What does it mean to be an American?

Is it defined by being born in a place? Is it the color of your skin? Is it the papers you carry? Is it marked by the desire to defend the Constitution? Or is it to be a Tea Partier?

More important, can a person who crosses the border illegally be an American?

Our politicians don’t think so. They want to banish 460,000 people, some of whom have lived here for decades, for not having the papers to prove that this is where they belong.

I have seen the anti-immigrant climate escalate over the past three years as I’ve worked on a film about the politics of immigration in Maricopa County with director Dan DeVivo. And recently we created wwww.90daystoPhoenix.com to document the three-month period before SB 1070 goes into effect on July 29, barring a successful court challenge.

Latinos have a reason to be upset, worried and even fearful about a law that is breeding hatred and resentment against them.

Yes, I know there are provisions in SB1070 supposedly intended to prevent racial profiling, but the other language of the law encourages it. I donʼt believe that all police officers in the state want to racially profile people. But they are required to enforce SB 1070, and if they don’t, their bosses–the cities, counties and the state itself–face citizen lawsuits.

The police find themselves between a rock and hard place.

Just watch this video of Juan Miguel Gonzales, a U.S. citizen whose wife was detained and deported after they were pulled over for a questionable traffic infraction last month. Despite being a U.S. Citizen he feels this will result in his own “deportation” because now he has to leave Arizona to reunite with his wife.

Other harsh immigration laws in the state target the economic migrant and mistakenly racially profile Latinos citizens too. Such cases have already made their way into federal courts in Arizona.

A law like SB 1070 didn’t happen overnight, it took a long time for politicians to convince Arizona voters with the idea that we are being invaded by “illegal aliens” who sell drugs, cause mayhem and take American jobs and deplete public benefits.

These lies have become sound bites that voters believe. In truth, crime is down in Arizona and unauthorized migrants are barred from most public benefits.

For more information on the 90DAYSTOPHOENIX project, click here.

This is part three of an ongoing series of videos I’m using with permission.

90DAYSTOPHOENIX.com is an independent media project that has been documenting Arizona’s ongoing struggle to “sift through the truth and lies behind the immigration debate.” Journalists, photographers, filmmakers and others are working together to give a real-time on-the-ground account of Arizona’s controversial new immigration law – SB 1070 – scheduled to take effect July 29.

Another goal of the project is to show as large an audience as possible how this new law will effect people throughout the state.

Seven people were arrested by Phoenix Police on Thursday outside the U.S. District Court in Phoenix while the federal government was presenting arguments against the new law that makes it a state crime to be an undocumented immigrant. Activists are calling for widespread nonviolent actions all across the state on the day the law goes into effect.

For more information on the 90DAYSTOPHOENIX project, click here.

Another goal of the project is to show as large an audience as possible how this new law will effect people throughout the state. This is part two of an ongoing series of videos I’m using with permission.



Civil Rights Attorney, Richard Martinez explains how Arizona’s SB 1070 differs from Federal Immigration Law.

Martinez is one of the attorneys involved in two lawsuits representing police officers in Phoenix and Tucson that believe the new law would force them to violate the U.S. Constitution. It would specially put them in a difficult situation when they come in contact with minors on schools, said Martinez.

“There’s nothing that protects minors, it compels all persons there’s no age distinction on 1070,” he added.

The first hearing took place last Thursday in front of judge Susan Bolton. The impact to students was raised as a key concern by the litigants.

The law, which now faces a federal suit, has been called one of the ‘toughest legislations in the nation.’ It means that all immigrants in Arizona must now carry their alien registration documents and it means that police can question anyone they think may be in the United States illegally. It will also address people that knowingly hire illegal immigrants or who transport them.

In two separate hearings in a Phoenix courtroom on Thursday, attorneys representing a broad coalition of civil rights groups and the U.S. Department of Justice argued that portions of SB 1070 need to be enjoined because they usurp the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration law. Judge Susan Bolton gave no indication of when she might rule on the case.

While we wait for a decision, I will (with permission) be re-posting some of the videos produced by the 90DAYSTOPHOENIX project.



