Rachel Corrie died under a bulldozer for her beliefs
Now her reputation is being blogged to death
John Sutherland
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian
So many bodies lie mouldering in the sand this last fortnight that Rachel Corrie's mangled corpse is probably already forgotten. She was the American student bulldozed into the dirt while trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses. G2 published a selection of her emails. Whether or not one agreed with her and the International Solidarity Movement to which she belonged, Rachel emerged as a woman prepared to put her body where her mouth was.
Barely had her body cooled than Rachel was promoted on the Palestine National Authority website as a heaven-sent martyr ("Israel killed another Angel").
Martyrisation demands retaliatory demonisation. Having been bulldozed to death, Rachel was duly blogged to death. The front-page news stories came out on March 17. By the next day, sites such as the aptly-named SharkBlog (hosted by Stefan Sharkansky) were in full mephitic flow. The Shark himself led the charge with a riff on "The Prime of Miss Rachel Corrie", casting her as Mary MacGregor, the idiot girl in Muriel Spark's novel. She had committed "suicide by bulldozer" as deliberately as her Palestinian buddies with their body bombs.
Accompanying emails were less literary. J Lichty, for example, posted his opinion that, "This deluded harpie did not want peace, she did not want human rights, she wanted victory. Victory for the enemies of America, victory for the enemies of the Jews, victory for the enemy of civilisation."
Jack Rich emailed his assent to this analysis: "Yeah, you've got it exactly right: this poor dupe sacrificed her life so that her poseur profs back home might preen for the cameras."
"What was she protecting?" asked Mickey: "Terrorists and a building used to make bombs to murder innocent civilians; she should burn in hell for an eternity." (The theology, as elsewhere, implies Christian fundamentalism rather than Judaic zealotry).
On another site, Rachel's parents were blackguarded by blog. It was they "who more than likely taught her these bizarre values; they must have been members of the same pot-smoking hippie commune as John Walker Lindh's mom and dad".
Pictures had accompanied the news reports of Rachel's death, megaphone in hand, standing in front of the menacing bulldozer. A pose inescapably reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Another picture showed her fallen in front of the murderous blade. Questions were asked as to whether the images had been "manipulated".
Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.
None the less, the damage was done. Americans are hypersensitive about desecration of the Stars and Stripes. Rachel was not a human shield protecting innocent Palestinians but a traitor and a terrorist sympathiser. It didn't help that her mother announced that "Rachel was opposed to this war on Iraq."
The insult to the flag provoked an even more savage blogguarding campaign. "Tom", for example, who declared that, "Anyone who would burn an American flag deserves to be bulldozed to death!!! Hopefully the US government will aim some bulldozers at the next group of war protesters, those anti-American motherfuckers."
What have we come to? The speed with which this kind of devil's advocacy can now (thanks to the net) be mounted, its sheer unbridled violence and its moral irresponsibility are, to the thoughtful mind, more frightening than any of those WMDs for whose (dubious) existence Britons are, at this moment, laying down their lives. Stop the world: I want to log off.
Rachel Corrie died under a bulldozer for her beliefs
Now her reputation is being blogged to death
John Sutherland
Monday March 31, 2003
The Guardian
So many bodies lie mouldering in the sand this last fortnight that Rachel Corrie's mangled corpse is probably already forgotten. She was the American student bulldozed into the dirt while trying to prevent the destruction of Palestinian houses. G2 published a selection of her emails. Whether or not one agreed with her and the International Solidarity Movement to which she belonged, Rachel emerged as a woman prepared to put her body where her mouth was.
Barely had her body cooled than Rachel was promoted on the Palestine National Authority website as a heaven-sent martyr ("Israel killed another Angel").
Martyrisation demands retaliatory demonisation. Having been bulldozed to death, Rachel was duly blogged to death. The front-page news stories came out on March 17. By the next day, sites such as the aptly-named SharkBlog (hosted by Stefan Sharkansky) were in full mephitic flow. The Shark himself led the charge with a riff on "The Prime of Miss Rachel Corrie", casting her as Mary MacGregor, the idiot girl in Muriel Spark's novel. She had committed "suicide by bulldozer" as deliberately as her Palestinian buddies with their body bombs.
Accompanying emails were less literary. J Lichty, for example, posted his opinion that, "This deluded harpie did not want peace, she did not want human rights, she wanted victory. Victory for the enemies of America, victory for the enemies of the Jews, victory for the enemy of civilisation."
Jack Rich emailed his assent to this analysis: "Yeah, you've got it exactly right: this poor dupe sacrificed her life so that her poseur profs back home might preen for the cameras."
"What was she protecting?" asked Mickey: "Terrorists and a building used to make bombs to murder innocent civilians; she should burn in hell for an eternity." (The theology, as elsewhere, implies Christian fundamentalism rather than Judaic zealotry).
On another site, Rachel's parents were blackguarded by blog. It was they "who more than likely taught her these bizarre values; they must have been members of the same pot-smoking hippie commune as John Walker Lindh's mom and dad".
Pictures had accompanied the news reports of Rachel's death, megaphone in hand, standing in front of the menacing bulldozer. A pose inescapably reminiscent of Tiananmen Square. Another picture showed her fallen in front of the murderous blade. Questions were asked as to whether the images had been "manipulated".
Two days later a contrary photograph of Rachel appeared, first in the Seattle Times (the article accompanying it has since been removed). It depicts her snarling, shawled and in a Palestinian street demonstration, tearing up a paper US flag. The provenance given for the photograph (a mysterious snapper called "Khalil Hamra") led nowhere. Where, then, had it come from? Paranoia suggested the Israeli secret service, which monitors such events. This picture also looked, to some expert eyes, doctored.
None the less, the damage was done. Americans are hypersensitive about desecration of the Stars and Stripes. Rachel was not a human shield protecting innocent Palestinians but a traitor and a terrorist sympathiser. It didn't help that her mother announced that "Rachel was opposed to this war on Iraq."
The insult to the flag provoked an even more savage blogguarding campaign. "Tom", for example, who declared that, "Anyone who would burn an American flag deserves to be bulldozed to death!!! Hopefully the US government will aim some bulldozers at the next group of war protesters, those anti-American motherfuckers."
What have we come to? The speed with which this kind of devil's advocacy can now (thanks to the net) be mounted, its sheer unbridled violence and its moral irresponsibility are, to the thoughtful mind, more frightening than any of those WMDs for whose (dubious) existence Britons are, at this moment, laying down their lives. Stop the world: I want to log off.
