Interview with Iara Lee

Let’s start with the footage that you could save it hardly ....

Yes. In this time and age it is a media war and the most of the contain is evidence about what really happened. So I think all film makers and journalists, they have to feel very responsible because we have this big role of trying to bring the truth forward in this world which is a world of lies and a world of manuplation of media. Obviously, the Israelis knew that because the first thing they did is to stop our communication systems and satellite only after that they came and attacked us in the dark in international waters.

They stole our footage and they went to their IDF office and watched it. They pool footage from our materials and then load upon on the IDF youtube channel. My friends from Norway, all the countries were like "I saw the footage on IDF channel." I can’t believe it you know. So not only they are criminals, they are theives too. It's just crazy. They have the audacity. The communtiy protect journalists and all the international federations of journalists and all these organizations protested and said this is very emetical. Press people first of all should be treated differently. Some of my friends said they went to be journalist and they said "we're media, we're press and then the soldiers would be what so what!!” Like that you know. This is really emetical because journalists are supposed to be respected as the "carriers of the truth.” But obviously if the truht is the last thing you want to come out, the journalists would be the first to be prosecuted.

I think having you on Mavi Marmara is really a luck. You could save the footage and make all of us see what happened. The sense of the fear or the hopelessness, everything is so clear in that footage....

Yeah, life is very strange hah?

I got really impressed with that footage. In addition, I understood that I am not the only one who thinks so. When I share it through my face and twitter accounts, people watch it too much and I have positive feedbacks. It hits the target I think.

I am very happy to hear because I think hmmm –like may be – the strange of this, I was in this the small boat and it broked out. So in the middle of the water, they transfered me to the other you know. So I was not originaly registered ....

Really?

Yes:) And I was happy you know because of like "Woow! This is the main boat." We have all the nationalities represented and I was so happy because I could interview with people from Kuwait, from Lebanon, from Balkans, from South America, Asia, Malaysia. And I heard so many beautiful stories. The half hour of the footage we have loaded as you noticed is very eery because of it's like the Titanic. Everbody was just sleeping, and praying, and they are so calm but you know what is coming next. So when you watch this half hour you just be like "Oh my God! You are so relax.” They have no idea what is coming! And then, all of a sudden, everything changes and just blood, and peals and shots and all that. It was really sain you know.

It points out the manuplation of Israel ...

Yees, yees!!

The difference between what they wanted us to see and what actually happened is very clear in that footage.

Yees, yees!!

This is not your first activism, rigth?

Noo, have been many!!

You have been involved in many many actv....

Yeees! Absoulutely!! Just happens that most of the time I am managed to stay safe and sound but this time around there was very big mortality you know. But I have been in many different conflict countries, post-conflict countries.....

It is like the exchange project between Iran and the West, right?

Yeah. Just try to follow peace through arts and culture, music, film, photography, dance, you know.

How did you decide to involve in Mavi Marmara?

Because I have already been Gaza in January with their Gaza freedom march. They only allowed few people to go because we were 1400 people and Mubarek's governments said "No, nobody is going." So we made a lot of manifestations and demonstrations and then the Mubarek's wife said "OK. Just a small group can go to represent the Gaza freedom march.” I was one of that and then I saw first hand the distruction and the prisinors and I was like "Woow!" This is more obligation you know to witness that these people were treated like collective punishment! According to the law, this is illegal to just mistreat everybody becasue Israel doesn’t like Hamas. It is just not acceptable.

So there they decided to keep registering. I was supporting the Gaza flotilla and then they fired to got the logistics sort about and then I got e-mail saying "We are finding go again upset." I am going too:):) I wanted to bring my soundman, my cameraman, production coordinator and they said "There is no space. Only you and cameraman may attend. “Ok!!”:) And we wanted to make a film about flotilla, a full film you know but unfortunately ..

It’s coming soon? :)

:) Unfortunately just the footage! So at least we were able to show the attack but I had beautiful interviews with people from all over the world and it could be a very good film.

Are you making a documetary or a film now?

So now I have to go back to re-interview everybody in their own countries is a lot more difficult. At this moment, I am trying more to focus on legal issues. How we can use international law just to stop Israelis from continuing these kinds of behaviour. And we are also working on a book coming on in July with many amazing writers from USA and some of the people who participated in flotilla. So we are just creating lots of different deduce and objects and projects to continue to the work.