In this video, independent journalist, Valeria Fernandez, put’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 287g illegal immigration enforcement powers into perspective. What is 287 County? 287g County, aka Arizona’s Maricopa County, is the home of 500,000 undocumented immigrants. They account for about 8% of the state’s workforce. In the wake of a series of new laws that target undocumented labor and empower the local police to enforce federal immigration laws, immigrants and their families are subject to daily persecution. In Maricopa, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has the largest police force in the nation enforcing a section of immigration law known as 287(g) that allows the federal government to deputize local police to act as immigration agents.

Natalia M. Wobst, a June 2010 graduate of the Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies Program at the University of Washington, spent two months last summer in the city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, which was at the heart of the recent unrest. Here Natalia was enrolled in the American Councils’ Eurasian Regional Language Program, lived within an Uzbek host family, received intensive Uzbek language instruction and conducted research for her Master’s Thesis – “Local Impact on Secondary Educational Reform in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.”

The author and the director from the American Councils visit a Kyrgyz family in a yurt.

Uzbeks, who have in the past led a more sedentary life compared to the, formerly pastoral, nomadic Kyrgyz, command a significant monopoly on the economy in the South. The Uzbek and Kyrgyz languages are a related, but distinct, Turkic languages. Interim President Otunbaeva estimates the official toll of lives lost (several hundred) in the deadliest ethnic violence on post-Soviet space to be about ten times lower than it should be. Surprising international observers, most refugees who fled abroad – often returning to burnt edifices where their houses once stood – were back in the country by June 28th, due to strong encouragement to participate in a constitutional referendum, which would grant legitimacy to the new government and sanction a parliamentary system.

In considering what is next for Kyrgyzstan, the author takes a closer look at the Uzbek community’s values, language, and religious traditions. Through anecdotes from her experience in Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2009, she draws our attention to the fact that this is not a community predestined to civil war. The problem instead lies in the Uzbeks’ situation within a weak state with intricate borders dating back to the Soviet Union, which lacks the means to fully support and integrate its diverse populace. Such a situation can be easily manipulated by sub-national groups, reacting to what they perceive as their disregarded social, economic, and political needs. Only a year ago, things looked markedly different.

On July 1, 2009, when I wrote family and friends from my temporary home in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, I described a much more peaceful scene than is conjured when people try to visualize the city of the southern region, wrought by inter-ethnic riots only one year later. As the only student that summer who was enrolled in American Councils’ Eurasian Regional Language Program in Kyrgyzstan and the first American to study in Osh for a long time, I experienced real immersion. I learned to love these people and their ways, from one day, one lesson, and one challenge to the next in one of the hottest, but arguably most beautiful places I had ever been. Had I not been in a hot “internet cafe with warped screens and dirty keys,” and had I been more poetically inclined, I may have written something a little more like travel writer Sergei Dudashvili’s interpretation of the “land at the foot of the sun,” which I picked up at a local shop:

They are the waves of two great oceans of stone; hardened monuments of eternity creating mystical valleys between heaven and earth… they are the Tien-Shan and the Pamir. The great mountains of Kyrgyzstan are visible from no matter where you are. For the inhabitants of the Osh Valley, however, God has created one of his finest works: here the sun rises out of the giant ranges of the Pamir and sets far away behind the dusty horizon of the Fergana Valley [sic].

View from the bridge of Osh's Ak-Buroo River

This faraway place where I arrived in early June last year was a land of stark contrasts: a place of unquestioning bucolic beauty, a metropolitan center [Osh is Kyrgyzstan’s second largest city] bustling with pre-election excitement, and, for me, a place of cultural wealth, foreign tongues, and never-before-seen warmth in hospitality, where I – the tall blonde – was accepted as kin.

Included in my prearranged excursions were a visit to a Russian Orthodox Church and one of the local mosques; I found myself amidst a mosaic of different traditions and a tribrid (Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek speaking) people. Not everyone spoke every language and some seemed to speak a mix of all three.

The language I used most in class and at home was Uzbek, which is only natural, given this is what I had come there to do. The Russified Uzbek dialect that my host mother, younger brother and sister spoke, however, often had to be distilled in order to arrive at the version of the language I heard in the classroom. To confuse matters, I commanded very little of the spoken language when I arrived, so for the first week or so, we were speaking Russian. On the streets, I also stuck to Russian in the beginning, given what I had heard about the existing separation between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities. This had less to do with offending anyone, and more to do with the long explanation I would have to give for studying a non-national language. As I didn’t speak Kyrgyz, I saw Russian – still, in the post-Soviet period the lingua franca (see below) and understood by most – as a step in the right direction. Once I had a better feeling of whom I might meet where, I openly engaged with storekeepers and others I met on my half-hour walk home from school. They, on the contrary, were delighted to hear my feeble, but cheerful early attempts at conversational Uzbek.

