– Life along the Slaney

The gathering of a dozen or so interested parties at the Ashdown Park Hotel last Thursday night must surely have been disappointing.

The story told to those who showed up was one of piracy, navy commandos, run-down jails, kidnapping, shooting, stun grenades and forced entry to a foreign country. No, it wasn’t Colm Tóibín or John Banville reading from their latest novels nor was it a creative writing workshop.

No it was the story told by eminent historian Dr. Fintan Lane about his experiences aboard the Challenger 1 boat which was part of the flotilla which attempted to bring aid to Gaza but was boarded by Israeli troops and brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Dr. Lane’s calm cool re-telling of the story belied what must surely have been one of the most harrowing and frightening experiences of his life.

The small crowd sat in silence as he told them how a stun grenade exploded next to him and how an Israeli commando shoved a rifle in his face and told him he was going to be shot.

There was no exaggeration from Dr. Lane. He told the story as he remembered it without adding spurious detail or emotion tacked onto the story from retelling it so often. The story however didn’t need any embellishment.

The fact that only 12 people showed up to hear this man’s extraordinary story is bemusing. There could be a number of reasons for this. One is that people didn’t know – which is plausible though the meeting was reported in this very paper only last week and hopefully more than 12 people read it.

The other explanation – and the far more plausible one – is that people just don’t care. There is an apathy in Irish society these days that just means not many people are willing to stand up and be counted on any side of the debate.

Whatever your views on the Israel-Palestine debate are don’t matter. The meeting last week was a chance to hear first hand exactly what happened on board the flotilla yet the only people there were those already involved in the campaign against Israel.

The flotilla of seven ships of varying sizes on May 31 was organised not by governments coming together to make a stand, but was organised by grass roots campaigners. You and me. People who go out and try to inform people of the injustices they perceive in the world.

During the boom, activists were scare. People didn’t have the time to go out and campaign against anything as they were too busy with their own lives.

It is possible that in the coming years, now that the boom has been put on hold, we will open our eyes to the travesties of justice that are happening all over the world.

The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign are trying to grow support for their campaign to boycott Israeli goods through grassroots efforts. And with the news yesterday that Israel is lifting some of the goods allowed to enter Gaza, it shows that grass roots campaigning can work.

For a lot of people the word activist conjures up an ideal of a dreadlocked hippie living off berries in a tunnel under the M1 while chanting. Dr. Lane is the logical and sensible face of activism – and if that is what works and is needed to get people involved then so be it. It is just a pity that more people didn’t take the opportunity to hear his story.