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The Guardian | Wednesday 29 August 2012

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Paralympics

World of possibility
A great backwash of enthusiasm from the Olympics will carry the Paralympics triumphantly through the opening ceremony tonight. Its the same stadium and the same format, but these parallel games come with even greater ambitions. The vision of the Paralympics founder, Dr Ludwig Guttman, began with the commitment to show injured D-day veterans what they could still do a contribution celebrated at Stoke Mandeville on Tuesday night, when the Olympic flame left his old hospital for the 24-hour journey to the Olympic Park. But now, Sir Philip Craven, the president of the International Paralympic Committee, would rather the word disabled was not used at all. A movement that sprang from one man determined to transform the self-belief of its participants now aspires to transform attitudes among the spectators. The athletes themselves might be out there to win a gold medal, but they are participants in an even more ambitious project. Timing, location and razzmatazz will all sustain the sense that the next 10 days are on a par with the Olympics. It is the first sellout Paralympics. Only the lack of interest among the worlds broadcasters betrays the distance still to travel to change the way the world thinks of people with disabilities. Yet if progress seems slow, look how far the movement has come: back in Tokyo, in 1964, the sight of cripples doing sport was considered too embarrassing to report. Now competition among sportsmen and women in wheelchairs or using prosthetic limbs is taken for granted. There is even overlap with the other Olympians, with both Oscar Pistorius and the Polish table tennis player Natalia Partyka competing in both forms of Olympics. There is a danger that the mechanics of the process will come between the competitors and the fans. There is an unavoidable commodification of limb use and torso power as committees debate the intricacies of categories of disability; there is, inevitably, some gaming of the criteria by the athletes themselves as they try to line up against others who look easier to beat. And sometimes, as the mechanical details are lovingly described, it can seem as if the contest is between prosthetic rivals rather than sporting ones. But for many disability activists the real target remains the idea that motivated Dr Guttman: how to turn the question of what cant be done into what can be. Paralympian crossbench peer Tanni Grey-Thompson fought for the cause unsuccessfully in debates earlier this year on the Welfare Reform Act, which is likely to lead to deep cuts in disability benefits when its introduced in 2013. She argued that benefits should be understood as support to allow an individual to lead a productive and fulfilling life, not a system of compensation for what they cant do. If there can be a dividend from the growing number of young men and women who return from war zones missing arms and legs, or come through potentially limiting birth disorders like Lady GreyThompson herself, this is a change already overdue. The next 10 days will offer powerful stories of adversity overcome. Every Paralympian has, simply by being in London E20, triumphed in a way that deserves honouring. Their histories matter more than most. These extraordinary tales equestrian Lee Pearsons long journey to nine gold medals, or the swimming prodigy Ellie Simmonds remarkably short one to Beijing glory are what make them, to the rest of us, more than the sum of their disabilities. Of course, It is not possible to mitigate all the physical and mental impacts of severe illness or accident. But the impossibility of doing everything should not be a barrier to doing as much as possible. Take accessibility: a real victory would be the commitment to make all public transport work for everyone. That kind of major infrastructure investment rests on the transformation of public attitudes. It is time to take off the blinkers and see the talent. If the Paralympics do one thing, they will surely do that.

