In April, the Royal Court Theatre in London will be running a one-actress play called My Name is Rachel Corrie, about the 23-year old woman killed by a bulldozer in Rafah. The play is based on Corrie's own writings, and conventional wisdom holds that it will paint her as a tragic figure for a worthy cause.
There is movement afoot to discredit Rachel Corrie by pointing out certain facts that won't be apparent in the play or its introduction. This may be accurate but, I think, counterproductive Here's why:
The purpose of the play is to elevate Rachel Corrie to be a symbol for Palestinian "resistance" against Israeli "oppression." It tells the tragic story of a young woman of privileged background with enormous moral and physical courage. It will beg the audience to not let her death be in vain. It is, as correspondents of mine have pointed out, a depiction of a myth. And myths are resilient.
Paitning Corrie as an evil person will only confirm one of her points: that her enemies are liars. Her writings will prove what an idealistic, well-intended person she was; denying that is dishonest, which is what she said Zionists are.
Discrediting her cause only resurfaces the familiar controversy. People who believe the Israelis are evil are not going to be convinced otherwise within the context of Rachel Corrie.
Instead, opposition to this play should focus on certain indisputable facts, namely that:
- Rachel Corrie's efforts would not have gotten this much attention if she hadn't died. Those who use her death as a way to promote her cause must admit they are benefiting from it.
- Her death was a pure tragedy, because (and this is important) neither she nor the IDF wanted it. The worst possible interpretation of culpability on the part of the IDF was that they were negligent; by all accounts, it was a terrible accident.
- Further, it is apparent that Corrie's admirable attributes of idealism were cynically exploited by the ISM. She probably thought that she was preventing collective punishment, but she was really contributing to terrorist acts.
Pointing out these facts will not discredit Rachel Corrie, but they will discredit the creator of the play, Alan Rickman. To the extent that he uses the story of Rachel Corrie as a means of sowing hate and outrage against Israel, he is truly shaming her memory. One can admire Rachel Corrie for many things and even agree with her about her political convictions, but one can not admire the circumstances of her death.
She's so young doing the act. I admire her so much, good luck.
Posted by: autoglass | June 08, 2011 at 04:14 AM