Eat your heart out, Barack Obama. Sorry: I don't mean to be ungenerous, and I was grateful for the lovely scenes of midwinter joy breaking out in Iowa Ottawa a couple of weeks ago too.
But the Viva Palestina convoy is a phenomenon of an entirely different order, a meta-motorcade that has been lifting hearts and hopes internationally for almost three weeks now. It was a mile long when it left London on Valentine's Day to drive all the way to Gaza, south through France and Spain and then across North Africa; it was three miles long as it crossed the border into Egypt yesterday, supplemented by convoys organized in Libya.
The hundred-plus vehicles that originally headed out of London are all independently community-supported, and most of them will be left in Gaza once they deliver their supplies. They are led by a splendid fire engine donated by the UK Fire Brigades Union (or they were; not sure how the fire engine has been doing in the desert), and they include two dozen ambulances, a flatbed with a ginormous generator, another with a fishing boat, and buses and lorries filled with medicines, cash and clothes and blankets and tools, and best of all (we know what really counts), toys for the traumatized children of Gaza.
George Galloway, MP, who inspired and organized this convoy, is a canny Scot who knows how to work more than a room. To do that entire drive across the Maghreb, to talk the Moroccans and Algerians into opening their long-disputed border to allow the convoy through, to convince the dreaded Mubarak to allow the convoy to travel through Egypt and pass through the Rafah crossing into Gaza -- that takes some serious back-room chatting-up and maybe some arm-twisting.
It would be interesting to know how Galloway does it, but for the moment it is just so inspiring to read day by day of the effect Viva Palestina has already had, especially on the people of North Africa, country by country, who have welcomed the convoy with flowers and the greatest food in teh world (imho) and then cheered them on, who have had a chance to see that the rest of us are often a lot more like them than they thought (or than our governments have given us reason to believe).
On the turn, the links to follow as the convoy approaches the Rafah crossing.
Some of us first heard about Viva Palestina from lagatta at Bread and Roses, and Alison mapped out the trip a week ago at the Beavers and at Creekside.
Mainstream media silence on this historic mission, which should be joyous -- is joyous, to anyone who knows about it -- has been, um, notable. The Guardian, for example, will cover trouble when it develops, like the politically suspect arrest of nine members of the convoy, quickly released without charges. (Well, they covered the arrests, so they kind of had to report on the releases.) And they will inflate predictable political problems in one of the most politically troubled countries on earth (Egypt), ignoring the diplomatic skill that Galloway had to exercise to get his convoy through.
In North America? Crickets, so far as I can tell.
We don't need them though, do we. To follow the convoy, just click through to the Viva Palestina site, sign up for their email updates, or join their Facebook group.
We are only a couple of days away from the Rafah crossing, methinks.
I can't quit without telling you about the drums. This is the first Viva Palestina video I watched. It doesn't summarize the whole story as well as the vid up top, but it is very moving, South Asian Scots all the way, as lagatta says, and man, I love those drums. I don't know who organized them, but wouldn't that be a wonderful way to cross into Gaza?
This story justs makes me so durn happy.
Alice Walker, former US State Dept official Ann Wright, and a CodePink delegation have joined the cavalcade.
Och, Alison -- the CodePinkers.
You know that I sit through the occasional congressional hearing, and I even like some of the congresscritturs I follow. So when the CodePinkers do their number, I am all fingernail-chewing, because I'm on their side, and yet the disruption of the heavily enforced proprieties of the Senate, especially, always comes as a shock.
Which side are you on, skdadl? Which side are you on?
Well, I know which side I'm on, but it still makes me sad sometimes to have to choose. If only some of the good guys would join us ...
For the Scottish Medical Aid Convoy, travelling through Europe and liking up with Viva Palestina! before the Rafah crossing:
Oh! ye'll take the high road and
I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Gaza afore ye...
http://vivapalestina.org/scottish_medical.htm
Och, aye, lagatta -- the Scots know what it means to have your whole culture proscribed, and that song is part of the story. It was written by a rebel facing execution after the uprising of 1745-46, a rebel who knew he was never going home again.
Godspeed to the medical-aid convoy, and everyone else planning to link up in Egypt. Mubarak still worries me; I think that the convoy needs all the public attention it can get to overcome his twisty politics.
Nice article, all the best.
If you or anyone else is interested, I post edited recordings of Galloway's radio shows on my site here:
http://couchtripper.com/forum2/page.php?page=6
and while it's a bit of a spam, I'm sure some of your readers will enjoy these Jon Pilger documentaries...
http://couchtripper.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?t=9450
cheers
Hello, faceless, and thanks for the visit. That's not spam at all. Que l'on continue.
Thanks for the update. Not much good news these days but this effort is so uplifting.
This is the only hopefull news I've heard come out of that part of the world in way to long of a time.
It's so hear warming to see this happening. Deep respect for what you guys doing for them.
Well, things seem to be delayed at the Rafah crossing. It appears that the Israeli government is insisting that the convoy must cross into Israel first, and of course the convoy is refusing to do that.
Many swear words were suppressed in the composition of this post.
The Revolution will not be televised...
I am a low income Canadian, seldom able to donate for causes other than myself and my family bit I sure did for this project!