There were a number of intricacies and a lot of code-switching depending on our company at any given time, as in any multicultural society. One of my family’s closest friends, I’ll call here Liudmila Alexandryevna, was a Russian lady who used to teach at one of the local Uzbek-language schools and was fluent in Uzbek. She could also never turn down one of my host mother’s steaming Uzbek samsa (meat-filled pastries). Liudmila, in turn, offered her own mehmondo’stlik (hospitality) and came over to have me try her own trademark samsa and jam on a regular basis, although her own health was quite frail. In other contexts, Kyrgyz and Uzbek were used interchangeably, which I – Russian scholar, not quite Turkologist – was the only one unable to follow. Towards the end of my stay, as I sat in a traditional Kyrgyz yurt and enjoyed fresh horse milk, nan bread , and the company of a Kyrgyz family that would live on the land for the summer, I found I too was following along. This moment of lucidity symbolized for me the intimate relationship between these two languages and people.

Kyrgyzstan is a multinational state known for its mountainous terrain, which covers more than 90% of the country. This terrain has played an important role in shaping the political history of the many ethnic groups that reside within the borders of present-day Kyrgyzstan. The largest of these are the Kyrgyz, at 66% of the population, followed by Uzbeks and Russians, who make up 13% and 10% of the population, respectively. While the Russians made up nearly 20% of the population at independence, shifting ethnic status and economic prospects sent them abroad, leaving the Uzbeks as the second largest sub-national group. This outmigration provided major incentive for first president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev, to accept Russian, along with Kyrgyz as an official language in 2000 (in hopes that Russians would return and build a healthy multinational state).

Meanwhile in the South, where the population is nearly one-third Uzbek, the Uzbek language is widespread. This is above all the case in the Ferghana Valley, which shares national borders with and spills over into Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The terrain that divides the Kyrgyz Republic’s North and South is thus said to play a socially divisive role as well, separating the cosmopolitan Russified North (where the capital city Bishkek is located) from the backwater (Uzbek) South. In Osh, Uzbeks make up a near majority: dominating businesses and having a visible presence in local schools. Conversely, the municipal and national administration has traditionally been mostly Kyrgyz. Representatives of the large population of Uzbeks living in Jalalabad and Osh provinces have often complained that they are treated like second-rate citizens by officials in Bishkek.

The Uzbek and Kyrgyz peoples of southern Kyrgyzstan are aware of their differences. Only twenty years ago, the cities of Osh and Uzgen (which is about 85% Uzbek), thirty four miles to the northeast, saw three nights of violent inter-ethnic riots due to disagreements over property, resulting in the deaths of at least 300 people (unofficial sources estimate 1000 people). As a result, ethnicity continues to play an influential role in politics. First president Akaev and his successor, Kurmanbek Bakiev, had to carefully articulate national identity in order to appease ethnic groups living in the Kyrgyzstan. The traditional depiction saw Akaev as protector of interethnic harmony and Bakiev, a Southerner, catering to the interests of Kyrgyz majority in the North and thus unwilling to steer a course which is overtly pro-Uzbek. In spite of an increasingly Kyrgyz (for the Kyrgyz) national and linguistic policy during the Bakiev era, Russian remained the lingua franca in most of Kyrgyzstan and laws, acts, and official meeting minutes had to be printed both in Russian and Kyrgyz.

In conducting research on local schools for my eventual thesis on Uzbek schools, I learned that there are many important influences on the Kyrgyz education system, of which the weak state in the post-independence period was only a minor player. That is, official routes went only so far to elucidate what was actually going on in Uzbek schools: lack of quality textbooks, high dropout rates, short-staffing, that is, similar problems to those faced by Kyrgyz schools, but to an attenuated degree. Here, I apply the same logic in consideration of what we are learning from mass media about the most recent events and what becomes clear when engaging with the people themselves. This, in a nutshell, is my story of that experience.

I have spent a lot of time going through old correspondence to measure where I was then, how I related to these people and how they interacted amongst each other, not as a scientist or a journalist (I have dabbled in both career paths), but as a fellow human being. Since the outbreak of the riots three weeks ago, this has consumed me ever more, especially as I wondered whether I would ever hear from these people again. The truth is, in spite of the messages my blond hair might have carried, what I wanted more than anything that summer was to fit in.