Do you plan to attend another flotilla if it is prepared?

Yees!!

Or, are you going to be on the side with legal pressure on Israel? What kind of activisim are going to be participating?

Well, in fact I am from Brazil and I was the only Brazilian. When I put on Facebook "Oh may be we’re preparing a Brazilian ship." In half hour had 50 people!! "How can I help by the ship? How can I help ....?" I was like "Oh my God. Slow down!" There is lots of fact and it is complicated you know. But I take people all over the world; now, they are more aware. I think we have a higher chance of having bigger flotilla, more people, more countries represented. And when I met the president of IHH, he said if we had another flotilla, we would be at least 50 ships. This last one was big but not big enough but Israel said "well, if you guys have another flotilla and try to have like some government protect you. This is the decleration of war!!!" Oh. We had this lecture about people who participated and never is just gonna talk with the near people. They come with sized, they said "Sink the ship. Sink the ship." They just killed 9 people and they come with just "Sink the ship." It is like no humanity. How can people be so cruel? But I guess we just have to keep persevering and not you'll depress, not feel like at all overwhelmed and just have like slowly you know, continue. Because people are afraid. People just so scared and the Israelis are like the best bullies. They managed to make every body scared, like I won't be the foundation and people in my foundation are like "Ahhh this is too big for us!!!"

And on the other hand, the only scared is not the volunteers and the civil people but also Israel. May be we cannot use the term "scare" for them but they are aware that the whole public opinion in the world is almost against them and they are in a kind of panic seemingly. They say that "OK we are not gonna appologize” –publicly they say this of course— but they are trying to ease the blockade more and more and day by day.

Right, right...

I think it is a very good chance to make a diplomatic pressure on them. So do you have some extra thing other than "another flotilla"? May be in your local area or it may be on international scale, are there any other "diplomatic" ways of activism or the sort of things?

Yees! I guess our baby step is to work with international lawyers and then start mobilizing more people. In two weeks we had 500,000 people on Facebook. But the problem is the momentum. When there is breaking news everybody is like "Wooow! We condemn. We condemn." But then afterwords everybody changes. So how can we keep building so that this movement for justice is continuous not just like a burst of energy and then everything goes down. We need more people :) So, "one?" is not gonna do it, we need millions of people.

I was with the member of parliament from Germany, and she said she is gonna go to Geneva. There is a meeting with the UN on July the 19th. So she is gonna try to go their peer pressure apparently. They are also trying to get the German government to do something in a more official fashion. And I think everybody has to pressure their own governments. How myself as a dual citizen. I know Brazil is very committed and supporting Palestinians and supporitng justice but in the USA it is a disaster, it is a total disaster. Now the Supreme Court even came up with the saying that if you speak to someone who is in the terrorist list, you are considered criminal. And then people like “Oh, so, you consider Jimmy Carter because he went to speak to Hamas so is he a criminal?” Because that way is we need to do. Because diplomacy is about speaking to the enemy. So that would be the need to do to communicate with opposing forces and not be like isolating. But the USA government and the congress and they are just like a sold-out. There is really a lobby pays for them to get elected so they are trust and their commitment is to belong there get them elected.

Yeah. In the population, the Jews are around 2-3% but their lobby is too strong.

Yees, Yees!!

But you have the power as a filmmaker. You may have lose your real footage but do you have a plan of making a film. It is not like a documentary you know it is just a...

The fiction flim.

Yes. Becasue the Jews are making their policies known by everyone by their films.

Right, right.

The Jewish people, they are really...

Controlling the Hollywood, controlling all the broadcast companies, controlling the newspapers, right?

They foster the emphathy to the Holocaust and get the public opinion on their side with their films and they are really good at that. And may be you can use that power and you can make a film....

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I am more like a lawyer and people are like "You're a filmmaker!! You should make more films!!" :):) May be you are right:)

Isn't it the same with Americans? Even the Vietnam War was one of their failures, they really advertise it well and make their PR by saying "OK. We may have done this but we also know how to appologize." So it may be effective if you film it? Who knows, you may win the Oscar :)

How do you going to see these things but half of the truth is though. But I think you are right that having the camera in the right place in the right time or in the wrong place in the wrong time. It's probably a very important thing because, you know, like the Burmese monks. Nobody had any information about Burma. But then when they start with these little like a telephone cameras or twitter or things like that, the information came out. Same thing we meet in Iran when they were beating up the people on the street, everything was blood but they still manage to send through twitter, Facebook and this and that. So I think definitely media is a very important tool to change the political situations all around the world. We should really use that and be very responsible because a lot of journalist unfortunatelly just take this as a career. But this is not a career, this is like a very important role that you have to play for society.

