Donna Nevel was part of the media team for the US boat to Gaza. At Monthly Review she tells the story of meeting two passengers on the boat, Missy Lane, 32, and Max Suchan, 22, during the Greek uprisings early in the month. Excerpt:
One evening, they invited my husband, Alan, and me to join them at Syntagma Square, where they had been going in the evenings after long, exhausting days of preparatory meetings for the U.S. boat. We immediately saw how naturally they had integrated into the life of the movement there. After meeting Missy at the square at a booth that highlighted the flotilla, we walked with her to meet Max and another inspiring U.S. boat passenger, Steve, who were sitting with several young Palestinian refugees staying at a tent in the square. Max translated for us from Arabic to English as one of the Palestinian men described how he had been treated by the Greek police, who had told him to “go home”; it was made clear he meant for him to get out of Greece and go back to Palestine. What an irony — to be treated like an outsider in the country he was living in, and knowing full well that, in fact, as a result of the Israeli occupation, he could not go back to his original home in Palestine!
I asked Max and Missy what connections they saw between these different struggles. Missy responded that “it’s quite simple.” She spoke about “the connections that exist between and among people and movements, that it’s about people defying their governments together.” Max spoke about “the destructive role of the U.S. government, the IMF and other global financial institutions that are responsible for some of the worst austerity measures that the Greek people have had to endure.” He also spoke about the responsibility “to speak out and take action to support the people of Palestine and oppose the role of the U.S. government that directly funds the oppression they face daily.” From Greece to Palestine, Max understood and articulated the role and impact of oppression and exploitation.
Max also spoke compellingly about the “global spirit that is inspiring people across the world,” noting that “people are looking for alternatives informed by this global context of change happening everywhere. It is people acting in solidarity with one another, occupying public spaces and resisting” as they struggle for justice. This, he pointed out, is what the people of Athens are doing in Syntagma Square; this is what Palestinians are doing in Palestine with international support in the form of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and the flotillas, for example; this is what people are doing in Cairo, Wisconsin, Barcelona, Tunisia, Bahrain, and elsewhere. This is resistance; this is solidarity.
Who inspired these inspiring individuals? Missy spoke about civil rights activist and Freedom Rider Diane Nash, whose interviews she has been reading. ”Learning about her approach and vision of change made me think more deeply about how I look at struggle and the concrete goals are we are trying to achieve.” Max pointed to the first intifada as “an incredible moment in time that was overwhelmingly characterized by a nonviolent resistance movement that included people form every walk of life.” He spoke about social transformation and people taking destiny into their own hands — resisting global oppression together, as a community.
