Palestine advocacy in India+Appeal from Caoimhe Butterly

international | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Tuesday February 10, 2004 01:49 by Ewa globalintifadas at yahoo dot co dot uk

I myself lived with Caoimhe in Baghdad and Jenin for 6 months and witnessed her dedication, astonishing courage, love and pain - she is a living breathing piece of Mukhayam Jenin and her understanding of the realities of life in Palestine under occupation is unparallelled for a foreigner. Her voice is authentic and honest and vital and it needs to be heard - please read on and support her

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY(forward on to mailing-lists,etc.)

Friends and companeros,
As this e-mail is being sent to an e-mail list compiled through meetings in
five continents, of people from all walks of life, I am going to state what
will be, for many of you, the obvious, so bear-briefly- with me,tayeb?
My name is Caoimhe( pronounced ‘Cueeva’) Butterly and I’m an Irish (though
raised primarily in different countries in Africa) activist presently doing
advocacy work in India and elsewhere to raise awareness about the nature of
the Occupation in Palestine. I have been a full-time activist for the past
seven years, primarily in Latin America (in Guatemala and Chiapas,Mexico)
and the Middle East( Iraq and Palestine). My focus has been working with and
providing direct accompianment for grassroots, local initiatives working
towards sustainable forms of development, human and civil rights. I lived
from Dec.2001 until Dec.2002 in Palestine, mainly in Jenin Refugee Camp,
working with local groups in the lead-up to and aftermath of the April 2002
massacre. Shot there by Israeli soldiers in Nov.2002, I later returned to
Ireland briefly before traveling to post-war Iraq in April 2003 where I
lived for eight months. While in Iraq I worked closely with Voices in the
Wilderness, Occupation Watch, a Palestinian refugee camp in Baghdad, and a
variety of Iraqi emerging civil society organizations and unions. While
there I wrote for a variety of web publications, among them
www.electroniciraq.net. I then spent a further three months back in Jenin
and have spent the past few months speaking at public meetings,
conferences,etc.( and at the recent World Social Forum and parallel
gathering, Mumbai Resistance)

This e-mail is intended both as a general update on mobilizations planned
here in India in the lead-up to Silvan Shalom’s visit to Delhi and other
cities( commencing Feb.8th in Mumbai) and also as an appeal for FUNDS (the
dreaded word!)to finance a series of talks and public meetings at which I
will speak in the coming months. I have been giving talks here, primarily in
Bengal, for the past two weeks ( to trade unions, students, solidarity
groups, community activists and on televised talk-shows and debates) on the
realities of life under Occupation for Palestinians and of the dangers of
the increasing level of co-operation between the Indian and Israeli
governments. There are also demonstrations planned to mark his visit on the
12th in Delhi and possibly Mumbai.

India has a long tradition of very vocal support and solidarity with the
Palestinian struggle for freedom and dignity and the present right-wing BJP
government’s stance is not in any way, from what I’ve witnessed, reflective
of the deep empathy felt in the street. There is a latent solidarity here
that needs to be focused and channeled into a cohesive challenge to the
Indian government’s normalization and legitimization of Israel’s repressive
policies. In the wake of Sharon’s visit to India in September a number of
arms deals were brokered between India, Poland and Israel and it is feared
that Shalom’s visit will further solidify the growing political, military
and economic ties between these countries. This would have serious
implications for a number of International campaigns – such as that against
the continuing construction of the Apartheid Wall – in that this alliance
provides further legitimacy for what Gandhi condemned(in 1948 in the wake of
the Nakba ) as an “illegitimate” government and, by extension, it’s
colonialist, oppressive, expansionist practices.


With millions of Indians living in extreme poverty and engaged in struggles
against the further deterioration in living conditions that globalization
has brought to India ( the “backyard of the West”), there has been a surge
of organizing at a grassroots level of women, men and children challenging
the dominant narratives of the political discourses around “development”.
These movements, in their struggles against mega-dams, communalism, castism,
racism are increasingly aware of the nature of the Occupation in Palestine
and what the Indian government’s support of Israel symbolizes, for a people
that liberated themselves from colonization and are now, perhaps, fighting
for a new Republic- one which acknowledges their validity and worth.

