Thursday, August 1, 2013

Defying the Apartheid Wall


The Great Wall of China is far more effective as a tourist attraction than it was an impediment to migration or invasion. It was a deranged, imperial scheme which took the lives of millions of workers to build. But barrier walls continue to go up all over the world to enforce apartheid & obstruct the human rights of immigrants.

Some of these monstrosities are made of chicken fencing, cement blocks, concrete. The US bolsters the US-Mexico wall with high-tech surveillance equipment & drone aircraft. All of them are guarded by armored vehicles & military personnel with racist attitudes.

But where there is such tyranny, there are always rebels. Even the malignant Janet Napolitano (then Arizona Governor) said about the US-Mexico barrier wall, "Show me a 50-foot wall & I'll show you a 51-foot ladder.” Here Palestinian men queue up to cross the Apartheid Wall near Ramallah to avoid the Israeli-controlled checkpoints where they face harassment, humiliation, abuse, & denial of entry. There are reportedly thousands of Palestinians making these “illegal” crossings every day to get to “illegal” jobs in Israel. Apartheid is an ugly thing; rebellion against it a glory!

(Photo by Abbas Momani/AFP)

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