Rachel Corrie

A memory that refuses to die

Nine years after Rachel Corrie, a 23-yearold peace activist, was crushed by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah, a judge in Haifa absolved the state of Israel of any responsibility for her death, or for failing to hold a full and credible investigation. Perpetuating the myth that her death was a tragic accident, the judge did not deviate from the official line. He found that the driver had not seen the peace activist in her high-visibility jacket. He found a military investigation which drew the ire even of the US ambassador (the investigators initially assigned were 19 years old; they repeatedly failed to take statements from witnesses, follow up discrepancies or even issue maps of the scene) both credible and thorough. Impunity prevailed, once again, over accountability. Rachel Corrie died trying to protect a Palestinian home from demolition. At the time the Israeli military had demolished 1,700 homes in Rafah, which human rights groups claimed was collective punishment for the Palestinian suicide bombings. It was the height of the second intifada, or uprising. Yesterdays verdict did not merely spruce up the whitewash over Corries death. It spread it yet further. It said that, because the bulldozer was part of a combat operation, no civilians Palestinian or American in the area had any rights, because they should not have been there. Corrie was, in the courts eyes, a human shield protecting terrorists. She was not the only casualty. Three years into the intifada, more than 400 children had been killed by the Israeli army, many in circumstances where there was no combat. As the family of Rachel Corrie are the first to admit, Gazan families who have lost their children have had no opportunity of taking legal action against Israel. Even if they had the means to do so, the law has been amended to stop civil actions like the one the Corries mounted. To redress repeated rulings by the supreme court which narrowed the definition of combat activity, the Knesset passed an amendment to the law on compensation claims which widened it. No residents of an area, such as Gaza, that Israel deems enemy territory will be able to submit such a claim. So the limited form of legal redress available to the Corries as a civil lawsuit has now been ended. In the last nine years, Cindy and Craig Corrie have been fighting for something that any parent who has lost their child has a right to the truth. Revealing the truth about the death of their daughter would have cost the IDF dearly. But covering it up costs Israel more as, with each year of the occupation, it sheds international support. Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, Brian Avery, Caoimhe Butterly all killed or severely injured while bearing witness to what happens to civilians in Israels combat zones leave a stain no court can erase.

In praise of Marianne Elliott

To take a well-loved novel and make it sing on stage: this is one of the toughest challenges any director can impose on herself. Yet Marianne Elliott pulls it off brilliantly with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Here is a bestseller that by rights should die off the page: a detective yarn told by a teenage boy who appears to have Aspergers. So hows that meant to work in front of a live audience? The answer, it turns out, is by sticking them inside the narrators head. The set swells and shrinks, the stage turns into graph paper, and Christophers teacher reads his story. Such audacity might be expected from the director of War Horse and Saint Joan. There is something of the musical director about Ms Elliott that gives purists the sniffles, but thats their problem. The rest of us can rejoice in a director who sees nothing wrong with popularity or the odd shot of sentiment, but remains true to her Granada TV training and is instinctively democratic.

Comment & Debate

Response
Solidarity Movement. This is a group of international activists who advocate nonviolent demonstrations in the West Bank (and Gaza, before the disengagement in 2005) in solidarity with Palestinians opposing the occupation. A nonviolent movement, you say? Well, isnt that what Israelis were always looking for? For their enemies to abandon suicide bombings and rockets and go down the route of Gandhi? Yet, in reality the ISM is probably one of the most hated organisations roaming the roads of Judea and Samaria these days. Seen as foreigners who have come from afar to meddle in local affairs, they have been accused of antisemitism, supporting terrorists and being allies of Hamas. For a majority of Israelis, these people have nothing to do with peace. Theyre a nuisance. A recent example of that attitude is the case of a young Dane called Andreas Ias, who took part in a nonviolent ISM demonstration this year in the West Bank. Footage of IDF colonel Shalom Eisner ramming Ias in the face with his rifle as he was slowly walking around the protest area went viral, and showed clearly the true feelings Israelis have for the Rachel Corries of the world. The Israeli establishment has less and less patience for activists of any kind of late. As part of the recent government offensive on human rights, freedom of expression has been hit hard. And its not only leftwing activists who oppose the occupation who are summoned for interrogations even J14 members, who led the peaceful social protests against the cost of living, have been interrogated by police long before they take to the streets, in an attempt to intimidate citizens of the only democracy in the Middle East against exercising their right to protest. As news of Judge Gershons decision broke, and as it spread like wildfire across social networks, the local Hebrew media barely batted an eyelid. The items covering the Corrie verdict on websites of Israels largest newspapers barely lasted an hour on the home page. Corries story may be well known to Palestinians and leftwing activists, but one would be hard pressed to find people in Israel who actually know who she is to begin with. Another reason for the sparse media attention in Israel could be the fact that this is a long drawn-out case which probably isnt over as the Corrie family intends to appeal to the supreme court. And with the American ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, saying only a week ago that the investigation so far into the incident has not been sufficient, the Corries may feel they have the administrations support to pursue this further. One can only hope that Gershons ruling was indeed an unfortunate accident as well, to be amended in the future. For the Corrie family this is, of course, another horrible blow in their attempt to bring someone, anyone, in the IDF to account. On that day in 2003, a Caterpillar driver demolished a young girl and her family. Yesterday in Haifa, with what may seem like a single court decision, a judge pushed forward the ongoing demolition of the Israeli justice system and the remainders of Israeli democracy itself. In a country where the military is considered sacred and investigates itself, and where the judicial system has enabled occupation for over 45 years, could one have seriously expected a different outcome? Ami Kaufman is a co-founder of +972 Magazine. Read this and other articles on guardian.co.uk/commentisfree

