Ship to Gaza is in Palermo Italy, Gaza soon.

Hello Friends,

Well the Ship to Gaza, the Marianne av Goteborg, is now in Palermo Sicily in Italy. We had a beautiful crossing from Motril Spain, our last port.  Unfortunately I was not able to find time to send any report from Motril, as I was very busy repairing the air conditioning on the ship, which had been officially declared beyond repair by the Spanish repairmen.  Luckily I’m good at resurrecting the dead, so we now have air conditioning, which is crucial, as it is extremely hot and humid.  This old fishing boat form the North Sea was never designed to sail in such hot weather, and neither was I, Canadian polar bears like me do not like a 50 degree engine room temperatures.

Once again, as we are officially a “pleasure craft” we are moored in a very expensive marina surrounded by zillion dollar yachts, which as you can see, try to keep a safe distance from us!!

Many activists in Spain made references to the Internationale Brigades from Spain’s 1936 fight against Franco fascists in comparing them to us going to Palestine. As it happens I helped organize the placement of a memorial stone to two Canadian brothers from Cumberland, Gordon and Archie Keenen, who went to Spain in 36 with the Mackenzie Papineau battalion, where Gordon died at the battle of the Ebro River.  The stone will be unveiled on June 18th during the Ginger Goodwin Miner’s Memorial event in the Cumberland cemetery.  Unfortunately even though I purchased the stone and helped organise the event, I won’t be able to attend, as I was called away to sail on this ship to Gaza.  I’d like to think that Gordon and Archie would understand.  If you have the time please take in this wonderful weekend of progressive labour events in Cumberland.

Here is a rather poor photo of what the stone looks like, but it is the words that are important.

On our way from Lisbon to Motril we passed a huge fortified point of land which was the site of the last  battle of the Republican Spanish fighters against Franco’s fascist forces.  The democratic Republican fighters would not surrender despite being vastly overpowered by Franco’s forces supported by Nazi Germany and fascist Italian fighters and weapons.  So they were actually driven into the sea.

Here’s a photo of myself with the last stronghold of 1939 republican Spain in the background.

One can only imagine what heroic battles took place on this cliff in 1939.  And now today Spain is about to elect a progressive left wing government, so that is evidence that all evil eventually is defeated, as it will with the Zionists in Israel-Palestine.  So we are on to Gaza in a day or so, with one more stop in Sicily and then on to Gaza Palestine.

Bye for now from Palermo.