Rachel Corrie

Tonight I went to see a theatrical production called My Name is Rachel Corrie. It is the story of a 23-year-old American college student who traveled to Palestine in peaceful protest of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Trained as an activist for non-violence and a human shield, Rachel Corrie spent her time--just over a month--in Palestine in defense of families there whose homes, occupations, and lives were being destroyed.

On March 16, 2003, Rachel was protesting the demolition of a Palestinian family's home by the Israeli army. She stood in front of a bulldozer, which was destroying the property, in order to stop it. The driver either did not see her (as the Israeli government claims) or ignored her. She was crushed to death beneath it.

My Name is Rachel Corrie was one of the most moving things I've ever witnessed. I don't have words for it. I can't describe to you the beautiful life of this woman, who, even without her work toward peace, would have been extraordinary in my eyes. She was a beautiful soul--a writer, a poet, a free-spirited thinker who saw the world through a gaze I would like to share. She believed in tolerance, freedom, and rights for every human being. I, too, believe those things. Rachel Corrie acted upon her beliefs, while I only blog about them.

I come away from an experience like tonight with so much emotion swelling in my gut, threatening to tear out of me and make itself heard. I don't understand how there can be so much suffering, so much injustice and wrong-doing, in this world, while I stand idly by. I don't understand how I can know the things I know--hear stories like the one I heard tonight--and keep on living the life I do.

The truth is that my country causes extreme suffering around the world while I consume the fruits of its capitalistic monstrosities. The pleasures I partake of every day, and often take for granted--simple things like food and water and shelter and safety and the freedom to speak my thoughts, or luxuries like the internet and sun on my face in a coffee shop or a ride in a car--are denied to much of the world. There are places, perhaps more places than not, where it is not safe to raise children, where your next drink of water could be contaminated and kill you, where an army can come in and forcibly destroy your home with you inside it. These are places where death is common, known, and accepted as reality. America has created these places, or at the very least denied them its power to help, and as an American, why do I not claim more responsibility for the world's atrocities?

I don't know how I sleep at night. Perhaps tonight I won't. But I know my life will resume its normalcy by morning. I'll drink my coffee, cram for my Origins test, daydream through religion class, grocery shop, laugh, and bake muffins for my small group, pushing Rachel Corrie to the back of my mind. My words, my aching heart, won't change the world. Neither will my drinking fair-trade coffee or reading the paper or even writing letters at Amnesty International every week. I can't raise the dead, or heal the sickness, or ease the pain, of those on the other side of the world whose personal hell I have personally caused.

That absolutely sucks.