Activist’s parents recall Palestinian strife
When Rachel Corrie was 2, she looked up at her mother and asked an unsettling question: “Mom,” she said, “Is brave part of growing up?”
Read the entire story here.
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Activist’s parents recall Palestinian strife
By Tony Lystra
Gazette-Times reporter
When Rachel Corrie was 2, she looked up at her mother and asked an unsettling question: “Mom,” she said, “Is brave part of growing up?”
Read the entire story here.
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A cantata by Philip Munger
(Published: April 25, 2004) 1. Choral Prelude: Psalm 137 (King James Version)
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when
we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in
the midst thereof. [Read more…]
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Working from Rachel Corrie’s diaries, letters and e-mails, the acclaimed actor Alan Rickman and the Guardian journalist Katharine Viner distilled the essence of Rachel’s life into a powerful one-woman play. Performed by actress Megan Dodds, the play had two sold-out runs at the London Royal Court Theater in 2005. Craig and Cindy Corrie wrote the following after attending the opening night of My Name is Rachel Corrie.
When our daughter Rachel was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza strip on March 16 2003, an immediate impulse was to get her words out to the world. Her emails home had had a powerful impact on our family, making us think about the situation in the Middle East in ways we had never done before.
After Rachel died we realized that her words were having a similar effect on others whose lives were being changed, as ours have been – not just by Rachel’s death, but by the window her writing provided on the Palestinian experience and by her call to action.
In spring of 2005, when a play created entirely from Rachel’s emails and journals first opened in London, we saw in a very immediate way the impact that Rachel’s words can have on others. Theater can reach people in a different and deeper place than reading a news article or listening to a speech: there is an emotional aspect that for some people can be more long-lasting and motivating.
The play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, is not just about how Rachel died, even if that is why she is known and remembered. It also illuminates her humanity, tracing her evolution from typical teenage self-exploration through to her search for a political voice. The play includes some of her writing that might be considered uncomplimentary to us, and even to her. Far better that, though, than being a symbol of one dimension.
It is disconcerting, but also comforting, to watch an actor who looks much like Rachel – Megan Dodds – play our daughter on stage. In the opening scene, when Rachel awakens in her messy bedroom, the resemblance is almost too much. But Megan lives Rachel’s words in ways that are sometimes familiar but also sometimes surprising, so that we learn from her what Rachel may have been thinking. At several points in the play, Megan enacts receiving emails from us – real emails that we actually sent to Rachel. We had never before imagined our daughter’s reactions to receiving our messages until we saw them on stage.
Rachel was a real human being. Sometimes, when people idealize her, we feel vulnerable for her. Knowing the complete human being, would they feel the same? Through My Name is Rachel Corrie, people can know a more complete Rachel.
Clearly, our daughter has become a positive symbol for people. Her story and her words seem to motivate others to do something, not just sit and talk about the world’s situation in their living rooms and feel unhappy. The weekend after Rachel was killed, we discussed with old friends what we should do. We needed to find a response. In some ways we may have been more fortunate than other parents who have lost children, for the response in our situation was apparent. With her efforts to educate and to build permanent connections with Palestinians in Rafah, Rachel provided us with a path.
In an email from Rachel to her friend Todd, she tells him 10 times over that he must come to Gaza. “Come here!” she repeats over and over. That is what Rachel would have wanted us to do, too: to try to carry on what she started.The recent disengagement may provide some relief for Gazans at the most obvious level. But what has been happening in the West Bank under cover of the disengagement – the building of the wall and the expansion of settlements – is very worrying. And when the Israeli prime minister’s close aide Dov Weisglass said that the real intent of the Gaza disengagement was to place the peace process in formaldehyde, we have to take him at his word. We must keep insisting on a peace process and work towards a viable Palestinian state that will benefit Palestinians, Israelis and the rest of the world.
