This installment of the logbook is dedicated to getting to know the captains who come from far away and are with us on the flotilla. Karina is from Brazil, from the São Paulo region. She has a 17-year-old daughter, is a teacher, and came here because she felt she had to do something direct and meaningful. We asked her a few questions, and here’s what she said.
What does it mean to you, a Brazilian, to make a choice like this, with all the financial and emotional costs that come with it?
My name is Karina, I’m Brazilian, but my great-grandfather was an Italian from Parma; unfortunately, I was unable to obtain Italian citizenship due to the law recently passed by the Meloni government, which prevents those with an Italian grandparent from receiving citizenship if that grandparent was not born in Italy. I decided to come here because for two years we have been suffering greatly in Brazil, witnessing a genocide live, a brutal form of colonialism unfolding before our eyes.
We Brazilians have endured colonialism for 500 years, but it’s shocking to see it firsthand. In Brazil, I work in sailing; I have a sailing project for minors who live in a favela and would never be able to get involved in this sport due to the costs; instead, we try to offer them the best courses.
I’m not an expert on Palestine; I wasn’t a militant, a historical activist, but I began to explore this topic after meeting Thiago Avila at a university meeting in São Paulo and at a cultural center run by Palestinian students. I was able to attend a seminar by Ilan Pappé, and I learned more about the situation in Palestine, the long struggle of this people against Israeli colonialism, and I decided to do something about it myself.
How do the Brazilian people and activists view what is happening in Palestine? Brazil, let’s remember, condemned Israel and expelled its ambassador, and President Lula can no longer enter Israel. How do you feel about all this? Are you afraid for your safety if you are arrested and detained in Israeli prisons?
Brazil is a very large country, and we have been following what is happening in Palestine even though we are very far away. The Brazilian government has acted alongside the South African government within the BRICS to condemn Israel’s colonialist and genocidal policies, also because, as I said, we experienced all the harmful effects of colonialism during the period of Portuguese rule. This is precisely why there is such solidarity with Palestine in Brazil.
I have my own life in Brazil, a 17-year-old daughter, and I have to work to support her, so this decision was quite difficult for me, but I wanted to make it to demonstrate a solidarity that knows no boundaries. Of course, I’m a little scared, not so much at the idea of being intercepted as at the idea of being detained for a long time, because I would lose my job and my life would become very, very complicated. However, the Lula government gives me security and a sense of protection. I would never have left if Lula had been replaced by a right-wing government like the one we had with Jair Bolsonaro.
