A few things weighed on mind the last couple days. The last of which--today--came up from a magazine my girlfriend bought at the store, the latest copy of The Nation which had the article on the controvresy over My Name is Rachel Corrie. This is a play about a girl who had gotten crushed by a bulldozer operated by soldiers in the Israeli Army. It seemed strange that they had composed a play using her emails, journal entries because the play seems like such a strange forum for such an incident as this. Apparently, the play has been produced in London and has had a great deal of circulation there, but has been posponed "indefinitely" in New York. If anyone wants to know the full story about this girl, they can either google cahiers de corey or simply go to racehlswords.com. What lies there is a memorialization to a girl, I mean 23-years old woman, who had an adamant belief about what she was doing, and a strong desire to make a difference in a way that so few people get to. I mean, I went to college, and occasionally attended conferences and forums about peace and justice in the world, but ultimately, I have always felt like I fell short in the arena of actively contributing to the injustices of the world.
I often felt as if there was little I could do, or else, was only participating in the most passive ways to situations abroad or at home. I certainly never joined Habitat for Humanity and only signed a petition or two for Amnesty Interntl, and then received pamphlets ever after regarding symposiums or conferences which I never found an interest to attend. I thought it cold and calculating if I ever did. Depressing. Reactionary. Simply didn't want to be deemed a prostylitizer or something along those lines.
I just went to the rachelswords website and was inspired ? by what I found there. Mostly because there is a girl who's way up there on the Maslow hierarchy or Erikson's eight stages of development. This is a girl who must of been heavily exposed to Gandhi-like ideas, and she just stayed there, lived there most of her short life. That she wanted to be dance around to Pat Benetar and have boyfriends, etc. but that the kind of world that the people in the Middle East have to live in just simply needs to change. That the injustice should stop. There's a well there and I think people realize that. It's not that she died in vain. But that she died with a whole legacy untold of yet. Why? Because so many people die in similar causes and go unsung, and they are the dispossessed, and are so because they recognize so many who are similarly dispossessed. Just that simple recognition in a human being. realizing the simple, innumerable freedoms they have, and that there are so many who go without, only because they were born into families, into whole other worlds than our own. I don't think a girl like this wants to curse the world she is born into, but simply wants to see that this world, this planet is an equal opportunity lender. I think she sees the world from a wholly different perspective than what we are used to, the angle we're slinging.
I guess I got more interested in the Israel-Palestine situation as a result of a convergence of a few different news items. I am not a political person, but I subscribed to Harpers in college, mostly as a trickle down from reading it for the essay form. I loved the essay form, and still do, simply because it allows us to explore our beliefs about the information we gather through the world. In any case, to say I'm not political may be a bit misinformed. Some of us just don't delve that deeply into the world of politics as others. Yet, I found myself experiencing a deep sense of reverence upon my last couple trips to Washington DC, that there could actually still be something sacred about the constructs of government. At any rate, no more digression...
The Israeli-Palestine problem continues to be an elusive matter for me. I have done my best to read up on the matter, the major players, why the Gaza seems to be the cause of years of dispute? Being from the United States, in the modern era, a disenfranchised Catholic, despite twelve years (including college) of religious background, I am at pains to understand the importance of the occupation of land. The Jews against the Muslims, the Muslims against the Jews, and basically we don't want you in our backyard. Same as the Hazaras and the Pushtans in Afghanistans... Correct me if I am wrong, but this goes back to David and Goliath in a sense, does it not? Or even whether Abraham was the father of all human civilzation.
My point earlier, the United States, despite the childhood admission of the allegiance to the flag, has no sense of allegiance that's worth dying over. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves. Sure, we're Yankee fans, Red Sox fans, Broncos, Raiders, Nascar fanatics, maybe even Cadillac men and women, occasionally feminsts and vegetarians. We express our individualities, and even proclaimn ouselves as white supremacists, Christian coelites or abortion/pro-rights activists. We get behind causes or teams, but most of us don't need to fight over land. We're not constantly having to move every five days because the border has changed. Since it became an annexation in 1845, Texas is pretty much the Texas it was back then. Better yet, and more precisely, San Antonio is pretty much going to stay San Antonio for the next couple of months.
And not a gun will need to be drawn to keep that a constant. We in Omaha do think a little different, at least the papers allow us to. Because there are small towns in the surrounding areas that are in jeopardy to be annexed by the great city metro proper. There may be some pissing and ranting about that. The towns may get a little feisty at council meetings and folks get upset, but car bombs aren't going off. The national guard is not coming in on this one. They argue in side, loudly but by definition, peacefully.
Then, you have Hamas, with their green flags and their chanting and parading. People are firing weapons into the sky for celebration. We don't get it, because it's just not how business is done in America. But there's simply a need to break down that veil of ignorance, the shroud of awareness. That this is a big big world we're in outside of what we're usually moaning and groaning about. It would just be nice to open that dialogue a little more often, and keep that line to the outside world humming just a little more frequently. I work for an international company with clients who move and operate throughout the globe. They travel in and through areas which should be of concern. While they're in the job, they may be acutely aware of such things. They know it has happened, that it could happen that they are rendered helpless against the elements of hostile regimes. But it is never entirely the American's concern because they have a sense of destiny in which bad things happen to civilized people. They want the seat on the airplane closest to the front. They want the low-fat meal on the plane. They want the exit row to afford more leg room. They expect that "you can just make that happen." "Are we all finished here?" "Are we good now?" Israel Palestine , the Iraqi insurgence is just something you read about in USA Today in the airport or in the break room. It may even make it to your couch as you watch the evening news over meatloaf. It is a situation, an occurrence. Unless you can break it down, unless there's people involved. Not people like you and me, no, they're lives are hanging in the balance. They may work for a living, but not if they're homes are uprooted, their lives overturned, inconvenienced, placed in a state of shock and realignment.
They are like you and me, in every respect, except for out of what bodies they were born, onto which earth they fell. We could say, tough break. Which is what would be most easy to say, Wec ould just change the channel. We could completely shut it off, forget about it. Relax with our thoughts or the new Julia Louise Dreyfus comedy coming out. That fucked up Bill Paxton show on HBO about the Mormon family with three wives. My thinking is just this-- there's just not enough drive to stay plugged in to realities of the world. If nothing else, just knowing whats happening beyond your front porch, beyonf the city limits, out there, over yonder, across those two big ass oceans, in those continents that outnumber us 4 billion to less than 1 billion. It was the cradle of civilization until we just into a few ships and tried to sail around the world. Then we got stuck here. And we've been stuck here ever since.