I am due to speak at the University of Kolkata (Calcutta) in two days time
and then at other public meetings in Calcutta and Delhi, as well as at the
three main Universities in Delhi and then in Kashmir, Bangalore and the
Narmada Valley. The meetings have been organized and sanctioned by both the
student unions and administrations of the Universities and are expected to
draw sizable crowds and media attention. I struggle with this constantly- I
am not Palestinian and in some ways, as a foreigner speaking for
Palestinians, there is a risk of emulating the very racism that we are
fighting against – that of Palestinians constantly being spoken for – either
by the Israeli govt.( demonizing them), the Palestinian Authority
(oftentimes misrepresenting them) or by activists (trying to be channels of
other peoples’ stories instead of a de-contextualised personality – but
activism is oftentimes far from altruistic!). Anyways, it is not ideal but I
have freedom of movement( that my Palestinian friends do not have) and
experience enough to be able to, at least, testify to and disseminate
information about a suffering and resilience and struggle and blatant
injustices that are relevant to us all, worldwide, who profess to actively
desire justice.

This is, essentially, what I am attempting to do- to give voice to the
narratives of Palestinians that are silenced in the International mainstream
media and political discourses- because if heard- with the passion of their
truth-telling – listeners ( us in the West) would be compelled to act. In my
talks I try to honour both the strength and resilience of the families that
I lived with in Jenin Refugee camp while raising awareness among listeners
of the daily brutality, racism, humiliation and desecration they suffer.
Through a reclaimation of both the language of injustice , of the words
“apartheid, massacre ,genocide, war crimes”, etc.( all which have been
white-washed out of the acceptable vocabulary around Palestine) and the
language of emancipation, of struggle (which, in the mainstream West is not
acceptable, either) in the talks I (as do many thousands of dedicated
activists doing advocacy work around Palestine) try to encourage audiences
of all walks of life to view and treat the Occupation with the same amount
of outrage and mobilization that was directed towards apartheid South
Africa. I have given over 150 talks in the past two years( as well as
numerous interviews on mainstream and independent t.v., radio and print
mediums) at public meetings, universities, schools, community centres,
mosques, churches, nursing homes, with activist and solidarity groups and at
demonstrations.

I have the energy and will to continue doing advocacy full-time, between
stays in the Middle-East but to date all of the travel, reproduction of
materials, etc. costs have been self-funded or with the help of
long-suffering family and friends. This is, basically, the gist of this
e-mail (which I know I took a very long time getting to- but I find it
incredibly hard and embarrassing to ask for money from anybody!). I need
FINANCIAL help (although I welcome moral support, too) if I am going to
continue the speaking tours. My bank account balance of 50 euros can not
fund many more journeys! I plan, upon finishing the meetings here in India
(and sitting beside an ocean for three days of much-needed reflection!) to
return to Ireland for the duration of Ireland’s Presidency of the E.U.-
which should be a time period of a lot of scope for mobilization. From April
onwards I have been invited to speak at conferences and public meetings in
Spain, Cuba, Mexico and Chile (which is home to a huge Palestinian Diaspora
community which, to date, has little representation or lobby to bear
positive influence on the Government’s hot/cold relationship with the U.S.
and Israeli administrations).
Later on in the year I plan to travel across the U.S., meeting with
solidarity groups but focusing primarily on trying to access and mobilize
Irish-Americans into a more courageous stance of support for a movement that
shares so many dynamics with the struggle for Irish Independence. From there
I hope to travel to the camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan- to both gain a
deeper understanding of the Diaspora experience ( which I’ve witnessed in
the impotent rage of Palestinian friends in Ireland, weeping as they watch
the images of slow-drip genocide on television) and to try to see how Int.
solidarity groups on the outside can support Palestinian refugees in the
camps in their countries of exile struggle for basic civil rights.
I see myself, in this process, basically in the role of net-worker and
witness bearer. I am a “foreigner”, yes, but when one bears witness to the
corrosively painful nature of what Palestinians go through, on a daily
basis, it sears something on one’s heart and soul and conscience which is
impossible to ignore and demands dedicated action. I went to Palestine to
accompany Palestinians for a short while on their long, painful walk to
freedom and have found that, on leaving, Palestine has become a living,
breathing accompaniment to every day I’ve lived since. When you’re pulling
bodies out from underneath the ruins of a refugee camps, or witnessing the
deaths or brutalization of friends or listening to widows keening out their
pain , it is all just so very wrong- and the common ground that unites us as
humankind easily transcends the imagined divides of nationality, etc.
Secondary pain, empathy and trauma- though while not as an immediate a pain
as losing one’s own family members- cut deep. This, I know, is the
experience of thousands of foreign activists who bear witness to the culture
of imposed death and collective abandonment that is suffocating
Palestinians- that once witnessed, it is not something that can be
forgotten, that advocacy for the fate of friends left behind, becomes one’s
life.