The author and friends of her host family.

One of my first outings with my host family was a trip down a long, bumpy dirt road – the first of many – to a nearby graveyard. There were six of us (three sisters, the eldest’s husband – our driver – and daughter, and myself) packed into a miniature white car. I don’t remember if there was much of a stone or a marker at the site where we got out, only a mound. I do remember the unbelievable grief of a loss so fresh, and especially the loud sobs of my eldest sister. I wrapped my arms around her little seven-year old girl and tried to keep her still.

A week later, my second week, we held a ritual feast at the house, which kept me home from class for several hours. There were at least a hundred guests, and in my mind very nearly as many unseen rooms of the house, blankets, cups, plates, and teapots unfurled exclusively for this occasion. That day, although steeped in ritual and broken intermittently by beautiful prayers and songs performed by incoming guests, I remember not for its calm and solace, but the air of anxiety as my family members rushed here and there to ensure that every mat and pillow was in place, equidistant from the incredible food spread being laid in front of my eyes. There was added tension on this particular occasion due to a misunderstanding over whether the male or the female guests would be arriving first.

Both Uzbeks and Kyrgyz traditionally mark the first forty days and the first year after a loved one’s loss. Anniversaries may be celebrated for years
afterwards, but the first year is the most important. This loss was particularly notable in that the traditional head of the family [the male, as dictated by Muslim culture] was no longer there. My host mother frequently had migraines, but was clearly the internal manager of the household. As a geography and history teacher, she helped fill in the blanks in my 13-year old sister’s homework assignments. She made sure the water for everyone’s shower was heated in the morning and that everyone rose to reach their deadlines. Then, she cooked, cleaned, and pressed shirts all day until finally perching at the side of the dinner table to converse with me after the late evening meal. She hardly ever took a seat, at least not until the children had gone to bed. My 21-year old host brother, the third child in the family, took over executive decisions for his family. This meant that the American Councils dealt with him directly with any necessary adjustments of earlier made housing, transportation, or food arrangements. In this way, he became an adult in front of our eyes.

Now, when I think back to all of the grieving and healing involved in the months following the passing of one family man, I find the sheer numbers of lives lost as a result of recent events in Kyrgyzstan to be staggering. Even on happier occasions this past summer there was a lingering grief. The youngest daughter had to fast forward through parts of her sister’s wedding video, whenever her father was shown. But, there was also the opportunity to be reborn, in that brilliant summer sitting in our uy hovli (courtyard house), eating fresh cherries and walnuts that grew in the garden, we discussed future plans: my marriage, her son’s, the new chickens they bought (in honor of my arrival?), and when we would see each other again. We even discussed more serious topics, imagining what a world free of natsii (nations) would look like.

And now, many of the streets I used to walk are the smoldering ruins of what some might call a civil war. Even thousands of miles away, I am devastated and homesick.

My Kyrgyz director was constantly invited to join for dinners with my Uzbek host family; she, in turn, complimented my host mother on her beautiful house and the children she’d raised. There was a lot of mutual respect there. Indeed, my host mother spoke proudly of her own and her three 20-year-old children’s university degrees (their musical and athletic abilities) and had me recite in detail my educational experience, the countries I’d seen, and the jobs I’d held. When I finally reached my host family a year later on their home phone two weeks after the Osh riots broke out, and we ascertained that everyone was in fact – by some miracle – safe and sound, the topic jumped once again to my host brother’s wedding, which was scheduled for June 19th, and would now have to be postponed until the fall.

Traditions are traditions, and we often face the challenge of how they are to be incorporated into the everyday: the sheer cost, individuals’ expectations, and other last minute stresses. However, sometimes traditions are clung to because they are familiar, and, perhaps, they are all we have left. We hope that somehow these will get us by. (I am not aware of how much annual income my family had, but my host mother and eldest host sister, full time teachers, both earned extra money selling gold jewelry at the market. There are definitely still huge economic challenges being faced everyday in Osh. On another occasion, I was asked to contribute to a lottery, going on between teachers at the local school. Neither my host mother nor I could afford the couple of hundred som – Kyrgyz currency worth approximately $2.00 – for that occasion. I could only trust I was doing this family a financially good deed by providing some extra cash to them at a time they probably needed it the most.)

