Remembering Rachel Corrie.
Lessons from a brief, fearless life worthy of living.
Todays post is not about what I usually write about on the Learning Bites.
On March 16th, I spent almost two hours reading about Rachel Corrie; a 23-year-old peace activist from Washington who moved to the Gaza Strip to not only witness but also feel what it is like to be a Palestinian and to be in a state of occupation. In an attempt to avert a Palestinian home being levelled, she was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer and embraced martyrdom.
Today, when a Muslim speaks for another Muslim we see an obvious connection, when Arabs sacrifice for a fellow Arab, it is comprehensible to our minds. The world of this day and age is a world of identities and mutual interests. But Rachel is incomprehensible to our contemporary perceptions. She was a white, American, Christian girl and spoke English. Born and raised in Washington, she shared nothing in common with Palestinians except for humanity. And that’s how intriguing her story is.
Why would a girl, merely 23 years old, leave the comfort of her home and family in the US and move to the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s most heavily militarized conflict zones, empathising so deeply at a level that many of us would not? What made her so enormously humane and where did she gain these human values from? Her story is a tale of valour and temerity.
It wasn’t that she was caught in a situation she wasn’t aware of. Her pure heart knew exactly what she was getting herself into. She was fully cognizant of her privileges and what her choices were going to lead her into. She precisely pointed out what life meant for Palestinians living under the occupation. On February 27, 2003, she writes to her mother in a long email describing the poignant realities on the ground in Rafah:
“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.”
Rachel believed in the power of human agency and did not trivialise what she could do. In Rachel’s beautiful world, she was not absolutely helpless. She was alone writing emails to her family and friends but her ‘aloneness’ is a conscious choice that she made to not remain amongst the oppressors. Quite like the ababeel that carried drops of water to the wildfire of the Namrood.
The entire edifice of Western civilisation and capitalism is grounded on the most fundamental presumption of a selfish human self - that humans are rational always pursuing their personal interests. And the belief that somehow, if everyone will pursue their own good, this will eventually result in collective good for the public. Most of us do unquestioningly take this assertion as it is. Even the most religiously oriented amongst us. While many of us would like to live a comfortable life, earn a living, feed our families, offer our prayers to the Almighty and do bare minimum good deeds, Rachel was all-alone, present right there with the oppressed and redefining ‘aloneness’ in the most mesmerizing terms possible.
“We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone. What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable, interactive thing?
If I lived in Bosnia or Rwanda or who knows where else, needless death wouldn’t be a distant symbol to me, it wouldn’t be a metaphor, it would be a reality.
And I have no right to this metaphor. But I use it to console myself. To give a fraction of meaning to something enormous and needless.
This realization. This realization that I will live my life in this world where I have privileges.
I can’t cool boiling waters in Russia. I can’t be Picasso. I can’t be Jesus. I can’t save the planet single-handedly.
I can wash dishes.”
― Rachel Corrie
You might now want to listen to the 10-year old, Rachel.