There is one story, of a friend called Suha in Jenin that I try to share
with audiences and it is this type of story that generally cuts through the
apathy of misinformed understanding of the “conflict”. I don’t think it can
ever be overtold; Suha had three children- her youngest, Ibrahim, a seven
year old, was terrified by the shelling of the camp during the massacre, so
she held him and rocked him back and forth, thinking that in the cradle of
her arms she could protect him- that her living flesh would be pierced
before his if they were shot at or wounded by shrapnel. She described how
his little heart gradually calmed down and how she was almost happy with the
thought that she would die protecting her son’s vulnerable life. So she
rocked him, and herself through the invasion and dark of their electricity-
less, water-less , food-less home (which was demolished on the last day of
the massacre, the same day her husband was arrested and eventually sentenced
to life in prison) and they, and her other three children lived through the
massacre. Three months later Ibrahim was shot through the neck at the door
of their new home by an Israeli soldier, and died in Suha’s arms.
Her story is far from unique and when people on the outside begin to
understand that and understand how utterly devastating it is for parents not
to be able to keep their children physically safe( that in occupied
Palestine there is no refuge for vulnerable human flesh and that this awful
awareness of their lack of power to be able to protect their families is
deliberate and in keeping with similar methods of state- sponsored terrorism
that the Israeli govt. and army have practiced over many years to try to
grind people into submission) then we on the outside begin to examine our
complicity within it all, our lack of action around a time that our children
might look back upon with incredible shame, for our silence.

This has rambled on for far longer than intended and I apologise in advance
to those on my mailing list that will rightfully perceive this as “preaching
to the converted”- a number which is growing as the reality of the
Occupation gets out.

I also apologise in advance to those who will read this who are already
working on tight budgets, if any budgets at all- read this as an update, not
as an appeal for donations!

If, however, there are readers in a position to throw some money my way, it
can be done with complete transparency and accountability. I can keep in
touch, to inform you of my movements and what I use the funds for (plane
tickets and advocacy materials- power-point presentations, booklets,
leaflets, etc.) Any excess money will be sent on to families in Jenin Camp
through the Refugee Centre (grassroots, community-run). I live, generally, a
very simple life so no money will be wasted (this presuming that this e-mail
will generate any, at all!)
The most direct way to send it is directly to my bank account-

(care of)
Caoimhe Butterly
Bank of Ireland
32 South Mall, Cork
(bank account number) 41818255
(sorting code)902768

or, through the Ireland- Palestine Solidarity Campaign, addressed to me, at:




Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Suite 16 Dame House
24-26 Dame Street
Dublin 2

Tel 01 677 0253

http://www.supportpalestine.org/

Or, get in touch with me through masasa73@hotmail.com
Or, via my mother (if I’m on the road, without e-mail access) at
cathbutterly@wanadoo.fr

In advance, thank you, chuk’rahn, gracias-Stay well, ya uptal- With love and
solidarity, Caoimhe
Que siguen luchando

_________________________________________________________________
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