I did not understand all of their traditions, nor come to fully understand the language, although I am an advanced Uzbek student now. My home-stay experience offered some conundrums that only my teachers (who were Uzbek), and not my director, might explain. For example, my family asked on several occasions whether I would stay home from class to participate in a family gathering and then acted hurt when I said that I really did not have a choice. Misunderstanding, however, in my case and my director’s is miles away from inevitable conflict.

What was clear to me then and more so now, as I reflect on this experience, are the deeply ingrained values of these people: family and home, first and foremost, their homeland of Kyrgyzstan, education, and religion (and finding the means to support these values in their everyday lives). I did not know yet, when I spoke with my host family, but it was my director, who actually suffered most directly – in the loss of her 29 year old niece who was shot – as a result of this unbelievable tragedy. I know that this would be heart-wrenching news for my host mother too. And, yet, just in time for the 4th of July, my director wrote me the usual cheery email, wishing me a “Happy Independence Day of the United States!”

I think even in the face of the recent tragedy, if we dig deep enough, we will find more in common between ourselves and the people in distant Central Asia, than not. With a poor economy and weak military, Kyrgyzstan will continue to depend on external support in the delivery of essential social services. One dire need, as I have learned over the course of my thesis project, is the systematic reform of the quality and accessibility of the education system. This has received low priority in the post-Soviet region in general; Kyrgyzstan too has dismal figures when it comes to basic mathematics aptitude and literacy among Kyrgyz school children. Finding and bridging connections through formal and informal education, rather than relying merely on mutual tolerance among the peoples of crisis-ridden Kyrgyzstan, is essential. We must engage in these events not by accepting the easiest answer or the solution that seems to make sense according to international or state-lead sensibilities, but by involving ourselves in the perceptions and actions of the people on the ground.

The medical delegation included specialists in the fields of cardiology,neurosurgery, urology, psychiatry, orthopedics, oncology and grief and bereavement. In addition to clinical work, the delegation toured the area and met with hundreds of individuals to learn more about the consequences of the ongoing Israeli siege.

On July 18th, these delegates from the Seattle area will give an eyewitness report on what they saw, did and learned while in Gaza.

You are invited to join them for an informative presentation with time for discussion.

The program begins at 7:00 pm at the chapel at University Temple United Methodist Church, at 1415 NE 43rd Street.

This presentation is co-sponsored by Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Church and Society Committee of University Temple United Methodist Church, United Nations Association of Greater Seattle, and Interfaith Network of Concern for the People of Iraq.

For more information, please email Collin Tong at collin_tong@yahoo.com, or call Collin at 206-782-5802.

The junta in Myanmar, also known as Burma, has announced plans for the first elections in two decades and Amnesty International UK has launched a campaign to raise money for portable radios to help people get information on the vote and on political parties.

The online campaign called “Break the silence” wants to get 4,000 radios, 60 walkie-talkie kits and 6 satellite kits into Burma by mid-July. Each radio costs $18.50, and that includes batteries and the cost of getting it into the country.

The Associated Press reports:

“So far, 33 new political parties have been approved by the Election Commission and five existing parties have reregistered to contest the polls. Global criticism has failed to win the freedom of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose now-defunct party overwhelmingly won the last election in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.

“Under recently enacted election laws, Suu Kyi and other political prisoners — estimated at more than 2,000 — are effectively barred from taking part in the polls. Her National League for Democracy party has called the laws unfair and undemocratic and is boycotting the vote. The party was disbanded after refusing to register for the elections by a May 6 deadline.”

Break the silence, buy radios for Burma from Amnesty International on Vimeo.

The elections have been denounced as a sham designed to reinforce military rule, and the junta hasn’t announced an exact date for the vote, but others see this as a chance to call for change. Even a faction from within the disbanded NLD has applied to form a new political party, to be called the National Democratic Force, in a bid to advance the movement’s two-decade campaign to end military rule.

Amnesty organizer’s say:

“In Burma’s harsh media environment a number of courageous individuals work hard to break through the wall of censorship. Although millions tune into broadcasts daily, not everybody in Burma has access to the crucial information they provide. With your help we can break the silence for many more.”

