"The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down."
We will not forget your words, Senator Obama. We will not forget the walls still standing, the walls yet to be torn down. In Gaza and the West Bank; in Baghdad, Mosul, Fallujah; along the U.S.-Mexico border fences separate friends and family, create enmity, harm environments and economies, fuel injustice.
From AP--a child peeks through a hole in the wall in Rafah...
School children in Baghdad (photo source unknown)
School children in Baghdad (photo source unknown)
Iraqis protest neighborhood blockades (photo source unknown)
( And read today's Inside Iraq post and Skies for Iraqi views of walls)
2 comments:
In the spring of 2007, I visited the wall, erected by the U.S. government, at Naco, Arizona. From that visit, I wrote this poem:
The Wall
Naco, Arizona 2007
Expecting an offense, you’ll find an
invitation—the wall, thin and mottled
as the jaguar it couldn’t keep out.
A wall to discourage only
the lazy or ill, it culls
the herd. It calls, “Come in.
Come over. Bring your beautiful
young backs to our overgrown
gardens, dusty homes and fields glowing
red with berries in midday sun.
“Bring us your desperation, the hollow
reed of your hope. Bring us
the wild, prowling hunger of
your homelands, yearning for dignity,
for a place in this world.
“We light the lamps of a thousand
searchlights, a desert sun by night.
We greet you with well-fed young men and women,
one, two or three generations beyond
yours, whose mothers, grandmothers
fled the heat of wars, the hunger borne of
another’s greed. We greet you
with young men and women, whose skin,
the same copper or bronze as yours, prowl the desert
like predators, armed with English
and American birth certificates,
Pase adelante—come in,
if you can.”
Rebecca del Rio
P.S. The formatting may be changed by the Blog. If you want a formatted copy, you know where to find me.
Dear Laura, you know how to let us view walls from a holistic point of view...thank you...are you failiar with that album of Pink Floyd intitled Walls or the wall? sami
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