For many Israelis, Rachel was a nuisance

Since Corries death the Israeli establishment has been losing patience with activists of any kind Ami Kaufman

To attack Paul Kagame as authoritarian is to ignore the progress in Rwanda James Wizeye

he state of Israel is not to blame for the death of Rachel Corrie this is the decision an Israeli court reached yesterday. The ruling, made by Judge Oded Gershon of the Haifa district court, may have come as a shock to some, but anyone following Israels path on a slippery slope, particularly over the past decade, could hardly be surprised when the court literally blamed the victim for her own death. An unfortunate accident, is what Gershon chose to call the tragedy. She did not distance herself as a reasonable person would have done. Corrie, killed by a bulldozer on 16 March 2003, was part of an activist group called ISM International

ino Mahtani speculates that the rationale behind the wests development aid to Rwanda is still overwhelmingly guilt at the wests failure to stop the 1994 genocide (More than guilty money, 2 August). Mahtani accepts that Rwanda has made significant progress on state reconstruction. But he accuses the government of Paul Kagame of increasing levels of authoritarianism and intimidating opposition politicians and journalists. What he fails to mention is that in recent years Rwanda has totally overhauled its judicial administration, creating a UN-approved system that allows suspects to be returned to Rwanda for trial. Vital checks and balances are in place, and there has been a clampdown on those who abuse positions in government or business. The people Mahtani refers to as high-ranking regime defectors are in fact officials who fled after discovering their corrupt practices will no longer be tolerated something that should be applauded, not criticised. Let us be clear. Rwanda has spent more than half its 50 years since independence in a state of immense insecurity. To treat Rwanda, as critics like Mahtani do, as some typical European country with bountiful resources, peaceful neighbours and centuries of

stable, democratic governance, is to badly misjudge the situation. He attacks the fragile political system, yet paradoxically accuses Kagame of being authoritarian. Rwanda is evolving in all areas of society and governance. There has been a huge increase in private newspapers and radio stations which, given the medias role in the genocide, is in itself a sign of progress. Mahtani claims Rwanda has been meddling in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, supporting Tutsi warlord Laurent Nkunda and his deputy Bosco Ntaganda. Rwandas government has, in a highly detailed document, answered every charge raised in the recent UN group of experts report, its explanation accepted by the Dutch ambassador as very serious and satisfactory. Mahtani argues that Rwanda wants to steal the DRCs raw materials. In fact Rwanda is one of the few countries in the region to agree to certify all minerals that originate from Rwanda and ensure all mineral trade is tagged and traceable. Rwandas strategic interests would be greatly at risk were there a recurrence of conflict in the DRC. Rwanda, like all nations, wants secure borders and is actively working to achieve this. James Wizeye is first secretary at the Rwanda High Commission, London A full version of this article appears on guardian.co.uk/commentisfree. If you wish to respond to an article in which you have featured, email response@guardian.co.uk or write to Response, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. We cannot guarantee to publish all responses, and we reserve the right to edit pieces for both length and content