Monica
by Adriano Contreras | Sunday, December 13th, 2009

There are many people on this convoy to write about. The beautiful thing about this trip is the convergence of so many different backgrounds: Christian, Muslims, Jews, Arabs, Caucasians, Persians, Hispanic, and so on. All of us with our own unique reasons for taking a month off to deliver aid to the people suffering in the Gaza strip. I thought I’d profile Monica, a member of the Viva Palestina convoy to break the siege and a member of my team, the C-Team.

Monica is 61 years old. As old as the Zionist occupation of Palestine. She’s about 5 feet 7 inches tall. She’s from the United Kingdom and rides in one of the vans donated by people in solidarity with Gaza from Bristol, UK. Her British accent is very much Middle English. It was she who taught me what “nehne raheen Gaza” means, which eventually became the title of my first dispatch. She’s fluent in Arabic and is married to an Egyptian. She’s spent most of her life living between the United States and UK as a teacher of American and British literature. Monica has quite a spirit and is pretty captivating with her stories. I’d like to share some of those and my experience with her the last 7 days, because when I reach Turkey I’ll be leaving C-Team to join the American convoy members.

Excerpts from my DAY 2 journal entry

I road with David and Monica today. David is also making a documentary with a focus for a more broad general audience for TV broadcast. We interviewed Monica together. I ‘mic-ed’ (placed a wireless microphone on) her and obtained nearly an hour’s worth of footage. Monica is great. She’s 61. She’s a long-time anti-war activist and former professor of literature in the United States and UK. She’s been arrested for civil disobedience and spent 6 months under after sundown house arrest with an ankle bracelet tracking device. She has the energy of a 30 year old and we’ve already seen her run at full speed when the convoy was to take off and we ran to get coffee refills! During today’s extremely long 12 hour ride, she spent it telling jokes, making up stories over our communication radios, and being co-pilot to David. She never misses a moment to correct David about calling a woman, a woman, and not a girl. “Whatever happened to political correctness,” she says.

She’ll pitch her tent all by herself every night and doesn’t accept any help. Try to and she’ll tell you, “I’ve been putting up this tent for 8 years now by myself.”

Two days later I asked Monica to give me details about her civil disobedience. She’s not new to it nor shy about doing it. She’s done a number of actions that she’s been arrested for which she looks back on and finds foolish. Actions that were just actions and not really a catalyst for social change or organizing. The action she was arrested for and placed under house arrest was a couple years ago during the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. Monica and a number of her comrades messed up several vehicles carrying weaponry that was to board a B-52 bomber in the UK. The damage to the vehicles was so extensive that it took 2 days to repair them and continue operation. They all turned themselves in, having successfully delayed equipment that was to take the lives of countless innocent Iraqis and resistance fighters.

For Monica, this convoy is a practical way of supporting the fight of the Palestinians. Its about connecting the brutality of imperial powers to their indirect actions in funding the state of Israel and standing up for justice in the face of apartheid. She’s principled in her beliefs. Her commitment and energy at 61 is inspirational for those of us who have committed ourselves to the long-term struggle for a free Palestine.

(I’ll have some of the interview up in the next week.)

Tags: Gaza, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Viva Palestina

10:37 am. Viva Palestina.