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--at least regardingIsrael.

Nevertheless, I think about the fact that 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 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, of course, the fact 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. Ostensibly 
it is still quite difficult for me to be held for
months or years on end
without a trial (this because I am a white US citizen,
as opposed to so
many others). When I leave for school or work I can be
relatively
certain that there will not be a heavily armed soldier
waiting half way
between Mud Bay and downtown Olympia at a checkpoint?
A soldier with the
power to decide whether I can go about my business,
and whether I can
get home again when I'm done. So, if I feel outrage at
arriving and
entering briefly and incompletely into the world in
which these 
children exist, I wonder conversely about how it would
be for them to arrive in
my world.


They know that children in the United States don't
usually have their
parents shot and they know they sometimes get to see
the ocean. But 
once you have seen the ocean and lived in a silent
place, where water is
taken for granted and not stolen in the night by
bulldozers, and once
you have spent an evening when you haven't wondered if
the walls of 
your home might suddenly fall inward waking you from
your sleep, and once
you've met people who have never lost anyone-- once
you have 
experienced the reality of a world that isn't
surrounded by murderous towers, 
tanks, armed "settlements" and now a giant metal wall,
I wonder if you can
forgive the world for all the years of your childhood
spent existing--just existing--in resistance to the
constant stranglehold of the world's fourth largest
military--backed by the world's only superpower--in
it's attempt to erase you from your home. That is
something I wonder about these children. I wonder what
would happen if they really knew.

As an afterthought to all this rambling, I am in
Rafah, a city of about
140,000 people, approximately 60 percent of whom are
refugees--many of
whom are twice or three times refugees. Rafah existed
prior to 1948, 
but most of the people here are themselves or are
descendants of people who
were relocated here from their homes in historic
Palestine--nowIsrael. Rafah was split in half when the
Sinai returned to Egypt. Currently, the Israeli army
is building a
fourteen-meter-high wall between Rafah in Palestine
and the border,
carving a no-mans land from the houses along the
border. Six hundred 
and two homes have been completely bulldozed according
to the Rafah Popular
Refugee Committee. The number of homes that have been
partially
destroyed is greater.

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. Followed by waving and
"what's your
name?". There is 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 aggressive, shooting into the houses
as we wander away.

In addition to the constant presence of tanks along
the border and in
the western region between Rafah and settlements along
the coast, there
are more IDF towers here than I can count--along the
horizon,at the end
of streets. Some just army green metal. Others these
strange spiral
staircases draped in some kind of netting to make the
activity within
anonymous. Some hidden,just beneath the horizon of
buildings. A new one
went up the other day in the time it took us to do
laundry and to cross
town twice to hang banners. Despite the fact that some
of the areas
nearest the border are the original Rafah with
families who have lived
on this land for at least a century, only the 1948
camps in the center
of the city are Palestinian controlled areas
underOslo. But as far as I
can tell, there are few if any places that are not
within the sights of
some tower or another. Certainly there is no place
invulnerable to
apache helicopters or to the cameras of invisible
drones we hear 
buzzing over the city for hours at a time.

I've been having trouble accessing news about the
outside world here,
but I hear an escalation of war onIraqis inevitable.
There is a great
deal of concern here about the "reoccupation ofGaza."
Gazais 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 they will start.

I also hope you'll come here. We've been wavering
between five and six
internationals. The neighborhoods that have asked us
for some form of
presence are Yibna, Tel El Sultan, Hi Salam,Brazil,
Block J, Zorob, and
Block O. There is also need for constant night-time
presence at a well
on the outskirts of Rafah since the Israeli army
destroyed the two
largest wells. According to the municipal water office
the wells
destroyed last week provided half of Rafah's water
supply. Many of the
communities have requested internationals to be
present at night to
attempt to shield houses from further demolition.
After aboutten p.m.it
is very difficult to move at night because the Israeli
army treats
anyone in the streets as resistance and shoots at
them. So clearly we
are too few.

I continue to believe that my home,Olympia, could gain
a lot and offer  a lot by deciding to make a
commitment to Rafah in the form of a sister-community
relationship. Some teachers and children's groups have
expressed interest in e-mail exchanges, but this is
only the tip of the iceberg of solidarity work that
might be done. Many people want their voices to be
heard, and I think we need to use some of our
privilege as internationals to get those voices heard
directly in theUS, rather than
through the filter of well-meaning internationals such
as myself. I am just beginning to learn, from what I
expect to be a very intense tutelage, about the
ability of people to organize against all odds, and to
resist against all odds.

Thanks for the news I've been getting from friends in
theUS. I just  read a report back from a friend who
organized a peace group inShelton,Washington, and was
able to be part of a delegation to the large January
18th protest inWashingtonDC. People here watch the
media, and they told me again today that there have
been large protests in the United States and "problems
for the government" in theUK. So thanks for allowing
me to not feel like a complete polyanna when I
tentatively  tell
people here that many people in the United States do
not support the policies of our government, and that
we are learning from global examples how to resist.

=======================================
Michael
ISM Media Coordinator
Beit Sahour
Occupied Palestine
Phone: +972-2-2774602
Cell: +972-67-862 439
web: http://www.palsolidarity.org



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