Then I get that your activist character is more apparent or ...

Yeah, definitely!! Filmmaking is just a vehicle for the socail change and the justice movement. It is more important to use like books, like films, like photography and music for change. When I was young, I was very attracted to art for artsy, how is the art important for sake. And then as I grow older, I thought "No, art should be for justice, for peace." So it has been an evolution you might like. And I feel now, it is time to get all the artists to be more committed. It's not just about art and fancy or ... :):)

It’s about to use this as a veichle to express your feelings, your ideas for change...

Yes and I think it is more like it touches people because it is more direct. For instance, sometimes political analyst can write hundred pages of analysis, very intelligent, but it does not relate the issue for everyone as a film does. Also, it should be such a music, it is a photograph, it's very powerful, right? So we are gonna keep working with a lot of artists and try to use all these elements to get people more interested in socail movement.

I see. Like everyone, the raid to Mavi Marmara took my attention to Israel-Palestine conflict and resulted in learning more about it. I tried to follow both national and interantional media, videos posted on twitter, Facebook, blogs and so on. And I realized that the information shared through the social media is doing a great job. In addition, the case that you can reach any kind of information which is filtered through “personal experiences” is very impressive I think. People wonder about how other people like themselves, the “common people,” evaluate things. So that I decided to activate my blog which I opened in 2009 but wrote nothing till now. I’ve already began blogging and for sure I’m very excited about blogging this interview too :)

Excellent!!!

Is there anything that you wanna add more that I can help to widespread it through this interview:):)

:) Yeah, I wanna figure out how it is possible to focus the genereous people's energy into something like coherent work. Because I feel everybody ask "I wanna help out but how?" and I try to figure out how we can integrate everybody's desire to be a part of this movement. So we are not just discussing online but actually getting things done. So we should all collaborate and get all the bloggers and Facebook, twitter users to kind a create a movement of gross and ..

Then can I understand this like "All bloggers! Unite!":):)

Yees! We need to work together and figure out the ways where many people MEAN something. But it is tough! Like we were not more during the Iraq war. More millions of people on the street! And what did the government do? Ignorance! "We are taking Iraq, we don't care." So it is very frastrating. We need to stay strong and committed. And the peace movement also goes sometimes up and down, up and down. We need to praise some sort like situation where the movements just keeps growing, and some others up and down and up and down. Though, we have plenty of wars. I mean we should all be very busy because like this time around for example Obama. We should look at the numbers. He is spending more money, sending more troops and more military bases than Bush!!! Everybody is saying, everybody voted for Obama because the Bush administration was awful. But in reality, Obama is to leave any wars. Killing all these people in Afganistan, we're still occuping Iraq, it is very bad you know. So ...

Then can we say "Obama, you couldn't!" :)

:):):) Right. I guess he has his hands hired all. May be personally he thinks differently but publically he is not doing the right thing and people getting more and more frustrated. But I think also it is a fantacy that governments can create the revolution in want. It is not the government. It is only the people that can really have an effect on this.

I am also one of your friends on your Facebook:)

Oh good, excellent:)

You have many frineds in your account. How effective do you think it is?

I think more people should use the wall to interact. I feel sometimes a lot of people on Facebook like 5000 but not everybody is like posting, and sharing. People are little shy sometimes hah?:) But we need to get a network which is going in full directions but it is little conk. Because like you have the Facebook friends but you don't know what country they are from, sometimes their directly mail address...

It's a very big pool. It makes feel like "Ok, I am talking with how many people?" You don't know..

Right, it's difficult.

People may be shy writing on the walls and may be they don't wanna say "I am here" or so ..

No, definitely. We need to get people to be less shy:):) Come out of the closed:) It's hard also it's so confrontational. People, they free to use frontly but they don't wanna be public you know. That is the other problem too. But it is time for everybody to come out of the closed:):) and fight together:):)