The month before she was killed, Rachel wrote the following in an email to us: “I look forward to seeing more and more people willing to resist the direction the world is moving in, a direction where our personal experiences are irrelevant, that we are defective, that our communities are not important, that we are powerless, that our future is determined, and that the highest level of humanity is expressed through what we choose to buy at the mall.” Action has already flowed from her words.
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Rachel Corrie wrote from Gaza, “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.”
To highlight the experience of thousands in Rafah whose homes have been demolished, Khaled, Samah, and Sama Nasrallah, whose home Rachel Corrie protected, joined Cindy and Craig Corrie in June for a national speaking tour to 22 cities in California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
The Rachel Corrie Foundation supported the Nasrallah family’s US travel, and in partnership with The Rebuilding Alliance and enthusiastic local hosts, engaged Americans with stories from Palestine and rebuilding efforts in Gaza. “We believe it is important for the people of Gaza to see that Americans know what has happened to them, that we understand, and are taking responsibility for that,” said Cindy Corrie.
The nine members of the Nasrallah family lived in their home for seven months after Rachel Corrie was killed, hoping that it would be spared. On tour, Khaled Nasrallah recalled, “You just can’t imagine the bullets, they are not normal bullets. The Israelis would fire them at our house and we would hide in the bathroom because it was in the middle of the house and the bullets could go through three walls. No one was safe. Our house was endangered and no one would visit us.”
In 2004, the Nasrallah home met the fate of the 2200 surrounding ones destroyed when the Israeli military cleared a wide buffer strip along where they had constructed a steel wall near the Egyptian border. Sharing the experience of his family, Khaled Nasrallah wrote, ‘’These were very dark days through the past three years as we coped with the loss of our home. In spite of what Rachel did and what we have done after losing her, we watched day after day as the Israeli Defense Forces demolished it. It was more than a home — it was our family dream of coming together again, growing and playing in our homeland together with happiness and safety in the eyes of our children.”
Through generous donations, The Rebuilding Alliance purchased land to rebuild the Nasrallah home in Gaza, and groundbreaking took place on November 16, with visitors from the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project looking on. The home is scheduled for completion in March 2006.
In their June tour, the Nasrallah and Corrie families connected with thousands of interested and generous Americans. In Olympia, Washington the Nasrallahs were welcomed with a proclamation from the Olympia City Council. Khaled Nasrallah was struck by the natural beauty of the area and by the kindness of the people.
“It is like a paradise — trees everywhere, forests, and the Puget Sound. We have never been in a forest, and are very grateful to have seen such beauty….I read the kindness of Olympia people in the eyes of everyone we met, at the market, at the Corrie’s home, at the reception at the museum, and at the speaking event at the church. I felt I was with my people….I feel I am leaving a family, but we are all trying to push for a noble goal together. We will all continue Rachel’s message together…We are going back to Palestine with a positive message from America… the most important impressions were of the American people. They are very kind, caring, human, open-minded, helpful, and somehow positive. Actually, I really liked them, and I hope to hold on to my relationships with all the friends I met, and I also hope to meet them in a free Palestine soon.”
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We arrived in Israel and Palestine in late December for a remarkable international conference in Bethlehem, “Celebrating Nonviolent Resistance” and with intentions of traveling to Gaza early in January. Five members of the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project were already working in Rafah at the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip–some for up to two months. They were having ongoing discussion with Palestinians about security issues. After careful consideration of the growing tensions surrounding upcoming elections and recent kidnappings, we agreed to travel to Gaza as planned, while continuing to carefully monitor the situation.
On the afternoon of January 2nd we arrived in the Gaza Strip where we anticipated spending five days reconnecting with friends and carrying out work for the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and also for the Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project and The Rebuilding Alliance. We had wonderful reunions with the two families whose home our daughter Rachel Corrie tried to protect when she was killed in 2003, and with friends that we have made in the Gaza community since. [Read more…]
The Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace & Justice
203 East Fourth Ave., Suite 402
Olympia, WA 98501
Phone: 360-754-3998
Click here to email us.