The Memory of Chilean Resistance Sails Toward Gaza: Conversation with Marita Rodríguez, Member of the Global Sumud Flotilla

Ships of the flotilla off the coast of Tunisia -- image via X

By Taroa Zúñiga Silva and Vijay Prashad

The Gaza Sumud Flotilla sails from Tunis toward the waters around Palestine. The word Sumud in Arabic means Resilience. It is the feeling at the heart of the hundreds of people from forty-four countries on the fifty boats that are in the Mediterranean Sea. One of these boats is carrying a group of women from around the world. On that boat is María ‘Marita’ Rodríguez, a Swedish and Chilean woman who lives in Stockholm. She spoke to us from her boat about her journey and why she was there in the first place.

The journey, Marita said, “has been unique”. There was a drone attack on the boats in Tunis harbour, but that is now behind them. They are looking forward to breaking the Israeli blockade. There are only six people on her boat. The three-member crew includes Anna (from Catalonia) who is a “wild woman with a heart of gold”, Anita (from Uruguay), “who always carries her mate tea under her arm and tells us stories”, and Irene (from Italy), “our sunshine who is always in good spirits”. The three participants include a businesswoman from Brunei and a nurse as well. Marita, is an activist whose father was executed during the military coup in Chile. “We are all normal people”, she said, “who cannot stand idly by when genocide is happening before our eyes”. The morale on the boats, Marita says, is high because the people on them “know that we are on the right side of history”.

Marita’s father, Rolando, was killed by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in 1976. Marita did not know her father at all. That murder shaped her beliefs, she tells us, and shaped “the path I have chosen”. “I have lived longer than he was able to”, she says, “but he is still present in every act of solidarity that I carry out. When I see great movements do something to change the world”, she said, “I see him”. Indeed, she says her participation in the flotilla is in the memory of her father and “with my son’s smile in my heart”.

Israel has already made its intention clear with its assaults on all previous maritime attempts to break its stranglehold on the Palestinians in Gaza. These include Israel’s violent attack on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 (killing nine people), the Freedom Flotilla II in 2011, the Just Future for Palestine Flotilla 2018, and the Freedom Flotillas of 2023 and 2025. When asked about what she would anticipate from Israel, Marita said, “with them, you never know. What they have done before is board and hijack. That is one of the scenarios that could happen. But with more eyes on us, and if the governments of the world do what they should, we could reach Gaza, and from there, the states should enforce international treaties”. The Israeli foreign ministry has begun to call the Sumud Flotilla the “Hamas Flotilla” and to argue that this flotilla is “a jihadist initiative serving the terror group’s agenda”. Such a reckless statement is made to send a message that the Israeli government is willing to sink boats and kill people rather than to see this mission for what it is, namely, to deliver humanitarian aid. People like Marita are not motivated by hate or by jihad but by humanism and solidarity.

“I am part of this historic flotilla to Gaza because I cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place”, Marita told us. “Solidarity is not just a word, it demands action”. Her words echo from boat to boat. Everyone has a story for why they are there, but the real reason that motivates them is to create a humanitarian corridor and to ensure that the people in Gaza —amid an Israeli created famine— are able to get food and medicines delivered immediately. The United Nations Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on 18 September that Israel has increased its barriers for aid: “Opportunities to support starving people are being systematically blocked. Every week, new restrictions are imposed”. UN Secretary General António Guterres said of the situation in Gaza, “It is a man-made disaster, a moral indictment —and a failure of humanity itself. Famine is not about food; it is the deliberate collapse of the systems needed for human survival”. The UN’s agency speaks in a passive voice, and Guterres talks about “man-made” but does not mention Israel. It is Israel that has produced this famine, and it is Israel that is preventing the flotilla from making landfall in Gaza and opening a humanitarian corridor.

Marita hopes that if the flotilla can break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, then perhaps states might take the initiative to send bigger ships to feed and treat the Palestinians of Gaza. Or, she says, “better yet”, the arrival of the flotilla might provoke states to put more pressure on Israel to cease the genocide. That is, however, unlikely. On 18 September, a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza was put on the table of the UN Security Council by its ten non-permanent members (Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia). The United States, however, vetoed the resolution. This was the sixth veto exercised by the United States to prevent an end to the genocide. After the vote, Pakistan’s ambassador Asim Ahmad said that this veto was “a dark moment in this chamber. The world is watching. The cries of children should pierce our hearts”. Algeria’s ambassador Amar Bendjama apologised to the Palestinian people: “Palestinian brothers, Palestinian sisters: forgive us”.

Meanwhile, Israeli tanks are moving toward Gaza City to try and clear out those who remain in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Slaughter is imminent. Marita has a message for those who watched US deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus raise her hand to veto the resolution: “Don’t let them stop you from talking about Gaza. Right now, Gaza City is being forcibly evacuated amid bombings. And everyone knows that there is no safe place in Gaza. That is why I ask you to organise yourselves and put pressure on your governments. Go on strike, use all the tools of active non-violence.”

Taroa Zúñiga Silva is a writer and Spanish media coordinator for Globetrotter. She is the director of the publishing house La Trocha and a member of the Mecha cooperative, a project of the Ejército Comunicacional de Liberación. She is co-editor, along with Giordana García Sojo, of the book Venezuela, vórtice de la guerra del siglo XXI (Venezuela, vortex of the 21st-century war) (2020).

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle (with Noam Chomsky), Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism, and (also with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power.

This article was produced by Globetrotter