A skinny, messy, list-making chain-smoker
Bob Dylan's lyrics seem so timeless that it's easy to forget that many of them were written about contemporary figures. The events described in Hurricane took place in 1966 while The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll happened in 1963 (William Zantzinger is still alive and well, as Ian Frazier reports).
It's fitting then that Billy Bragg updates Dylan's tune to map out the fate of Rachel Corrie, a peace activist from Olympia, WA who was killed in the Gaza Strip trying to stop a bulldozer from destroying the homes of settlers. The eyewitness accounts are heartbreaking. But one of Bragg's lyrics underscores a deeper tragedy:
...that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians
According to The Guardian, 9 Palestinians were killed the same night as Rachel Corrie, 220 killed by violence in the town where she died since the start of the Al-Aqua intifada. I'd like to think Bragg's song is about these people too, even if he doesn't mention them by name. It would be easy to ignore the deaths of people halfway around the world, just as it would have been easy to ignore the death of Hattie Carroll in 1963.
Billy Bragg's song, The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie is available for free here.
posted by Erik @ 3/31/2006 11:19:00 PM
2 Comments:
If you're using terrorist in the so-recent-it-isn't-in-the-dictionary meaning of "someone who is the enemy" then you may have a point. If you're using terrorist in the more standard definition of "someone who engages in violence for political ends", then I can't see any way you can tie Rachel Corrie's actions to violence.
And your "collection" of jokes is rally just the same joke repeated ad nauseum: Rachel Corrie was killed by a bulldozer.
That said, I agree fully with your March 30th post calling for Israel to negotiate with the Hamas government pending their recognition of the Israeli state, honoring of existing agreements and an end to terrorism.
Thanks Captain Buzzkill! You should have a disclaimer if the subject matter is not closet appropriate. That said. . .YES! Dylan shows human beings for what they are, martyrs, heroes, and heartborken souls alike.
Post a Comment
<< Home