الذكرى السادسة لرحيل راكيل كوري
شهيدة فلسطين
(1979-2003)
Rachel's loving parents Cindy and Craig Corrie
On Monday, March 16,2009, six years will have passed since Rachel's mission on earth
came to an end in Rafah - Gaza in 2003.
Rachel Corrie, originally from Charlotte (Queen City) ,North Carolina, was a 23-year-old peace activist and a 3rd year student at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She was murdered by the Israeli army in Rafah-Gaza on March 16, 2003, while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a home of a Palestinian family by the Israeli army.
Dear Rachel...I am not quite sure where to start or how to begin.! Your arrival in Rafah, along with your friends, was a sudden blessing from the sky that brought with it some much needed hope and attention to a holly part of the world...the world has unfairly shunned and forgotten.! But you left us way too fast and way too soon and many of us were not fortunate enough to meet you in person, much less say our proper goodbyes. So please allow us to remember you today and say few words from the heart on your behalf on this six anniversary of your departure.
Although you left so soon, you left behind you in Rafah many friends and adopted loved ones who were deeply touched by your kindness, your passion, and your strong values and convictions. You left behind you many heroic stories that speak of bravery; remarkable courage; and zeal for justice, stories that are yet to be told in our history books. You left behind you so many memories...painful ones and beautiful ones, but mostly beautiful ones. You touched so many lives in your short stay in Rafah without you ever knowing it ...The echoes of your cries for justice can still be heard loud and clear every time a Palestinian tree befriends a gust of wind and tango in secret to the rhythm of peace in Southern and Western Rafah...Every time a Palestinian home bids us farewell as it's being carried a away on a stretcher by Israel's bulldozers...Every time the clouds gather over Rafah to remember you and shower their tears over the blessed place where you fell and made your last stand for justice.!
You never had the chance to walk down the aisle in a beautiful, white, wedding-gown, because the criminal Israeli army made sure of that, but instead you flew over Rafah and across Palestine in a beautiful pair of white wings made for heaven....
You never had the chance to walk on the stage to receive your degree, again because the Israeli army made sure of that... but you graduated in degrees with honor in human kindness; human dignity; and Human rights...
We will never forget you sweet Rachel.! How could we forget part of ourselves.! Nor will we ever forget our friends....your friends who came before you, came with you, and came after you to continue your work. We will continue to hold you in our hearts. You came from heaven and you returned to heaven... all too quickly
.
Thank you Rachel, may Allah (swt) accept you with all our martyrs
Thank you Craig and Cindy Corrie and Corrie family for sharing Rachel with us
Now heaven has back her Angel; and Charlotte, Queen City, NC has back her Queen.!
[
The 18th century Irish author, philosopher, and politician
Edmund Burke obviously never met Rachel in person, but she surely must've heard of him and took to heart every word he said;
"All it takes for Evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing" ... Edmund Burk, must be really proud today.!
A Saudi Islamic-scholar nixed outright the idea of street protests taking place in Arab Capitals and streets during Israel's dirty war on Gaza and dismissed them as an obsolete gestures that shy Muslims a way from doing their Islamic duties.! And that, understandably, made many people angry, including my self!. But now, thinking back, I feel he was right, because I believe there was a subtle message between the lines the Sheik wanted to convey to us that many of us have inadvertently missed. May be it was a message a long the lines of a message Rachel learned early on as a result of her good upbringing; that there are times for street protests....but there comes a time when street protests do not rise to the event... or level of Israeli crimes, and therefore these protests are quite simply not enough to stop evil! What is really required, is to confront evil head on.! Rachel, nonMuslim and nonArab, did just that.! i
Rachel was months a way from graduating College when she on a wintery day in January of 2003, embarked on her arduous journey from Olympia, Washington to Gaza, Palestine. She travelled over ten thousands miles, crossed three continents, two oceans, climbed over barriers of language and culture and landed inside Rafah to confront evil. She laid her beliefs on the line!. It was young idealism at a collision course with the brutal reality of a violent occupation. A tragedy in the making and the criminal hands of the Israeli occupation has just gone international to snuff needlessly yet another young life.! Rachel did what anyone with a good conscious does. She saw gross and intolerable injustice being committed by Israel. She witnessed war crimes being perpetrated against defenseless people and she refused to sit idle on the sidelines, much like the rest of the world, and watch from a far. In her heart of heart, there was no grey line...it was good verses evil, and no good battle was more worth fighting.!
Craig Corrie, Rachel's father, "We've tried to bring up our children to [have a sense of community, a sense of community that everybody in the world belong to", "Rachel believed that - with her life, now."
Alison Weir, founder of 'If Americans Knew', an organization opposed to Israeli occupation, speaking of Rachel, said it best; "We won't forget her young idealism, her sweet bravery, her needless death. And we won't forget her beliefs, the third of which killed her: that good would triumph, that justice would prevail, that Israel would not kill her."
"She was concerned about human rights and dignity," "That's why she was there." said Larry Mosqueda, one of Rachel's professors and a fellow activist.
On that fateful day of March 23, 2006, armed with her bullhorn and dressed in her fluorescent jacket, Rachel spent most of that morning, in what turned out to be her last few hours on earth, with her friends in front of the Palestinian family home in Rafah, pleading with Israeli soldiers not to demolish it. "They didn’t initially (until later); they demolished her instead."
"Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," said Greg Schnabel, 28, of Chicago. "She waved for the bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled, 'Stop, stop,' and the bulldozer didn't stop at all."
She was still alive when her friends raced to her side; her eyes were still open; her last words were, "My back is broken." A Palestinian ambulance rushed Rachel to the hospital where she died from her massive injuries.
The Israelia may have broken Rachel's body, but they could never break her spirit.! They could never break her message of peace, justice, and human dignity.!
It was a day sadness dawned its dark wings on earth to suffocate with vengeance the few fragile moments of peace left in Gaza.! For Rachel's friends, it was a day engulfed by shock and utter despair unlike any other day. A day the universe of Rachel's loving parents was shaken off of its foundation and their world was turned upside down; a day Rachel loving brother lost his sister; a day Rachel loving sister lost her only sister; a day Palestine lost a dear friend; a day justice lost a brave soldier.!
AS the grayish clouds in the sky above Gaza gathered their strengrh after the shock and began to grieve and shed their tears in silent before they started their somber march West toward the sea, they revealed behind a beautiful blue-skies over Rafah and the wide-open doors to the gate to heaven. As heaven came to a standing still to pray a loud, Angels lined up the procession across the Gaza horizon to link up with the snowy skies over Olympia, Washington to welcome Rachel back and begin her final journey home.
[One of Rachel's last emails from Rafah to her mother on Febreuary 28, 2003, reads
I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances - which I also haven’t seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people. Maybe, hopefully, someday you will.”
(كذالك اود ان اذكر اني وجدت هنا عزيمة واصرار ومقدرة مذهلة عند الناس على الحفاظ على انسانيتهم في اكحل الظروف ... اعتقد الكلمة او الوصف الصحيح هو ... كرامة .! صفة لم اراها في حياتي من قبل.! اتمنى ان تتعرفي على هؤلاء الناس ... انشاءالله يوما ما سيتحقق لك ذالك)
Well, Rachel's wish came true many times over... Last week, Rachel's parents led yet another delegation into Gaza to help break the siege and to celebrate Rachel's six anniversary in Rafah, jus as they have been doing for the past six years |
الذكرى السادسة شهيدة فلسطين - راكيل كوري Dear Rachel
رد مع اقتباس
المشاركة الأصلية كتبت بواسطة عائشة صالح أبو صلاح
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