[Reader-list] "I am allowed to go see the ocean" Rachel Corrie

Mon Mar 17 21:15:08 IST 2003

Greetings.

The useful and helpful Crisis/Media Workshop report by Shuddha is part of 
what moves me to forward the following email.

It is a statement by Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old student from the U.S., 
who died yesterday (March 16) from injuries sustained while defending a 
Palestinian home from demolition by an Israeli military bulldozer in the 
Gaza Strip.

The event of Rachel Corrie's death would seem to be just one more life 
ended in a "message" from the Israeli government - a message sent by means 
of slow-motion physical violence breaking real bodies every day.

Rachel Corrie's words are not the words of those living (and suffering 
Israeli occupation) in Gaza.  Her email to her parents is not unique in the 
reports on the situation of occupation. It is a report from a very 
particular perspective.  She writes from an acknowleged position of 
relative priviledge.  However, Rachel Corrie  died having had the chance to 
witness and report on what she saw to those outside.

The following email, along with Rachel Corrie's extraordinary work as a 
member of the International Solidarity Movement, used the practice of 
witnessing to counteract the intensifying attempts by those exercising 
military power-without-accountability to brutalize into timidity the minds 
of global citizens.  ...Note that, at least in the U.S., minds are also 
about to be brutalized big-time with the U.S. big stick brought to us 
"live" by mainstream media in Iraq, an epic Hollywood snuff movie starring 
an unelected U.S. president - that should keep us in line...

In contrast to "shock and awe" media, I see the practice of witnessing, 
exemplified in Rachel's email to her parents, as a form of reportage that 
understands deeply what Manuel deLanda expressed when he wrote  that "power 
exists only to the extent that it is exercised over real bodies."  It is 
the dailiness of the exercise of power, a temporality that is invisible to 
Spectacular media yet constitute one of its conditions of possibility (and 
that "shock and awe" military operations seek to underpin), that witnessing 
makes visible.  It is the countering of brutalizing assaults to the mind 
and spirit that practices of witnessing effect, releasing one to press 
ahead, make change, make world.

Barbara Lattanzi

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)" <info at gush-shalom.org>
Subject: (Fwd) "I am allowed to go see the ocean" Rachel Corrie to her family
List-Archive: <https://mailman.gush-shalom.org/pipermail/gush-shalom-intl/>
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 14:27:44 +0200

/////////////////
Gush Shalom
/////////////////////////
International release, March 17, 2003
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"I am allowed to go see the ocean"
Rachel Corrie wrote to her family
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[We forward the sad but courageous statement of the parents of Rachel
Corrie, followed by a moving "letter from Palestine" which she sent them
on Feb. 7, 2003, two weeks after her arrival in the Gaza Strip.]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent: Mon, 17 Mar 2003 01:27:48 +0000 (GMT)
From: ism rafah <ismrafah at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Statement from Rachel Corrie's parents
March 16, 2003
"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.
Craig and Cindy Corrie, parents of Rachel Corrie
-- 
Excerpts from an e-mail from Rachel 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 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--at least regarding
Israel.
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 checkpointa 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 havent wondered if the walls of your
home might suddenly fall inward waking you from your sleep, and once
youve 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
worlds fourth largest military--backed by the worlds only superpower--in
its 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--now
Israel. 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 under Oslo. 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 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 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 Rafahs water supply. Many of the
communities have requested internationals to be present at night to
attempt to shield houses from further demolition. After about ten 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 the US, 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.

_______________________________________________