Alice Walker: Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

[marmar]

Alice Walker: Why I'm joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza
Pulitzer prize-winning American writer Alice Walker is on board an international flotilla of boats sailing to Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade. Here she tells why

Alice Walker
The Guardian, Saturday 25 June 2011


Why am I going on the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza? I ask myself this, even though the answer is: what else would I do? I am in my 67th year, having lived already a long and fruitful life, one with which I am content. It seems to me that during this period of eldering it is good to reap the harvest of one's understanding of what is important, and to share this, especially with the young. How are they to learn, otherwise?

Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of. If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?

There is a scene in the movie Gandhi that is very moving to me: it is when the unarmed Indian protesters line up to confront the armed forces of the British Empire. The soldiers beat them unmercifully, but the Indians, their broken and dead lifted tenderly out of the fray, keep coming.

Alongside this image of brave followers of Gandhi there is, for me, an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the American south in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help – our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters – and came to stand with us. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/25/alice-walker-gaza-freedom-flotilla

[aquart]

1. Or she could just enter by the open Egyptian gate.

I would like to point out that the idiot Turks who were killed during the last flotilla did NOT behave like Gandhi. If they had, they'd still be alive.

As to why she believes the Arabs are an Israeli and not an Arab responsibility, no idea.

Practically speaking, a cargo of letters full of love is not a lot of help if you need, say, soap and fruit juice. But I assume she's been informed that the Egyptian gate is open?

As to why she equates the happy land of suicide bombers and missiles with Gandhi's India? The Palestinians were free to choose Gandhi's path at any time. They decided to go a completely different route.

I get scared when supposedly rational people are this confused.

[Rageneau]

2. I don't follow he logic. She's standing up for Arabs because Jews stood up for Blacks?

Ms. Walker seems to have conflated the sacrafice of Jews who worked to bring about civil rights for Blacks with... with... well, I can't tell WHAT she's equating that with. Her "reasoning" just doesn't make sense to me.

I agree with her that all the worlds' children need to be protected, but what has that got to do with joining a flotilla to Palestine? How will THAT protect any children anywhere?

Besides, when did Arabs or Arab citizens ever do for Black people what Jews and Jewish citizens have done for them for centuries? Where were the Arabs when MLK was marching? There would practically BE no white support for the Black Civil Rights movement were it not for the Jews. This is the thanks they get?

How does Jews dying in the South to help Blacks win their freedom translate into Blacks (like Walker) attempting to provoke a negative (violent?) Israeli response in order to benefit the cause of Palestinian public relations?


And what

[bemildred]

3. Let me explain:

Caveat: I'm just explaining it, since it seems likely to confuse more than one person.

Ms Walker, as with many other people who oppose current Israeli government policies, consider that they are trying to save Israel from itself, in the same way that South Africa can be considered to have been saved from itself by the repeal of Apartheid, so the payback would be in the form of continued viable existence of Israel (Edit: and I think carrying on the struggle that other people of all persuasions fought in South Africa and the American South and which goes on all around the World every day.)

[Demeter]

4. Because fixing USA's Political Problems Would Mean No Vacation Abroad??

Because going to Missouri or even Minnesota would be either fruitless, or dangerous to Ms. Walker?

Because no one expects her to contribute anything to resolve the Middle East situation, beyond whatever celebrity factor still works for her?

What a gigantic waste of time and energy.

[COLGATE4]

5. Exaggerated sense of self-importance, coupled with a stunning

naivete about how the Mid-East works and a fascination with empty meaninglesss gestures.

[classysassy]

7. Too bad more citizens don't show the same courage

as Alice Walker.We sit at home and watch TV as BiBi and his bullies maim,murder and steal the land of the Palestinians.Shame on all of you who condemn her.

[bengalherder]

6. This is all I have to say

If the people above had only read the damn article:

I once asked my best friend and husband during the era of segregation, who was as staunch a defender of black people's human rights as anyone I'd ever met: how did you find your way to us, to black people, who so needed you? What force shaped your response to the great injustice facing people of colour of that time?

I thought he might say it was the speeches, the marches, the example of Martin Luther King Jr, or of others in the movement who exhibited impactful courage and grace. But no. Thinking back, he recounted an episode from his childhood that had led him, inevitably, to our struggle.

He was a little boy on his way home from yeshiva, the Jewish school he attended after regular school let out. His mother, a bookkeeper, was still at work; he was alone. He was frequently harassed by older boys from regular school, and one day two of these boys snatched his yarmulke (skull cap), and, taunting him, ran off with it, eventually throwing it over a fence.

Two black boys appeared, saw his tears, assessed the situation, and took off after the boys who had taken his yarmulke. Chasing the boys down and catching them, they made them climb the fence, retrieve and dust off the yarmulke, and place it respectfully back on his head.

There's more, but I can only quote 4 paragraphs, natch.

She also states her belief that all children should be able to grow up in a peaceful environment.

The comments above are Ugly. Maybe you all should go troll elsewhere where ability to read the OP is not required.

[avebury]

8. K&R

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

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