The Alliance Française in Ahmedabad organised on 6th August - Saturday, a screening of the documentary 'The Walls of Shame' made by Thierry Denis & Guy Ratovondrahona. This documentary screening complements the photo exhibition Walls between Men that opened on 5th August 2011 at ATMA - Ashram Road. The exhibition is based on the book “Walls Between People” written by Alexandra Novosseloff Doctor of Political Science, researcher and specialist for the United Nations and maintenance of peace and Frank Neisse political advisor in Kosovo who has participated in several peace maintaining operations. The book and the exhibition 'Walls between people' focus on 8 walls namely the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, the Green Line that divides the island of Cyprus, the Peace Lines in Northern Ireland, the Berm, a wall of sand that crosses the Western Sahara from north to south, the Barrier built between the United States and Mexico, the Barbed wired Fence around the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta in Morocco, the Electrified Fence along the Line of control between Pakistan and India, the Wall between Israel and Palestine. The book explores perspectives and challenges of the everyday realities of people living on either side of these walls and provides a geopolitical analysis of the situation.
The movie 'Walls of shame', ('Les murs de la honte' in French) explores three of these 8 walls. The barrier between USA and Mexico, the wall between Israel and Palestine and the Berlin wall or rather the fall of the Berlin wall. Interviews with people living alongside the walls and complemented by interviews with international political analysts, the movie is at once empathetic and analytical. While the experiences of the people along the border gives you a human perspective to the situation the analysts give you the complexity of the political climate.
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| Wagah Border (India- Pakistan) - Closing Ceremony |
The wall between Israel and Palestine was opposed by a majority in the United Nations and it still exists, the USA and Mexico barrier has been responsible for the death of over 3000 people trying to cross it but the wall still exists.
Walls, concrete, barbed wire, electrified are concrete representations of the barriers in our minds, of the rejection of possible amicable solutions, they represent a state of hopelessness. Like the Palestinian artist says at the very beginning of the movie
"I heard once that in Japan the bars of the jail are made of roses, still its a jail, even if you have golden bars to your cell, its a jail... anything that will stop you from going where you want to go, without any reason but because of who you are is a jail"
To conclude an excerpt from a poem that made a lasting impression on me as a child that came back to me as I was watching the movie:
Mending Wall - Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
..........
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
..........
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Do 'Good fences make good neighbours'?
Do watch the movie, visit the website here.
16 comments:
Love the post. :) what it says and the questions it throws open. :) Well written :)
P.s. As always, love the links :)
Thanks babe! Do you think Good fences make good neighbours though?
No. :) I think fences are automatically a barrier. :) Barriers are never good. :) But maybe it allows people to feel a false sense of security. :) Hence its there. :) But with the walls present, we are spreading a reason to be afraid, to hate. :)
In an ideal world, somewhere in the evolved future our sense of identity and security would be beyond boundaries but until then fences will have to do the job. And I believe the world is a reflection of what's going on within oneself(collective unconscious in the working)...
Good Fences do however make (pain in the butt)Neighbors Invisible, even if they don't make them go away...
I love this post babe!! it tickles the practical and philosophical in me:-) I agree with what anonymous says about the world being a reflection of whats going on within.
I cannot live without these walls. Without walls my sense of self becomes clouded. I wouldnt be able to think clearly, but then again what is thinking or seeing clearly without the presence of others. How can you build walls with a new born or someone you love? and yet, Freud seems to think walls are natural defense mechanisms that we build and rebuild with situations and people, and i couldnt agree more. I do think however that we need to become conscious about the walls we build and make mindful efforts to break them or ease them down with a drill, one wall at a time. I believe that when each of us do that it catapults into breaking of those bigger walls between countries that you mention. So a more poignant question from all this rumination for me would be, which wall do i choose to drill through today? :-)
Again, Love your post SO MUCH babe!
@ Anonymous,
Thanks for reading.
For me boundaries and walls/fences are not the same thing, when you put up a physical structure in what way are you changing the boundary?
Boundaries should exist, I agree. What you are saying about making neighbours invisible is another question for me... is making them invisible a solution?
Hey A!
Glad you liked it. I love that you are asking proactive questions: Which wall do I bring down?
But I am wondering the same thing as I did with Anonymous.
Is boundary and a wall the same thing?
Does making the boundary a wall not mean something more?
i think they are the same things or rather on the same continuum.
So, i think, if boundaries are a must then walls come up when we are not conscious of what boundaries we are setting up and way :-)
Boundaries and fences...Potaeto Potaaato...
Same thing called differently, this ofcourse is my opinion. Though, I see that you mean barriers as taking boundaries to the extreme and making a positive thing negative. But I have a problem with boundaries in my personal life too. I don't know when they become fences...and when I let the boundaries slip away and let people take advantage of me. I tend to make everything about the individual,a reflection of what is going on within the self.
I of course loved your post because it provokes thought...
Well invisibility tends to work fine for me. I tend not to seek solutions to all problems...
Anonymous and A!
I see your point! I like the same continuum thing A! I think I almost agree! :-)
I agree with them being ambiguous, in personal life especially, as pointed out by Anonymous.
Though I am pretty idealistic about the walls between countries thing. I feel in today's day and age there should be none at least none that come in the way of basic human rights!
So glad for these discussions! :-)
Thinking again you so have a point there A!
Liking the continuum hing more and more!
Well...I do think that good fences make good neighbours..Im not sure about my stand on this in terms of international relations but aleast personally, I look at it as a way of defining a relationship. I do tear them down eventually but to begin with, i like the fences.
Love the post and love that you are blogging!
I had read this poem back in childhood and I still remember it at times. But the "walls" of the poem are not in Berlin or Jerusalem; it can be said that these walls came up because the notional ones were not put up when needed. When we need to respect the other individual's freedoms, we expound our world view instead. When we see people behaving differently, we criticize them. This applies as much to the liberals of the society as it does to stodgy conservatives. We need to let each other be, unconditionally be there for each other's bad times and invite everyone for the parties we throw. That, I think, is the Lennon-ian utopia. And it needs paper walls just as much as it needs imagination.
'This applies as much to the liberals of the society as it does to stodgy conservatives. We need to let each other be, unconditionally be there for each other's bad times and invite everyone for the parties we throw'
Totally agree with that El Scorcho. Welcome to this space and Thanks for sharing your opinion.
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