Peace activists or trouble maker agitators?

Letter to Time Magazine by Joy Wolfe

The following article was published at Time Magazine's website:
 
  
She Took a Bullet for Peace
By MAIRÉAD CAREY | Dublin
Posted Sunday, April 20, 2003; 14.23 BST
 
  JOHN COGILL for TIME
 
TAKING A STAND: Butterly survived a bullet in the West Bank; now she's on a hunger strike for peace
 

Her message is pure: Stop the killing, all of it, now. Her tactics are drawn from King and Gandhi. And her commitment is vast and deep. These days you'll find Caoimhe Butterly — a striking presence at 1.85 m, with long red hair and mournful blue eyes — outside the Irish parliament in Dublin or at any antiwar protest in Ireland. In years past you could find her working with AIDS victims in Zimbabwe, homeless in New York, Zapatistas in Mexico. Last November, you could find her in the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank. That's where a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier found her, hitting her thigh as she tried to lead a group of Palestinian children to safety. The 24-year-old Dubliner was luckier than British peace activist Ton Hurndall who, in similar circumstances this month in Gaza, was shot in the head and now lies in a coma. Seven months earlier, Butterly spent 16 days inside Yasser Arafat's besieged compound in Ramallah. She had gone in as an ambulance volunteer, to give first aid to a man who had been shot, but she refused to leave.

What I have seen has been seared upon my heart and soul
 
— CAOIMHE BUTTERLY


Since then she has been campaigning against the war in Iraq — where she visited for the first time a year ago. "Human rights is the language I was raised in," says the daughter of a U.N. economist and a family therapist. Many will disagree with her stances. But anyone can envy her passion and drive. To finance her activism and travels she does waitressing or house painting. "It's like chipping away at a coal face, but what I have seen has been seared upon my heart and soul and consciousness. I can't close my eyes to it."

When the Gulf War began she campaigned against the Irish government's decision to allow the U.S. military to use Shannon Airport. The Bush-Blair summit in Belfast saw her arrested for smearing red jam on the riot shields of two policemen. Once her court case is out of the way she plans to return to Iraq. "There is no such thing as a benign occupation," she says. "It's time to focus again on what is happening in Baghdad."
 
 
In reaction to this article, British media activist Joy Wolfe wrote this letter to the editor of  Time Magazine:

Dear Mr. Kelly
Isn't it strange how whenever a "peace" activist is wounded or killed they are always either "trying to lead Palestinian children to safety" or "trying to stop a house being bulldozed" or some other similar emotive issue. Often there is an "8 month pregnant woman" conveniently on the scene!
The truth is these so-called "Peace activists" more often than not are a cause of putting the people they claim to want to help in danger. Their provocative actions and their habit of deliberately putting themselves in harms way to provoke a response, often succeed in pulling the wool over willing journalists eyes. A perfect example of this was the doctoring of photographs to try to suggest that Rachel Corrie, who sadly was killed when she foolishly and recklessly put herself in front of a bulldozer where the driver could not see her, was deliberately run over, an allegation since denied by one of her fellow protestors . The sequence of photos was changed to suit the story being misleadingly circulated.
These peace activists behave in a very militant fashion, and often put the lives of people at risk.
They make a career of going wherever they can get a high profile image, very often knowing little of the true history of the issue they are getting involved in. Clearly that is the case with Caoimhe Butterly whom you choose to label a Hero Activist.
To me she is an agitator and a trouble maker. The true heroes in my eyes are the families who are struggling to come to terms with the loss of a loved one, blown to pieces by a homicide bomber. Or those who are fighting to overcome horrific injuries they have sustained in deliberate homicide attacks which target innocent civilians, more often than not young children and students.
Glorifying the peace agitators whose presence in troubled areas merely serves to stir up further incidents and encourage terrorist action rather than the peace they claim to promote, does nothing to further the cause of peace.
Any one who truly is a peace maker would be doing everything in their power to get the Palestinians and the Israelis round the peace-making table again.
A hunger strike and belligerent behaviour in what effectively have been turned into war zones by the terrorists is purely counterproductive, and Time is doing the peace cause a disservice by turning protestors into "heroes".

Joy Wolfe
 
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