(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
It is night to Sunday the 18. September 2016. While my colleagues in the film and theater industry hang out at Emmy parties and dress nicely for the red carpet, I stand on the hilly dock in Ajaccio, Corsica, in the dark hours before dawn, waiting for a small sailboat named Zaytouna. Oliva should add. The boat arrives just after two o'clock at night, and the passengers and crew – all women – depart ashore. The trip from Barcelona has been tough. Everyone became sick, which can be clearly seen on their faces. One woman was so ill that she had to be taken by ambulance to a local hospital. The boat is clearly caught up in the weather and stinks of vomit, but it is all but a haze of despair that lies around the vessel. The women walk calmly, almost defiantly, down the aisle and towards the pier, where they are welcomed as heroes. In twenty-four hours I will also go out to sea with them, on the third stage of the journey, which goes to Messina in Sicily. From there, Zaytouna-Oliva will continue to its goal: Gaza.
It's about freedom. What has caused me to travel nearly ten thousand miles from Los Angeles and leave my family to defy the Mediterranean in what appears to be the port's smallest vessel? Why in the world participate in yet another attempt to break the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza?
It's so strange that this one small boat with thirteen women on board is such a huge security threat that the Israeli military will cut off and surround the vehicle, arrest the women and destroy the boat.
Firstly, I am here for the women – the extraordinary women in Gaza, as well as the wonderful women I am proud to call my shipmates. I am here because I am concerned about the consequences of war and blockade for women, when schools, hospitals and homes are regularly destroyed, and electricity and water supplies are wasted. I'm here because almost 1,8 million Gaza residents are trapped in what is often described as a huge open-air prison. I am here for the 299 women and 551 children who were killed during the 2014 attacks, and for the more than 40 pregnant women who are without basic health care because of the blockade and the devastation of the war. I am here because the blockade of Gaza, implemented by both Egypt and Israel, is contrary to the Geneva Convention's prohibition on collective punishment. I'm here because my own president just increased US military aid to Israel from $ 000 to $ 3,1 billion a year for the next ten years, without any restrictions or references to the situation in Gaza. I am here because the blockade – despite some relief from the restrictions on water and water – is the cause of high unemployment, unsafe food supplies, an infrastructure desperate for repairs, and a persistent medical crisis. We are not here to bring "help" to the people of Gaza, but to contribute to an international effort to break the siege. I notice the words of another impressive woman, the Egyptian author Adhaf Soueif: “The world has treated Gaza as a humanitarian case, as if it is the help the Palestinians need. What Gaza needs is freedom. "
Security Threat. I am also here to stand shoulder to shoulder with so many exceptionally cool women – such as Canadian social worker and activist Wendy Goldsmith, Israeli political activist Yehudit Barbara Llany, Tunisian MP Latifa Habachi who helped write Tunisia's constitution in 2014, Malaysian gynecologist Fauziah Hasan, our fearless leader and convoy veteran, retired US Colonel Ann Wright, and our skipper, Madeline Habib from Australia. I am proud to be the only Black woman to participate in this journey, and when I go ashore in Messina, I feel for the first time in my life that I am part of something much greater than myself. As I watched the boat dock, I thought: It's so strange that this one, small boat with thirteen women on board is such a huge security threat that the Israeli military will cut off and surround the craft, arrest the women and destroy the boat.
Censorship. Another woman who will be joining the last stage of Gaza is my good friend the playwright Naomi Wallace. With her sharp and fearless nature, Naomi helps me to remember that we are here also to defend artistic freedom of expression. It says in part that when I told some of my closest friends that I was going on this trip, they were less concerned about my safety than they were about my opportunities in the job context later. To criticize Israel or to express solidarity with the Palestinian people is obviously still taboo in the film and television industry and even in the theater. Recently, The New Theater in New York had to cancel the setup of The Siege, which is about five activists in the international solidarity movement who had to seek refuge in a church in Bethlehem during the second intifada in 2002. This kind of censorship is by no means unknown to Naomi. Her own piece Twenty-one Positions, which she co-wrote with Abdelfattah Abusrour and Lisa Schlesinger, was commissioned by the Guthrie Theater – but was then rejected on the grounds that it was too friendly towards the Palestinians. And when Tony Award winner and actor Tonya Pinkins tried to organize a charity concert for Movement for Black Lives, the owner of the venue abruptly canceled, citing the movement's criticism of Israel. I have a hope that our journey will help break the tacit American blockade of Palestinian art and Palestinian artists.
A start. To be perfectly honest: I'm terrified. I'm scared to get seasick, I'm scared to go sailing, and I'm scared to disappear on the sea. I am afraid on my own behalf, and I am especially afraid on behalf of the brave women who will try to break through the blockade. But I am even more afraid of what will happen if everyone stays at home, quiet and content and posing for the paparazzi. Breaking the siege is not the same as freedom for Gaza, but it is a beginning. And we, the women, are going to win. As my South African sisters often said when they fought for freedom, "Now that you've touched the women, you've found a rock."
This article was first published on counterpunch.org.
LisaGay Hamilton is an American actor and director.
