A storybook mistaken for History

We have just crossed into Croatian mobile space. Odd that in a large ship, bound for Greece, the one thing which tells us whose waters we inhabit is the ubiquitous mobile phone. I think of those who died on the Mavi Marmara. Did their mobile phones tell them whose mobile phone space they were in shortly before they were shot?

International waters, we are told, are spaces free from attack from all but pirates. The UN seem to agree. As we get nearer to Turkey I think often of those lost people whose only crime was to feel love and care for their fellow human beings, and to try and improve the lot of others. 9 died that night, a tenth is brain dead. Nikky and Kevin, who are on this convoy with me, cradled some of the injured in their laps. Nikky held one man as he died. It was a bad night for humanity, and the US citizens did not hear a word of it. I suspect that the vast majority do not even know that Gaza has been under siege for the past 2 years.

The weather continues fine and hot by day, cold and clammy by night. It is erfect unless yo happen to to have to spend the odd night in a plastic tent inside which condensation drips over your clothes and sleeping bag, soaking your pillow and frizzing your hair.

We disembark at 6.00 am in a chorus of confusion. Stop, start - like the badly named middle east peace process, except we are going somewhere in a mindset free from hyprocracy. We are a torch sent to light up the dark corners of Gaza so that the world might pull aside the veils of rhetoric and propaganda to discover the honest struggle of a people whose single curse is to live in the promised land of a storybook mistaken for history.

Girls to Gaza

There are not many females on this trip. Only two are missing from this shot taken in Veaux en Velan- a suburb of Lyon. The girls hold up tot he trials and tribulationbs of the journey at least as well as the boys, and they are a joy to travel with.

Teams of people have come to join this convoy to Gaza. Two vehicles are manned by people from Malaysia, there are 2 US Americans, 2 vehicles driven from Sweden, 2 fro,m France and 2 from Italy. The Irish have done us proud with three large vans, there are 2 teams from New Zealand, and the rest are from the England withjust me and little van coming from Wales. A convoy is meeting us from Casablanca and another from the Gulf States.

It is a fine international effort, but sadly a poor effort by humanity to help itself. The capitaist society in which we exist has no heart. Capitalism is not there to deal with social problems, or indeed any other type of problem. It exists entirely to feed itself and I have no quarrel with that. The concience of the world can only be found in the hearts of people, and if the people do not step forward and open their hearts to the suffering of others we will be left with only a carcass, a shadow, a nothing.

Leaving Westminster

It is not always possible to put travel blogs in perfect order - particularly when you are working with strange computers and non qwerty keyboards, plus having to contend with serious time issues - ie there is a convoy of 50 motors revving their engines outside the internet cafe and you still haven't managed to get a connection. C'est la vie...

It has to be said that my first encounter with George Galloway could have been more deep and meaningful. In the event he gave me a big smile and said with a twinkle in his eye - "Pippa, you won't look so glamorous by the time you get to Gaza." I smiled back and said knowingly "Want to bet!" There followed a stand off. George was not repared to bet, and I had not yet been to Gaza . After 8 days of late nights, driping plastic tents,smoky motels and noisy sports halls; together with 8 days of convoy driving where everyone gets lost in the first 10 minutes and all hell ensues as you try to find them in a city you have never before visited; of driving at a steady 50 mph over hundreds of kilometres at a stretch deep into the night; I have to admit that George has a point. However, I am not so easily thwarted. The lipstick lives on!

In the picture is Abdul Gharfoor my trusty co-driver, George Galloway and myself plus convoy supporters at our press send-off at the Embankment, Westminster.

I must be said that we were not swamped by the press presence. A notable absentee was the BBC who as usual boycott anything which might put Palestine, and particulsarly Gaza, in a good light. Shame on you Auntie. The real world awaits your attention....but we can carry on without you dear.

From Paris to Milan

At Lyon we were greeted in the main square with a huge feast laid out on tables, television interviews and friendship. The local supporters of Palestine held a big rally and afterwards we were treated with more food and an evening of speeches and questions. All were of the accord that Israeli goods should be boycotted. One MP is due in court on 14th October for suggesting that the boycott be carried out by all France. Lots of love sent us on our way and at nightfall we headed off to Turin.

The Turin police turned out in force - not to stop our convoy, but to escort our cavalcade through the elegant streets of this lovely city. We blasted our way through red lights, flags waving, shouts of 'Viva Palestina!', and found ourselves once again in the main square where food was laid out and fond greetings sent us on our way. The people of Turin waved and greeted us wherever we went. They were well informed and very supportive. Two more vans joined us and late at night we wound our weary way to Milan where we camped around our wagons, threw up our tents and slept.

