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Four Years Ago Today
by Starhawk
March 16, 2007
Four years ago today,
I was in Nablus in the Occupied Territories of Palestine, volunteering with the
International Solidarity Movement that supports the nonviolent movement among
the Palestinians. I was also supporting my friend Neta Golan, an Israeli
woman and one of the founders of ISM, now married to a Palestinian, who was about
to give birth. I had spent a strangely idyllic day in a small village outside
Nablus, where a group of ISM volunteers had gone because we’d received a
report that the Israeli army was harassing villagers. When we got there, the army
had left, the cyclamen and blood-red anemones were in bloom underneath ancient
olive trees, and the villagers insisted we stay for a barbecue.
We were just passing through the checkpoint on our way back to Nablus when we
got a call from Rafah, in the Gaza strip. Rachel Corrie, a young ISM volunteer,
had trying to prevent an Israeli bulldozer from demolishing a home near the border.
The bulldozer operator saw her, and went forward anyway, crushing her to
death.
Rachel’s death was a small preview of the horrific violence that the U.S.
unleashed, three days later, with the invasion of Iraq. In Nablus, we were
gearing up for a possible Israeli invasion when the war began. I was working
with another volunteer, Brian Avery, to coordinate the team that would maintain
a human rights witness in the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus.
I was also praying that Neta would not go into labor at some moment when the whole
town would be under siege and we could not get to a hospital, and boning up on
such midwifery knowledge as I possess. Perhaps I prayed too hard—she
showed no signs of going into labor at all, and finally, in an act of great unselfishness,
sent me down to Rafah to support the team there that had been with Rachel. I
offered such comfort as I could to volunteers who were young enough that most
had never before experienced the death of someone close to them.
It was a strange spring. I made it back to Nablus to support Neta’s
birth—but the joy of that event was tinged with horror, for the night before,
Brian was shot in the face in Jenin by the Israeli military in an unprovoked attack
on a group of international volunteers. All during Neta’s labor, the
nurses (yes, thank Goddess, we made it to the hospital!) kept turning on Al Jazeerah
which was showing scenes of the U.S. bombardment of Iraq. I kept turning
it off. Even in a world full of war, I wanted her child to be born in a
small island of peace.
I went to Jenin to support the team that had been with Brian, and then to Haifa
to visit him where he was awaiting surgery. I spent much of the next weeks
traveling frenetically, often alone, through the one piece of ground on earth
most difficult to travel in, where checkpoints truncate every route. The
olive trees broke into leaf, and the almonds swelled into fuzzy green pods which
the Palestinians eat young. They taste lemony, sharp and poignant, like
the moment itself.
I visited with the Israeli Women in Black in Jerusalem, and trained ISM volunteers
in Beit Sahour. A young British volunteer, Tom Hurndall, went down to Rafah straight
from the training. Walking on the border, near where Rachel was killed,
he saw a group of children under fire from an Israeli sniper tower. He ran
beneath the rain of bullets, pulled a young boy to safety, went back again for
another child. The sniper targeted him, shooting him in the head. So I went
back to Rafah, that surreal town of rubble and barbed wire, ripe oranges and bullet
holes, to support the team that had been with Tom
Everywhere I went, the sun shone, the flowers bloomed, and the army seemed to
melt away, as if I carried some magic circle of protection. I was a long
distance witness to death, a support for grief without suffering the searing personal
pain that comes with the loss of a child, a parent, a lover. My own grief
hit later, when I was home, and safe, and cried for weeks.
I cry now, every spring, here in California as the daffodils bloom and the plum
trees flower. The beauty of spring is forever tinged, for me, with the grief and
wonder and horror of that time: Neta sweating in labor while the TV news shows
images of war, blood staining the wildflowers a deeper red.
I cry, and then I get I mad. Four years have gone by, and the killing still
goes on—in Palestine, in Iraq, and if Bush has his way, in Iran. Ghosts
haunt the green hills, shimmering like heat waves under an unnaturally hot sun:
all the uncounted dead of this uncalled-for war, all those yet to die.
I’ve got a garden to plant, and a thousand things I’d rather do, but
once again this spring, I’m gearing up for action. The peace marches have
become boring, strident and predictable. To be absolutely honest, I hate
marching around in the street chanting the same slogans I’ve been chanting
for forty years. I’m going, anyway. I’m so tired of die-ins
and sit-ins and predictable speeches shouted over bullhorns that I could scream
if I weren’t hearing in my ears the far more bitter screams of the dying.
I’m even tired of trying to drum and sing and make the protest into
a creative act of magic. It’s not creative—it’s a damn
protest, and I have real creative work to do: books to write, courses to teach,
and rituals to plan. Nonetheless, Sunday will find me trudging along on
the peace march and Monday will find me lying down on Market Street in some picturesque
fashion with a group of friends and our requisite banners.
Why? So I can look myself in the mirror without flinching, and answer to
those hundred thousand ghosts. But more than that, because it’s time,
friends. Public opinion has turned—now we must make it mean something real.
It’s time to send the Democrats back to their committee meetings saying,
“Hell, I can’t even get into my office—the halls are blocked
and the streets are choked with people angry about this war.” Time
to send the Republicans off to their caucuses murmuring quietly “If we continue
to support this disaster we’re going to lose every semblance of power or
popular support we once possessed.” Time to let the rest
of the world know that dissent is alive and well here in the U.S.A. Time
to regenerate a movement as nature regenerates life in the spring, with the rising
energy that alone can turn our interminable trudging into a dance of defiance.
You come, too. You can skip out on the boring speeches and make cynical remarks—but
get your feet out on the street this weekend, somewhere. There’s a
thousand different actions planned around the country—and if you don’t
know where to go or what to do, check the websites below.
Act because hundreds of thousands who are now alive are marked for death if this
war goes on or expands into Iran. Act because every perfumed flower and
every bud that breaks into leaf this calls to us to cherish and safeguard life.
Starhawk
www.starhawk.org
For a listing of actions, check:
www.unitedforpeace.org
or
http://declarationofpeace.org/march-16-19-nationwide-nonviolent-civil-disobedience
Starhawk is an activist,
organizer, and author of The Earth Path, as well as Webs of Power:
Notes from the Global Uprising, The Fifth Sacred Thing; and eight
other books on feminism, politics and earth-based spirituality. She teaches
Earth Activist
Trainings that combine permaculture design and activist skills, and works
with the RANT trainer’s collective, www.rantcollective.org
that offers training and support for mobilizations around global justice and
peace issues.
Copyright (c) 2006 by Starhawk. All rights reserved. This copyright protects
Starhawk's right to future publication of her work. Nonprofit, activist, and
educational groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint it, translate
it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part
of it without permission. Readers are invited to visit the web site: www.starhawk.org.
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