http://www.dailycardinal.com/article/10244
While I was a student at UW-Madison, the cafe I worked at became the target of some pretty intense feelings by many members of the community. The issue was artwork, drawings created by Palestinian children that reflected their understanding of the world around them. It was common for local artists to display shows there, no different than any other coffeeshop in any other city. The manager's choice to display the drawings of those children as an art show had nothing to do with any political sentiments held by her or any members of the staff, but within hours of setting up the display, the complaints started coming in. Directly behind the building was a Jewish community center whose visitors often spent time at the cafe, and it was this organization that felt targeted and insulted. The graphic nature of many of the drawings may certainly have been a factor, but to my knowledge the only complaints that were received had to do with the politics of choosing Palestinian art, which in some cases may have painted Israel as oppressor.
Although the intent of the show was to portray messages of social importance, the perceived political insult was enough to force an end to the display, along with continued boycotting of the cafe that lasted for months, in many cases permanently. The choice of a small business manager to support local art ended up revealing another way in which walls continue to divide people.
The choice was seen (inaccurately, but no matter) as a political alignment, and as such, a reaction was put in place that acted to bring about economic damage to the supposed perpetrator.
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
Thank you for sharing this story Alexis. It made me think about how we as current/future teachers can use our experiences to engage students, and find close to home events that makes the ambigous Israeli/Palestinian conflit more real and understandable. Students,I am sure, can understand what it means to have loyalty to something, and feel aligned within a certian group... relating this to how someplace like Madison (thousands of miles away from the Middle East) had to deal with the dynamics between these two groups of people or rather the ideals that stand behind them.
ReplyDeleteI experienced something similar with the girlfriend of my friend She is Jewish and has strong familial ties to Israel. She strongly identifies with the Zionist thought and movement. My friend told her that he was voting for Obama, and immediately she started attacking him, claiming that by voting for Obama (a supposed Muslim), he would be voting for the end of Israel as a state and that he is voting for the mass murder of Israelis, and by that choice, he is saying that she and her people have no right to a state or existence. She has never lived in Israel, yet she feels strongly threatened by a president who has never claimed to be Muslim, nor spouted Anti-semetic language. This wounded identity goes deeper than even I thought.
ReplyDeleteIt is sad that eventhough these groups of people do not get along, they cannot rise above their differences for the benefit of their children. In class we were talking about the likelihood of children not harboring as much hate as their parents and grandparents, hopefully leading to peaceful interations. However, after reading this article it became obvious to me that these children aren't being shown any other behaviors rather than hate. Unfortunately, I believe that we are all products of our environments and so therefore these children will probably continue the actions exhibited by those people around them. Thanks for this story Alexis.
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