 11 Aug 2006 @ 05:41, by John Ashbaugh
Fences: August 10, 2006
Imagine the day when there were no fences on the North American continent. Pick any continent you want, or pick ‘em all. We are all surrounded by fences, with corridors of asphalt threading our cities together. When someone wants to get-out-of-town, they follow one of those corridors to its remote end lost in the forest or the prairie, or the desert or wherever it leads to that is not another city. All of the cities are one city, attached to the wilderness through a few loose threads. No one goes through the wilderness from one city to another. One goes back and forth on the road between the city and the wilderness. The road within the city extends through corridors that have nothing to do with the wilderness except in so far as the latter is background scenery. When the horses are unhitched from the chariots, those chariots shall be essentially useless, likewise their asphalt corridors. Where will be the places that one will go, to and fro? As the corridors become meaningless, the fences will fall into disrepair and irrelevance. Communities finding each other and themselves through trusting relationships shall last forever, and the others are marking the path of mutually assured destruction. Keep a candle burning for your friend in the darkness.
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Gloucestershire
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Kansas
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Montana
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Colorado
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Oregon
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between the Israeli town of Kfar Saba, and the Palestinian town of Qalqiliya just two kilometers away
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Artists without Walls
Israeli and Palestinian artists have come together to create "Artists Without Walls", a permanent forum for dialogue between individuals engaged in all fields of art and culture.
Bound by our mutual respect for human rights, our opposition to the occupation and to terror of any kind, “Artists Without Walls” strives to develop models of cooperation, putting ‘humanity’ back at the heart of our agenda.
We firmly believe that no side of the conflict can have peace as long as the other side lives in fear and distress.
We further believe that the true values of equality lie in the meeting of one side with the other, that the normalization of ‘daily living’ can dissipate the hatred and aid in forging a road to peace.
Concrete, steel and barbed wire cannot contain the spirit of hope, faith and the belief that we are all human beings.
The Separation Wall now being constructed in the West Bank is a monument to failure and a testament to pessimism. The Wall aspires to bring security to Israelis by separating Palestinians and Israelis. In practice, however, the real separation that the Wall creates is that between Palestinians and their families, jobs, hospitals and schools. Furthermore, the construction of the wall is expropriating land and houses owned by Palestinian people. In effect, this is a wall of occupation.
Freedom of movement, freedom to reach work places and educational institutions, freedom to access medical and health services are basic needs tantamount to giving citizens a sense of ‘security’, a sense of ‘peace’.
The segregation and confinement of people is only another step towards alienating Palestinians and Israelis from one another and dehumanizing the conflict. When one ceases to view the other side as made out of individuals with hopes and dreams, violence becomes much easier and the results are tragic for both sides.
Through nonviolent and creative actions, “Artists Without Walls” will seek to eradicate the lines of separation and the rhetoric of alienation and racism.
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How long and how high and and how far into the horizon are our walls?
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