What's in a Name: Activist or journalist, aboard the Tahrir does it matter?

June 21st – Athens, Greece.

Greetings from Greece, where the American and Canadian activists and journalists of the Freedom Flotilla II intermingle between two centrally located hotels. Some have been here for days, even weeks, laying the groundwork, purchasing supplies, undergoing training, learning the lay of the land. Some, like myself and the Toronto contingent, only arrived yesterday.

My first observation is that there is no attempt at covertness amongst the activists. We have been instructed to stick to the "I'm just here on holiday" line, but everywhere in the hotel, chests are emblazoned with T-shirts proclaiming “Free Palestine”, or “American Boat to Gaza”. I am at once invigorated by this brazenness, and shocked by the swagger. It is well-intentioned, to be sure, but there is something North American about it. As though even here, in sticky, stuffy, downtown Athens, where my new hotel roommate had his pocket picked within hours of arrival, nothing bad ever happens to us. We are the invincible North Americans! But we are also the children of the world. And we have left the Garden.

As it relates to the Freedom Flotilla II, it is a slow news day. We are in a holding pattern. Non-violence training is to start within a few days, but for now we wander the dusty streets, watch dollars turned to Euros turn to Gyros, and wait expectantly in city squares for revolution.

Athens is gripped by unemployment, Greece by government corruption, and the people have taken to protest. Massive tent cities have been erected, complete with pirate radio stations and multi-media centres for visiting journalists. Sensationalists crave the Black Bloc, or at least a thrown rock to shoot off a confrontation. But yesterday, as for most days, there was only a peaceful gathering. Everywhere in the squares, people, young intermixed with old, gathered in circles, speaking of democracy.

In this heady atmosphere of enlightened talk, my own thoughts turn to the role of the journalist, and the role of the activist, and on-board the Tahrir, will it really matter? I write, and take photos. Therefor, am I a journalist? But I am the head cook, and as proprietor of Peaceful Waters, my backpack is filled with salt cod and honey for Gaza. Therefor, am I an activist? Am I a journalist-activist, or an activist-journalist? If I were being tear-gassed, I doubt I'd be contemplating this. As it is, I've got time on my hands, and the opportunity to interview a journalist, and an activist, for whom the distinction is perhaps more clear.

Jesse Rosenfeld is a journalist. He's been an activist, but right now he's a journalist. He's covered the Israel-Palestine beat for several years now, and has found himself in situations where his life depended on clearly making the distinction between the two roles.

Miles Howe: How do you make the distinction between being a peace activist and being a journalist?

Jesse Rosenfeld: They're different roles. When you're a journalist on assignment, you have sympathies in different directions. But you're not doing the organizing. You're not doing the activism. You're not investing yourself in that process. You're observing the kinds of discussions they're having, the kinds of decisions they're trying to make, and you're looking at discussing that broadly, and what that means for the audience that you're writing for.

The job of the journalist is to capture what's going on, to distill it, and to fit it into the context that accurately reflects what is happening at those events, and gives indication as to why they're happening. It says something bigger about the issues that are being talked about.

That's very different from an activist, whose goal is to directly be, in this case, running the Gaza blockade. The dichotomy can be effectively summed up like this: The flotilla could not have happened without the activists organizing it, and without the activists committing to that kind of political agenda, and without promoting. It could happen without the media. It wouldn't be as effective. But it couldn't just happen with the media without the activists.

MH: What about the notion of the journalist-activist? Doesn't just being on the boat to Gaza make us activists?

JR: Really the question is maintaining your independence. The concept of the journalist-activist is used for particular kinds of assignments, usually of an investigative, campaigning kind of nature, rather than convergence and distillation.

The reason the independence is so important is that when you're coming at these things from a journalist's perspective, you're thinking about a broader audience that you're communicating with. You're thinking about the bigger picture of politics, or the bigger picture of the issues going on and how the story that you're covering fits into them, whereas if you're organizing, your main goal is to get out the particular message and tactics and solutions of that event that you're creating. So you're beholden to a particular kind of spin, a particular goal of a certain type of analysis. And it is important for journalists to not have that type of demand upon them, in order to accurately tell people what's going on, and to give people the power to become activists if they want to.

MH: The only point that I would make to that in a campaign like this is that there is the real danger at some point, of IDF action against the boat. So do you, at this point aboard the boat, see your roll as a journalist as being an 'out' from the hardship that someone claiming to be an activist might then face?

JR: The press pass is there and the concept of not targeting journalists is understood by security establishments because journalists are not there actively. They're being brought along for the ride. They're not going to get in your way per se; they're just covering what's going on. And if you're from a security establishment, in theory, if you're representing a liberal society you're supposed to respect that —  the right to discuss what's going on and not to target those who are simply there picking it up and putting it out.

Reality is a very different situation. If they don't want you covering it, they'll go after you primarily. But it does fundamentally determine different roles. If you're covering a direct action scenario as a journalist, if you're on assignment, you're not doing direct action.

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Regina Carrey, from California, is a peace activist representing 'If Americans Knew'. She will be aboard The Audacity of Hope. Over late-night french fries in the hotel lobby, she shared her thoughts on the matter.

Miles Howe: So I'm going to Gaza as a journalist. You're going as an activist. And I'm wondering, what's the difference? Is there a difference?

Regina Carrey: I think all the definitions of terms are changing. I think we all are activists in our own way. When we observe something that is erroneous, or something that is harmful to a people, or even something that's positive, we have a response to it. And that response is action.

I think the difference between individual observation and response that we all go through, in making a demonstrative statement about an egregious act, is what the Flotilla is about. We, on some collective basis, have decided that the way a group of people is being treated is harmful and that we need to do a large social statement to change it.

MH: What do you perceive the role of the journalist to be on this boat?

RC: I think the journalist is both. One, to report. Because they have access to a large medium, to report on what they observe. But I go above and beyond that. If a journalist is in a position to stop something, they shouldn't just continue to film and observe. They should intervene and stop it. There have been a number of cases where children have been injured, women have been raped, and journalists have just observed. And I think it is not just within their purview, it is their duty to stop those kinds of things.

MH: If push came to shove, would you count on a journalist? What would your feeling be?

RC: We have to decide whether we believe in fate, whether we believe in individual self-determination to survive, whether we believe that a society's responsibility is to take care of our [most vulnerable], that's a big question. I myself believe that we're all part of one big wheel, and that the way one goes, we all [go]. So we have to work as hard as we can to ensure that everyone is on solid footing.

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Miles Howe continues to grapple with the question of whether, if tear-gassed, he'd put down the camera and pick up the oven mitts, or whether one can snap photos whilst wearing oven mitts. He also hopes, of course, it doesn't come to that.

Miles will be reporting regularly to the Halifax Media Co-op from the Canadian Boat to Gaza. Visit Dispatches from the Tahrir for updates.