IN THESE TIMES, IT IS EASY TO SEE WHY WAR IS OBSOLETE. NATURE HAS TAKEN IT ON HERSELF TO SHOW US HOW DESTRUCTIVE UNANTICIPATED AND UNCONTROLLABLE VIOLENCE IS. NOTHING HUMANS CANE VER DO ON THE BATTLEFIELD IS A MATCH FOR HER POWER.
In these times, it is easy to see why war is obsolete. Nature has taken it on herself to show us how destructive unanticipated and uncontrollable violence is. And that nothing humans can ever do on the battlefield is a match for her power. After an earthquake, especially after earthquakes like the recent ones in Haiti and Chile, how can humanity permit our governments to cause similar devastation, with our money, deliberately?
Recently, I was in Cairo, attempting to cross into Gaza with the courageous women of CODE PINK. This organization had worked for nearly a year to collect about $2 million worth of aid for the people of Gaza. They had also invited 1,400 people from around the world to join in a freedom march inside Gaza, in protest of the imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians, in Gaza, by the Israeli government. The Egyptian government, apparently under the control of Israel and the United States, refused to permit us entry. Perhaps its leader feared losing the large amount of aid the United States gives Egypt every year.
In any case, on my third day in Cairo, I found myself traveling with Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODE PINK, to pay a visit to the Red Crescent, similar to the Red Cross. We were escorted into the office of a large, kindly man who seemed to want to help us. Evans, wearing a lot of pink, had come armed with her cell phone and her computer. At each point of questioning from the kindly but cautious Egyptian, she used these tools to connect with her base of information. There was not a single question put to her that she did not, sitting there in all her glorious pink, answer politely, firmly and conclusively. She talked about the 1,400 citizens from around the world who were outside, some camping in front of embassies, some battling police in the Cairo streets. She talked about the $2 million in aid. Milk and cheese and bread and beans. Water. Chocolate. School supplies. Medicine.
I had arrived in Cairo ill; speaking brought on a spell of coughing; I was sorry to be of so little help. However, I did have one question:
"Have you ever been to Gaza?" I asked our host, when Jodie Evans took a moment to catch her breath.
"No," he said. "But I hear it's better than when you were there last year."
More people dead? I wondered. Or did he mean more rubble cleared?
But then Jodie Evans was back on the case. To every question, she found an answer.
At last, the kindly man, someone's uncle or father or brother or son, allowed the possibility of 65 people being allowed entry into Gaza. Sixty-five out of 1400. Jodie Evans tried to increase the number, speaking again of the hardship many had suffered to be able to come so far. Maybe two buses? And what of the aid? There was now given to us a long list of all that could not be carried into Gaza. Milk was out, for starters. It was a liquid.
This haggling went on for some time. As people who had visited Gaza a year ago, both she and I would be denied entry this time.
And so forth.
But here is what the feeling was: We were begging to be allowed to help desperate people, many of them slowly starving to death. I will not forget this feeling as long as I live; because it was not right. And yes, I longed to have a government behind me that would have made it unnecessary for us to beg; I yearned for a government whose leaders would go with us into Gaza. Shoulder to shoulder with us. Because until our leaders go with us to try to understand and right the wrongs our nations have caused, what chance as a planet do we have? And yet, ironically, this encounter, where we felt we had nothing officially supportive at our backs, is where I saw the goddess in Jodie Evans. Even though this was begging, she never lost her dignity, her resolve, her commitment to the people of Gaza who are suffering. I witnessed something I never expected to experience that day: that to beg for the good of others is noble. I saw this nobility, very strong, in her. That moment was worth the trip.
When the disastrous earthquake hit Haiti, even Israel sent a shipment of aid. But why not send such a shipment to Gaza, where Israel has done the damage? Looking at a collapsed school in Port au Prince, it seemed almost identical to the American School in Palestine in whose rubble, a year ago, I spent part of a morning. America sent aid, but why had it not helped the Haitians (over decades) as their capsized boats filled with impoverished people headed toward survival in the United States, floundered and were drowned by the waves? Not to mention the atrocious colonial treatment of Haiti, for centuries.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Monday, March 29th 2010 at 12:53PM
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