Dear Rachel
The Context
In March 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer whilst protecting the home of a Palestinian family from illegal demolition, causing a storm in the international press. She was 23 years old.
First staged at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 2005, My Name is Rachel Corrie is constructed from Rachel’s own emails and diaries by Katharine Viner and the late Alan Rickman. The play is a deeply personal account of a journey from suburban life into international peace activism, recounting the injustice, the cruelty, and the humanity that Rachel witnessed during her time in Gaza.
This is my submission for Alphabetti Theatre’s Response Writing Competition, responding to the performance of My Name Is Rachel Corrie, acted by Rebecca Glendenning-Laycock and directed by Ryan Hay, with sound design by Shevek Imogen Fodor. In my response, I imagine writing to the late Rachel Corrie through the familiar format of email.
Dear Rachel,
I hope you don’t mind - I read your journals and emails. Usually, I’d consider such a thing as a massive red flag and invasion of privacy. But I hope you imagine that I was the stranger who found your lost journals under the seats of trains that travelled across continents.
They brought me great comfort - you brought me great comfort. You make me consider. I know you wanted to be a writer, but I think you were also a philosopher. There was so much you didn’t know, so much you questioned and wanted to forge those answers yourself. And so much has happened since you… left. So there is much to consider. Mostly, I think about who you would be now. I think about whether you’d be a familiar face to me at my local protests. I wonder what you’d look like. If you’d have crows feet at the corner of your eyes from a lifetime of joy and shared happiness, or whether your brow would have deep furrows carved from worry and hardships endured. Whether I would meet your eye and still find hope within them.
I wonder how many boyfriends you would have had, if you’d have met someone to share your life with; have kids of your own, have sat in front of the TV with them and have grown vegetables in a greenhouse outside.
I wonder how many times you would’ve danced in the woods, singing in Russian from the top of your lungs. Or maybe even Arabic, had you had the time to learn. Maybe you would have cooed lullabies to your siblings babies, and watched too as they grew up. Maybe your mom and dad would’ve clumsily tried to sing them too. A smile on their faces, still so proud of you. I wonder how many times you would’ve swam naked in the sea.
It is probably very strange to read this from a stranger, but I feel kindred to you. I share that feeling of being “spiritually nomadic” as you put it. I feel we would have been friends. In fact, I think you would be surprised by how many friends you would have - how much you inspired people.
You are seen as a martyr for the Palestinian people. I also wonder how you would feel about that, and whether you knew you were going to die. If you still felt safe in your final moments or if you had accepted your fate.
In some ways, I am glad you’re not here. I fear your heart would have broken beyond repair over the years - over our (the West’s) collective blindness and chosen ignorance. Things have gotten… so much worse. But people are pulling the wool from their eyes in regards to Isreal-Palestine. We see everything. In horrifying quality. As it unfolds. Things have developed well beyond cable TV, and now the world watches sights beyond comprehension, on a scale not dissimilar from the Holocaust, through small screens that fit in the palm of our hands.
I don’t know what to do. I never thought something so abhorrent would happen and be so powerless to stop it. People know about Palestine now though. Irrefutably. Millions of people, millions upon millions of people took to the streets all over the world with banners and flags, adorned in watermelon-themed jewellery and kuffiyehs - symbols of the everlasting Palestinian resistance. You would be so proud. I saw cowboys waving huge flags on poles, people of every skin tone, religion, gender and sexuality united in calling for a Ceasefire. Musicians, actors, celebrities, even some politicians.
God, you would’ve loved Jeremy Corbyn. Oh - and Greta Thunberg, you’d have loved her too. Maybe I’ll start a list for you.
Where I view you as a person brimming with hope and life-giving energy, I feel a void has always been inside me.
Honestly, I can barely handle the horror. I fluctuate from feeling everything so intensely, crying to the point where I fear I cannot breathe. To numbness so cold and distant it scares me. The media are so infuriatingly biased, propaganda is everywhere. Diplomacy is a tool wielded by the enemy. No justice is served. I think for the first time in modern history, or at least in my life, I’m witnessing the illusion of law and order collapsing.
I can’t watch the news anymore. I can’t be online.
I mourn for strangers, countless strangers.
I mourn and their families cannot.
Where is the justice?
Whilst for many of us, myself included, this is recent. But for Palestinians and their allies across the globe, it has been decades, generations of oppression. We owe the Palestinian people our longstanding support, ears to listen and platforms to amplify their voices. The world is watching. The world is listening. It’s why we need direct action. But I feel so lost. And angry. Fuck I feel so fucking angry.
We have written to our MPs, we have signed petition after petition in the hundreds of thousands. We have added our names to open letters, joined unions, demanded ceasefire. We even elected a new government. And what the fuck?! We still are powerless.
A couple years ago, the Public Order Act was updated, and the police were given more power. We have to follow the orders to stay in our neat little boxes. To not disturb the peace. To not disrupt the lives of others. We have to protest in designated areas. We cannot be too loud, we cannot tell the truth. A friend of mine was summoned to court for holding effigies, covered in fake blood, because it “offended” the police. What fucking cowards. Holding fake dead babies is now more obscene than real dead babies. Which we’ve all seen. I’m not religious, but I cannot help but call “God, what am I watching?”.
Decomposing bodies, lifeless, prenatal forms lifted from cold bellies.
Skeletons being bleached in the sun.
But we have to stay in our neat little boxes, and ask politely for a Ceasefire. Whilst our government and neighbourhood are arming the Zionists. We have to march in the predetermined path, at our approved time, with police at the front like they belong there with us. I have never felt so livid. I want to scream like a banshee, wail and shout and cry. I want to cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry.
But I don’t want to be numb. I don’t want to turn my emotions off, disassociate, neatly compartmentalise.
I’m sorry to share such awful things with you Rachel, but I feel you would have been equally as mortified. I cannot bare to see the death toll rising, and now it’s Lebanon, Syria and Yemen too. They bombed a Russian airbase last week. So… I am fearing for World War 3 too. I don’t think we are untouchable here and I’ve often thought about what would happen if Zionism spread much like Nazism. Mostly, I wanted to say you were right - it is not extremist to want this to stop.
Over the last year, I have learned about strangers and held onto their memories, their hopes and dreams. I read about them and smile, and laugh, find comfort. Find out I have the same favourite TV show as somebody. Feel happiness for the family who successfully had IVF. Wish Happy Birthday to the grandparent. Congratulate the newly-weds. Read the memories of my queer family. And then I remember they are all dead.
Maybe they’re in eternity with you, and each of their names has added to your list of people you wanted to talk to.
Maybe you all care for greenhouses with cucumbers and tomatoes and watermelons, and olive trees thriving in deep rooted soil.
Maybe you’re still babysitting someone’s kid and watching cable tv.
Maybe you’re all enjoying silence together in eternity.
No drones or whirring, no helicopter blades or lasers on the ground, no tracks clinking, no soil and rock crushed or high pitched whistles flying past your head.
No explosives, no shaking, no windows shattering or babies crying and parents gripping little arms a bit tighter or holding bodies bloody and bruised turning slowly cold.
Just peace.