The next day we gave a press conference in the Centre of Milan. In honesty there were not many cameras, but Al Jazeera was there and, suffering from the anger of so few joining us from France, I gave an impassioned interview. I asked why. Why were there so few? Why were people so poorly informed? Why were people so convinced that by putting a few coppers in the pot there conscience would be cleared. It was strong stuff and I hope they use it.

From now on I am going to get mad - really mad. It really is not good enough that so few are concerned by this man made, political disaster. It is not good enough that they listen to our dumbed-down propaganda which passes to us as news. It is not good enough that our convoy is 40 vehicles long when it should be 40 miles long.

There is so much work to be done. We are a convoy of humanity, caring, sharing, seeking only to share the caring in a land deliberately forgotton.It is called Palestine, always was. Palestinains are entitled to self respect and security in their own homes - and they are perfectly entitled to be allowed to return to the houses and land from which they were driven.

No Peace without Justice

I carry the flag of my country, the flag of peace - except my country does not exist. There is no justice, therefore there is no peace.

75 souls left London on 18th September 2010. They came from New Zealand, from Malasia, from Ireland, from Sweden and Pakistan. They found common ground in the injustice which plagues this world, and focused on Gaza. The world is trying to make us forget, and these few people will not forget. Incarcerated behind a wall, blocked out from the land in which they were born and raised, the Gazaian voices are muffled to a whisper and yet still they can be heard by the few who care enough to listen. Their sin was to hold the only free and fair elections in 50 years and elect a government deemed out of favour by the West.

In Paris they blow us kisses as we drive by, they give us food and shelter, they open their arms to us for the sake of Palestine. The convoy is slow and at times messy. We are always late, going only at the speed of the slowest. The breakdowns and lost ones are scooped up as we go and we are very very tired already. Speeches every day in English and French. The Mayor of Bagnolet gave us a civic reception and the food is the finest. Three hours sleep is good if you make allowances for the 5.00am prayers and you have forgotton to pack the earplugs...

Almost everything has been tried to break the blockade of Gaza, and as a last resort I have employed the services of a fellow travelling Maori who is teaching me the haka!

Monday is a 5.30 am start and we head off to Lille where a welcoming committee awaits.

So many gods, so many creeds, so many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. - Edith Wheeler Wilcox

It was an old, heavy, galvanized bucket. I remember it clearly. The man tried to resist arrest; several Israeli troops handled him roughly. The man was from Gaza and had a small boy with him – his son. As the military van sped quickly away, the child was left behind in the road wailing pitifully. The crime was stealing a bucket of Israeli water.

Water is a resource of nature. Like the land, the air and the seas it belongs to no-one. The water is not Israeli. It is mine and yours to share for the slaking of our thirst and for the enrichment of our communities. Gaza has no rivers, and its underground aquifer has not been adequate since 1967. In a conflict ridden zone such as Palestine, water is just another weapon.

The Israeli and Palestinian position is never presented to us clearly. News riddled with propagandist manipulation, secrets untold, deaths, murders and politics fudge the situation, but one thing is clear: the people living in Gaza are fenced in, denied everything but enough food to keep them just above malnutrition levels, and subject to ever changing sadistic laws which the Jewish population would find intolerable. In short Gazans are kept in a prison by the state of Israel, aided and abetted by the US and Europe.

Gaza holds roughly 2 million people and is 139 square miles in area. That is less than twice the size of Newport (in South Wales)– which has a population of 140,000. In this small scrap of rubble people are expected to live, work, farm, rear children and educate themselves. The children learn hardship and dislike of their neighbours, and each new generation grows to maturity in abject poverty, nursing revenge. The blockade of Gaza is a medieval siege. It prevents imports and exports, it prevents the rebuilding of demolished houses and infrastructure and the freedom of movement of all those living behind the Wall.

It is not about religion, nor about politics. It is about defending basic human rights. The citizens of Gaza deserve the thoughts of all free-thinking people, and my contribution to their plight is to draw attention to the moral decay of those who perpetuate this inhumanity.

Breaking this blockade is an act to support the rights of the human being. Few attempt it, few achieve it, and I, along with those brave fellows of the Viva Palestina Convoy will play my part in highlighting the injustice of the blockade by driving up to the gates of Rafah with my van packed full of medical aid and asking to be let in.

Donations towards humanitarian aid for Gaza can be made here http://southwales2gaza.blogspot.com/2010/08/donate-to-south-wales-to-gaza.html

For details on the convoy to Gaza leaving on 18^th September please visit www.vivapalestina.org