The site says, “The humble radio can play a vital role in empowering the voting public. One radio could help a family or community learn about their rights and show them the international solidarity that Burma’s military regime works so hard to silence.”

About 12 people will use each radio, so if Amnesty reaches its target, 50,000 more people inside Burma will have access to independent news broadcasts.

Donations can be made online, but, if you want to send a check with your donation you can send it to:

Supporter Care Team
Amnesty International UK Section
The Human Rights Action Centre
17 – 25 New Inn Yard
London
EC2 3EA

Add a note saying that it’s for the Burma radio campaign

For more information, see:
Break the silence, buy radios for Burma

The World Food Programme reports that 80% of households in Gaza depend on international food aid. The Palestinian Health Ministry recently reported that 70% of Gaza’s residents suffer from anemia. Ard Al-Insan, a health organization in Gaza City, states that 10.4% of households in Gaza City suffer from chronic malnutrition.

Children with normally brown hair show signs of malnutrition in reddened hair, pale skin, short stature. (photo by Bob Haynes)

Reflecting on what we heard and saw, and the possibility that there may be some positive benefits to the opening of the siege on Gaza in the wake of the Free Gaza flotilla tragedy, this article is a review of some of the critical issues and some possible solutions for the public health of Gaza.

Water

Gaza is a semi-arid land; the over-all rainfall is approximately 317 mm/year and this is decreasing through drought. (The average rainfall is Seattle is 920 mm/year.) The groundwater aquifer, sole source of water, which extends from Haifa to the Sinai, is not being adequately replenished by rainfall. Also, according to Gaza Municipalities, Israel has constructed wells along the eastern part of the Gaza strip to catch the flow of water before it enters Gaza, and Israel has built dams along the Gaza valley to collect the flow of rainwater outside of Gaza for use by Israel.

The United Nations reports that 90 – 95 percent of Gazans do not have access to clean water. (photo by Bob Haynes)

The United Nations reports that 90 – 95 percent of Gazans do not have access to clean water. Untreated and partially treated sewage is seeping into the soil and the aquifer and flowing directly into the Mediterranean.

Lacking basic equipment, spare parts and adequate electricity because of the siege by Israel, the sewage treatment system of Gaza is unable to handle the level of sewage that needs to be processed.

Fishing, a primary source of income and food in the past, is restricted by the blockade – deep water fishing is closed to Gaza and fishing in the nearby shallow, polluted water yields an inedible catch.

To remedy the water crisis, construction of sewage treatment and desalination plants will be essential. This will require access to Gaza by sea or through Israel and/or Egypt in order to bring in critically needed equipment.

Also, given the present level of unemployment and poverty (70% below the poverty line), financial aid from the international community will be required.

Air

Based on observation and anecdotal evidence, the air quality in Gaza is poor. The absence of reliable electricity (bombing by Israel of Gaza’s power plant in 2006, the unavailability of repair parts due to the siege and lack of fuel to run the functioning parts of the power plant) results in power cuts that last from four to eight hours per day for all of Gaza. The use of small, private generators is wide-spread and the resulting pollution of the air is felt throughout the region – concentrated in the cities where the population also is concentrated.

Physicians report a high incidence of burns from touching generators and pouring gasoline into generator fuel tanks and that childhood asthma is rapidly increasing. Whether the increase in asthma is caused by poor air quality or pollutants from other sources is under study.

Soil

In parts of Gaza the groundwater and the soil are contaminated with nitrites, from pesticides and sewage, and chlorides, from seawater intrusion. Both carry health risks, particularly to developing fetuses and small children.

Mental Health

The presence of the siege, profound lack of employment, death of loved ones through air and ground attacks, presence of continuing disabilities from injuries sustained in those attacks, death and injuries caused by fighting inside Gaza, and the ongoing threat of further attacks by Israel have created a sense of despair, tension and fear – and a level of hopelessness in the population of Gaza.

Every person our group spoke with had been affected by the siege and the 2008/2009 attacks by Israel. While the pervasive belief that “all things come from Allah” provides comfort, the daily life of the average person in Gaza is fraught with difficulties.

Mental health workers describe seeing what has been reported in the homes of U.S. war veterans: increased rates of episodic rage and domestic abuse. They also report high rates of depression and an inability to find hope in any activity among the people of Gaza.

