http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/images/map_big_eng.gif
Before I could write about the wall being constructed, I needed a visual to full understand what I'm working with. The link above is a map of Israel and Palestine, the wall that exists now, and the future plan for the completion of the wall. As I looked at the map, I couldn't help but think about the children involved in this dilemma. Being that we are in the urban teaching program, it is important to me to think about the various children I am going to have in my classroom. I thought about the environment these children are being raised in, the hatred that is being fed to them, and the continuation of this tragedy.
I remember as a child sitting in my fenced in back yard watching my neighbors play in their non fenced in backyards. I would watch them run back and forth all over the neighborhood (our yard was the only one fenced in), playing and having a good time, feeling completely trapped in my yard. For some reason I felt like I was the one who was on the outside, looking in. Thinking about this experience as a child made me think about what the people involved in this mess are feeling. Do the Israelis feel like they have a right to be there? How do they handle knowing that they are occupying the homes of Palestinians who were forced out? Do they feel guilty?
Looking at the map evoked very depressing emotions from me. First, I thought about the success of the wall. Second, I thought about the nonverbal messages being sent between the Palestinians and Israelis...with a wall being constructed how can peace ever be achieved? Is it is a physical barrier that is carried over with emotional effects? If peace is ever achieved, what will be done with the wall?
ok it's Iraq but it's interesting
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Here is a link to a blog put up by Morgan on a different Blog. There are a
number of entries that tie more to your topic than theirs. Enjoy.
16 years ago
I grew up in neighborhoods without fences. As an adult, the first house I ever bought was in a fenceless neighborhood. After a few years, I sold that house to my brother and he was "forced-out" a few years after that when the formerly tranquil and friendly neighborhood found itself completely transformed into a ghetto.
ReplyDeleteI drove through that Minneapolis neighborhood the other day and found it quite depressing. I remembered living there as a fine, happy time, but seeing it now brings no such feelings to mind.
Every house on the block now has chain-link fence in the front yard - some of them are tall - maybe six or seven feet tall. It looks terrible - almost like a prison camp. I wondered if it was even legal to put up such high fences and found out that it isn't.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/inspections/docs/fences.pdf
Since dog fences and toddler fences need not be more than three feet tall, clearly these fences are there to keep unwelcome people out. I wonder how many unwelcome people must have come in before these fences popped up.
For my brother, after one lunatic threw himself through the front door in a drug-crazed stupor, it was: sell the damned thing - take a big loss - I don't care - get my family out of here NOW!
He moved to Wisconsin. Not Hudson - well east of there.
Why not just build a fence?
It's nice to have options. Economics provide opportunities and the lack thereof. He could leave and he did. Those who can't leave build a fence.
I have always found fences and residential walls to be depressing. How sad that people feel the need to hide behind them. I have had this same feeling in many cities, towns and villages that I have visited around the world. I always felt proud to be from the US where I had never felt the need to live behind walls and fences. I still don't, and I hope that doesn't make me a dying breed.