We Won't Forget
Rachel Corrie
By Alison Weir
16 March, 2005
Counterpunch
There
is a quiet battle going on for the memory of a young woman who could
have been my daughter, or perhaps yours.
On one side are
those who would like to erase her from history her actions, her beliefs,
her murder. If they are unsuccessful at that, they will settle for posthumous
slurs on her character, falsifications of her death.
On the other side
are those who feel her shining principles should be praised, her courage
honored, her death grieved. On this side are those who believe that
heroism is noble, bravery admirable, and compassion for others the most
fundamental form of morality.
To those of us on
this side, Rachel Corrie will never be forgotten. She was 23 when she
was killed.
We won't forget
her young idealism, her sweet bravery, her needless death. And we won't
forget her beliefs, the third of which killed her: that good would triumph,
that justice would prevail, that Israel would not kill her.
She was wrong on
that last one. On March 16, 2003, two Israeli soldiers drove a house-crushing
bulldozer over her twice crushing her into the Gaza dirt. With five
other nonviolent human rights defenders, Rachel had been sitting in
front of a family home in Palestine, pleading with Israeli soldiers
not to demolish it. They didn't (until later); they demolished her instead.
Her friends ran
to her screaming. They dug her out of the dirt. One told me that Rachel's
eyes were open; her last words were, "My back is broken."
Far more, of course,
was broken. The day was broken, the universe was broken, her sister's
world was broken, her brother's life was broken, her parents' hearts
were broken. All the things were broken that break when someone is killed.
In the past five
years, thousands of Palestinian lives, days, worlds have been broken;
hundreds of Israeli ones. We hear about the Israeli tragedies; we rarely
hear about the many times more Palestinian ones the mothers, fathers,
daughters, sons, sisters and brothers who are killed and mutilated during
all those wonderful periods of "relative calm" our news media
lie to us about.
I wonder if we'll
hear about Rachel Corrie on March 16th, the second anniversary of her
death. Israel, as with all those it kills, claims that her death "was
an accident" or "was necessary for security" or that
"she was a terrorist" or that "she was protecting terrorists!"
As fast as these Israeli fabrications are refuted, new ones are produced.
Never mind that they're self-contradictory our complicit media never
question.
What Israel says,
our media repeat. What Israel demands, our government gives. What Israel
wants, its well-greased lobby delivers.
Change is coming,
however, and it is gathering momentum. People across the United States
remember Rachel, and grieve her death. While Congress is intimidated
into denying her parents' right to an investigation of the American
"ally" who murdered their daughter, people in towns throughout
the United States are planning commemorations and future actions.
From across the
country, slowly but steadily, there is the start of an American uprising.
One by one, people are rising up community by community and town by
town. We are deathly tired of gratuitous cruelty and rapacious creeds
of violence, and we won't stand by any longer.
We are reclaiming
our nation, our principles, and our souls. We are the only ones who
can do it.
We won't forget
Rachel.
And we won't be
stopped.
Alison Weir is executive
director of If Americans
Knew. She can be reached at:[email protected]