March 16, 2005
Rachel Corrie (1979-2003)
May I make an observation for the benefit of some of my friends? Of course, I may. It's my blog!
Today some of us think about how misguided we think she was. Or how unfounded her parents' lawsuits against the IDF and Caterpiller are. (And they are.)
But, at her ending, she was a young woman who died tragically while doing what she thought was right.
I've always refused to call her "Rachel Pancake" or any other sickening slur. She didn't go anywhere to die for a cause. She went there and sat there because she knew she would be safe. She was a "human shield". She could trust that she'd be safe because she had faith in humanity.
Unfortunately, the shield was useless as she was not noticed by the bulldozer's operator.
To me, today, it doesn't even matter why she was there or what she was thinking when she went there. I wonder more about what she was thinking when she realized that she was about to die unnoticed by the machinery that was pushing at her and heaping debri upon her. When did she know that she'd made a mistake and what in the world was that experience like?
In my opinion the only one responsible for Rachel's death is Rachel herself. She was careless. In a dangerous situation she failed to make her presence absolutely clear and for her early-morning foggy logic she died. I hope the weight of the concrete was so great that she never felt a thing.
Being only 24-years old, her life was a short story. She made a mistake, yes, but, please, her reasons for making that mistake that morning had nothing to do with her ideology. I think it's despicable to translate political opinion into ghoulishness if only because Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and their ilk were so good at it.
I may not agree with what, in life, were her politics. But, I consider her death a tragedy on many levels. Philosophical, methodical and, especially, physical. On no level do I consider her death a joke.
Posted by Tuning Spork at March 16, 2005 01:18 AM
You're absolutely right.No matter how we disagree with her politics and especially how distasteful the "martyrdom of Corrie" movement is; we can't forget that someone died and that her life is not a joke. She was a kid and eventually could've grown up and realized how things really work...my views of the world are not the same as they were when I was in college. It is a shame that she died. It is also unfortunate that others use her death as a way to promote their agenda.
Posted by: jody at March 17, 2005 10:16 AM