However, during our visits to women’s clinics and during our work in health care facilities, a sense of resilience was palpable. Innovative efforts to overcome the health crisis go on despite desperate conditions. The Gaza Community Mental Health Programme – host to our delegation – is developing a program to teach primary care providers how to assist patients in recognizing normal responses to the abnormal situation of life in
Gaza.

Ultimately, the most essential remedy for the public health crisis in Gaza is to end the collective punishment of the population by ending the siege. Among many other things, this will allow the resumption of trade which will create jobs in Gaza and lead to the revival of hope for a healthier future.

Local Palestinians harvest building materials of questionable toxicity from the rubble of bombed buildings. (photo by Bob Haynes)

Supporters say the “corn seed for this planting was donated by Mayan farming families to publicize their resistance to genetically modified – GMO – corn and to seek sanctuary for their heritage corn seed which is now threatened with GMO contamination.”

The destruction of the corn field might not seem like a big deal, but those who helped plant the corn say they believe the attack is a “hate crime” and can been seen as part of the same anti-immigrant and anti-Mexico “hysteria” that has been spreading across the U.S. recently.

This corn field in California is a symbol of efforts in Mexico to resist genetically modified corn.

They are asking people to join them to replant the field on Sunday, June 27, from 2pm to 4pm at the Zapatista Milpa on Park Avenue near Balboa Park’s World Beat Center in San Diego.

“We want to make this replanting a joyful and celebratory event so bring shovels and musical instruments; bring food and drink to share; bring seeds and poems to swap, but mostly bring your hearts and your friends. If you live nearby, it will be wonderful if you can join us in the flesh. If you are far away – join us in your heart by sending love and hope.

“We hope those who stomped and uprooted the living garden of Mayan corn in Balboa Park can find a way to heal. Specifically we invite them to join us at the replanting celebration on June 27. Everyone who believes the Mayan people of Chiapas have a right to save their GMO-free, heritage corn – those who work in community or school gardens, those who work on organic farms or backyard gardens – please consider a solidarity planting of Zapatista ‘Mother Seeds in Resistance.’ ”

For additional information about the Zapatista resistance to GMO-contamination in the birthplace of corn, click here:

http://www.schoolsforchiapas.org/english/projects/ecological-agricultural-education/mother-seeds-in-resistance-gmo-free-chiapas.html

To obtain Zapatista corn seed for planting in your own garden or to learn more about the “Zapatista Milpa” in San Diego, or for more general information, you can call Libby Navarro at 619-232-2841 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              619-232-2841      end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email her: Libby@SchoolsforChiapas.org

The Free Gaza Movement said all the passengers “are believed to be unharmed.”

The Rachel Corrie carried 11 passengers and 9 crew from 5 different countries, mostly Ireland and Malaysia. The passengers included Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, Parit Member of the Malaysian Parliament Mohd Nizar Zakaria, and former U.N. Assistant Secretary General, Denis Halliday.

On Monday elite Israeli military commandos stormed six humanitarian aid ships taking part in the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ to Gaza, killing between at least 9 civilian passengers and injuring dozens more while the ships were in international waters. The Rachel Corrie was part of the flotilla but had to stay behind in Malta for repairs.

Earlier, Halliday had said that everyone on board the Rachel Corrie was prepared to cooperate with the Israeli military when they boarded.

“When they tell they are about to board we will cooperate because it’s too dangerous not to do so, particularly as you say it may be at night which is the usual tactic. We’re not fools, we’re not about to throw away our lives,” Halliday told ABC News on Thursday.
Israeli military confirmed on Saturday noon, Gaza time, that the Rachel Corrie had been boarded without incident. An Israeli Defense Forces spokesman said the ship would be directed to dock at Israel’s southern port of Ashdod.

The Rachel Corrie is a converted merchant ship bought by pro-Palestinian activists and named after the 23-year-old American peace activist from Olympia, Washington, who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003, set off Monday from Malta. The ship carrying medical equipment, wheelchairs, school supplies and cement, a material Israel has banned in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

According to organizers of the aid effort, the Freedom Flotilla was an effort by a coalition of human rights and humanitarian organizations to nonviolently break through Israel’s illegal blockade, and deliver much needed humanitarian and developmental aid to the Palestinians of Gaza. The United Nations and activists who have recently visited Gaza, say the Israeli blockade, in place since 2007, denies residents of Gaza the basic needs of life: a variety of foods, building materials, electricity, fuel, medicines and school supplies.