Kaoru Kishida, Activist

On my last trip to the Friday Protest at Bil'in, I mentioned that a Japanese tourist had been popped in the eye socket with a rubber bullet and had temporarily lost his sight.

His name is Kaoru Kishida- a laid back forty-something who plays a mean cover of Norwegian Wood. He's the guy to the right on the photo above.

KK was back in the hostel that evening, with a plastic bubble taped over his swollen-shut eye. He kept- as he had before- to the Japanese crowd, and inquiries about his pirate patch were met by stoic, dude-change-the-subject-already shrugs.

As far as I could tell, his English vocabulary was limited to Beatles lyrics, and the only conversation I ever exchanged with him went like this:

"How's your eye, bro?"

"Er. Er... not... not good!"

Anyway, the International Solidarity Movement just wrote up a brief update on KK on their website. Besides reporting that he may not regain his eyesight after surgery, the ISM described the guy as an "activist". The exact words: "Kaoru Kishida, a Japanese activist shot in the eye..."

Ugh.

Kaoru Kishida, as far as I know, was not an activist. He was a tourist. He was an independent traveler who happened to be staying at the Faisal Hostel, and was roped into visiting the Bil'in Protest by peer pressure.

This happens every week.

Mieko, a Japanese activist who had married an Israeli and lived in the country 16 years, had been making the rounds with the Jap crowd, preaching Palestinian politics. She urged them to check out the Friday Protests.

Japanese are herd animals. If one Jap decides to go, chances are that the entire flock will blindly follow. As it does every week, Mieko's recruiting session snowballed into a big tour group day trip involving the hostel's entire Japanese contingent.

Kaoru had no idea what he was signing up for. I know this because Mieko was wringing her hands that evening, saying that she hadn't adequately warned those Japanese about the potential hazards of lining up against the Israeli army.

The man was a damned tourist.

But the ISM had to put their little spin on it, and make him a part of the propaganda war. And so civilian victims of suicide bombings are "soldiers of the nation", Palestinian militants are "martyrs", and Japanese tourists on an Intifada photo-op are "activists".

It's Friday, and I'm headed for Bil'in with Justin.

Last week, some Israeli soldier forgot to check his magazines before clipping them into his M16, and was spraying live bullets at the crowd. No casualties.

The link, again, is from the ISM website, so beware of bias. I prefer to think that a Jewish trooper was stressed and loaded the wrong clip... and that the Israeli army wasn't intentionally firing on unarmed protesters and Japanese tourists.

If I get capped today, I just want you all to know:

My name is Sean Low.

I am a backpacker and a dispassionate observer of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with no vested interest in the goals of either side. I am checking out the Intifada as a tourist experience, not as a political cause.

I am not a statistic, and I am not a pawn for your propaganda.

I am not a Zionist.

And I am not an activist.