Rachel Corrie left behind dozens of email messages and other writings, which have been turned into a play called "My Name Is Rachel Corrie". Now it seems that her words are just as feared as her example was when she was alive. In response to the "postponement" of the play by a theater in New York, the co-editor of the play, Katharine Viner, wrote an op-ed for the LA Times, "A Message Crushed Again". (see below) During the 70's and 80's many of us came to know the practice of gathering in public to salute the memory of those whose lives had been cruelly taken by oppressive regimes throughout the Americas. Today we say: Rachel Corrie... presente! Craig Gingold The Corrie family's official website: http://www.rachelcorrie.org Rachel Corrie: Articles / Photographs / Writings http://www.rachel-corrie.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3rd Anniversary statement from Rachel's parents: In Memoriam ~ Rachel Corrie ~ 1979 - 2003 :::ACTION ALERT FROM RACHEL'S PARENTS::: Dear Friends, On the third anniversary of Rachel's killing in Gaza, here are three things that we urge you to consider doing today, or as soon as possible: 1) From New York: "The "Rachel's Words" initiative is made up of a broad spectrum of groups and individuals who believe that Rachel's words and her message of human rights and justice should be heard. We hope that Rachel's Words will open the door for other equally important and silenced voices. We resist the pervasive climate of fear and challenge to free speech that is increasingly prevalent in our society. Rachel wrote about issues that concern us all. People must have the opportunity to hear her message and decide for themselves what they think. Nobody's agenda should stand in the way of that." To endorse this initiative, please go to this link--and to the "About" or "Endorsement" headings http://www.rachelswords.org/about If you, your family, or your group are spending any time today or in upcoming days returning to Rachel's e-mails and words, please list this under "Actions" at http://www.rachelswords.org/actions 2) The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has called for a day of action today, March 16th. Please go to their website to learn about their Caterpillar campaign and more that you can do: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1190 3) While the U.S. Government is on record stating that the report of the Israeli military investigation into Rachel's killing did not meet the standard of "thorough, credible, or transparent," the U.S. has taken no steps to investigate this killing of an American citizen by a foreign military. Our family's often frustrating efforts to demand accountability from both the U.S. and Israeli governments continue. This week, family members are in Washington DC meeting with members of Congress. Please help us. Pick up the telephone and call your representative and Senators in the U.S. Congress and tell them that more must be done and that after three years it is an outrage that members of the Corrie family must still walk the halls of Congress seeking support simply to learn the truth. If you live in Washington State, please make a special call to Senator Murray's office noting that for three years she and her staff have drug their feet and have refused to take any leadership whatsoever in this matter-leadership that other members of Congress tell us they look to a senior senator to provide when a citizen of their state is so gravely impacted. Thank you for your continuing care and support. Cindy and Craig Corrie @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ LOS ANGELES TIMES A Message Crushed Again by Katharine Viner Wednesday, March 1, 2006 The Flights for cast and crew had been booked; the production schedule delivered; there were tickets advertised on the Internet. The Royal Court Theatre production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie," the play I co-edited with Alan Rickman, was transferring later this month to the New York Theatre Workshop, home of the musical "Rent," following two sold-out runs in London and several awards. We always felt passionately that it was a piece of work that needed to be seen in the United States. Created from the journals and e-mails of American activist Rachel Corrie, telling of her journey from her adolescence in Olympia, Wash., to her death under an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza at the age of 23, we considered it a unique American story that would have a particular relevance for audiences in Rachel's home country. After all, she had made her journey to the Middle East in order "to meet the people who are on the receiving end of our [American] tax dollars," and she was killed by a U.S.-made bulldozer while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes. But last week the New York Theatre Workshop canceled the production ? or, in its words, "postponed it indefinitely." The political climate, we were told, had changed dramatically since the play was booked. As James Nicola, the theater's artistic director, said Monday, "Listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections, we had a very edgy situation." Three years after being silenced for good, Rachel was to be censored for political reasons. I'd heard from American friends that life for dissenters had been getting worse ? wiretapping scandals, arrests for wearing antiwar T-shirts, Muslim professors denied visas. But it's hard to tell from afar how bad things really are. Here was personal proof that the political climate is continuing to shift disturbingly, narrowing the scope of free debate and artistic expression, in only a matter of weeks. By its own admission the theater's management had caved in to political pressure. Rickman, who also directed the show in London, called it "censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences ? all of us are the losers." It makes you wonder. Rachel was a young, middle-class, scrupulously fair-minded American woman, writing about ex-boyfriends, troublesome parents and a journey of political and personal discovery that took her to Gaza. She worked with Palestinians and protested alongside them when she felt their rights were denied. But the play is not agitprop; it's a complicated look at a woman who was neither a saint nor a traitor, both serious and funny, messy and talented and human. Or, in her own words, "scattered and deviant and too loud." If a voice like this cannot be heard on a New York stage, what hope is there for anyone else? The non-American, the nonwhite, the oppressed, the truly other? Rachel's words from Gaza are a bridge between these two worlds ? and now that bridge is being severed. After the Hamas victory, the need for understanding is surely greater than ever, and I refuse to believe that most Americans want to live in isolation. One night in London, an Israeli couple, members of the right-wing Likud party on holiday in Britain, came up after the show, impressed. "The play wasn't against Israel; it was against violence," they told Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother. I was particularly touched by a young Jewish New Yorker from an Orthodox family who said he had been nervous about coming to see "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" because he had been told that both she and the play were viciously anti-Israel. But he had been powerfully moved by Rachel's words and realized that he had, to his alarm, been dangerously misled. The director of the New York theater told the New York Times on Monday that it wasn't the people who actually saw the play he was concerned about. "I don't think we were worried about the audience," he said. "I think we were more worried that those who had never encountered her writing, never encountered the piece, would be using this as an opportunity to position their arguments." Since when did theater come to be about those who don't go to see it? If the play itself, as Nicola clearly concedes, is not the problem, then isn't the answer to get people in to watch it, rather than exercising prior censorship? George Clooney's outstanding movie "Good Night, and Good Luck" recently reminded us of the importance of standing up to witch hunts; one way to carry on that tradition would be to insist on hearing Rachel Corrie's words ? words that only two weeks ago were deemed acceptable. Katharine Viner is the features editor at the Guardian in London and the editor, with Alan Rickman, of "My Name is Rachel Corrie," which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in April 2005. Because of the cancellation of the New York run, the play is transferring to the Playhouse Theatre in London's West End. ======================================================= *** [==> If you're not part of the solution... you're part of the problem <==] *** New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/