"My Name Is Rachel Corrie:" Its Not Against Israel, Its Against Violence
Rachel CorrieThree years ago, on March 16th I was horrified to hear the story and see the gruesome pictures of Rachel Corrie’s death. This unlikely American hero from Olympia, WA, was 23 when she was crushed to death under an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza while in the midst of a nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a a Palestinian doctor, his wife, and three children from demolition.
LA Times columnist Katherine Viner describes her as a “young, middle-class, scrupulously fair-minded American woman, writing about ex-boyfriends, troublesome parents and a journey of political and personal discovery that took her to Gaza. She worked with Palestinians and protested alongside them when she felt their rights were denied.”
Last April a play entitled “My Name is Rachel Corrie” was staged in London. The play ran to sold out houses and won several awards. This year this unique American woman’s story was coming to the United States. It was due to play at the New York Theater Workshop: the home of “Rent.” But about two weeks ago, the Workshop cancelled its booking. Viner writes: “The political climate, we were told, had changed dramatically since the play was booked. As James Nicola, the theater's 's artistic director, said, ‘Listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation.’”
Viner writes: One night in London, an Israeli couple, members of the right-wing Likud party on holiday in Britain, came up after the show, impressed. "The play wasn't against Israel; it was against violence," they told Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother.
Click to read more about Rachel Corrie and http://www.criticalconcern.com/rachelcorrie.html
Click to read Katherin Viner’s column in LA Times
Click to read an Open Letter to New York Theater Company by Warren Guykema
posted by Shanta Premawardhana @ 3:32 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Shanta, thank you for writing this piece about Rachel. I did not know her, but we lived in the same community, and had many friends in common.
Here's another link you might find useful: http://www.criticalconcern.com/rachelcorrie.html
I would not have known you existed, had we not gotten spammed by the same person. Interfaith connection is one of my passions. I'm very glad to see you here.
People who tend to conintue writing hateful things about RAchel, like the top comment on this post, tend perpetuate a lot of misinformation. They just have a problem with Palestinians and Arabs and Islam in general and anyone who takes the time to learn more about any of these things instead of blindly following fundamentalist dogma.
Fortunatly, we can bypass these people and go to the source. Rachel's words, though censored by the New York theatre Project, will be heard in New York on March 22. Hear them for yourself. Those who reguse to be intimidated will be reading Rachel's emails and letters — the source material for the play "My name is Rachel Corrie." Maya Angelou, Vanessa Redgrave, Alice Walker, Leonard Hubbard (from The Roots) , Rachel's mother and father, and a lot more people will be taking part.
RACHEL’S WORDS
MARCH 22nd, NEW YORK CITY
Co-hosts: Amy Goodman and James Zogby
Riverside Church
490 Riverside Drive
8.00 pm
Check it out.
www.rachelswords.org
There can be no real argument about Rachel Corrie: she was a major supporter of terrorism. In her writings, she criticized non-violence and said that the Palestinians were justified in doing just about anything to the Israelis in response to the hurts that they had suffered. She used the words "somewhat violent" to refer to suicide bombings and shootings of civilians. As someone who was nearly killed by Palestinian terrorists, I must admit I am glad that she was squished like a grape. People who support terrorism deserve no better than she received.
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