Compassion undermines the border-wall of separation

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And maybe what they say is true

Of war and war’s alarms,

But oh if I were young again

And held her in my arms

– William Butler Yeats, Politics

When Ghandi decided to protest the salt tax (unfair because it affected the poor more than the rich – they’d lose salt from sweat, and need to consume more) he walked 240 miles to the ocean. He would get his own salt. It was on the beaches, already his, part of the eternal harmony between humans and the earth.

I imagine him on the coast, overwhelmed by the radiance of the light bouncing between the water, sky, and shore. He picks up a tiny lump of salt.

This Saturday, people from Juarez, El Paso, or elsewhere (myself an east-coaster, studying at UTEP) joined together in solidarity at the border fence, just off Sunland Park Drive.

Gandhi’s march and the event at the fence are both expressions of a solidarity that underlies our species. It is the recognition of shared suffering. Gandhi, a practitioner of voluntary simplicity (I see him barefoot, perched precariously from his third-class train car) Gandhi felt empathy for the burden the Salt Tax placed on the poor.

I'm bad at remembering the faces of strangers, especially in large gatherings. But I knew I'd remember the face of the fence. Skewered into the earth, it was sinister, like only a symbol can be. (Miranda Smith/Borderzine.com)

I'm bad at remembering the faces of strangers, especially in large gatherings. But I knew I'd remember the face of the fence. Skewered into the earth, it was sinister, like only a symbol can be. (Miranda Smith/Borderzine.com)

Defending human rights is not just a matter of verbal protest, as Ghandi showed. It’s not just a matter of speaking or shouting from podiums, publishing opinion pieces in newspapers, or the slow work of social reform in a system that may favor the privileged. Gandhi’s walk to the beach did not prove a point, but rather, revealed what is already true: We need salt to survive, and that salt is freely offered by the universe – though this fact was briefly obscured by the Salt Tax.

It was my first visit to the fence, so of course, I got lost. But at last I parked, and stepped gingerly through desert plants hugging the road, wondering if I’d find a group of ten or ten-hundred. And finally, I arrived to find a modest number of windswept figures, rainbow colored flags, the fence, a drum beating. The voice of an older woman broadcast over loudspeakers to both sides of the fence, telling the world about members of her family, murdered.

I would not see most of these faces again. All that would remain of this event- in the material universe- after a day or a week or a month or year, was the fence. I’m bad at remembering the faces of strangers, especially in large gatherings. But I knew I’d remember the face of the fence. Skewered into the earth, it was sinister, like only a symbol can be. (Space aliens might smile knowingly, of course, seeing just an iron squiggle in the sand.)

And though, ten years from now I may not remember faces, I will remember the chorus of “Ya basta!”

In such gatherings- though fleeting and wondrous as a star-studded circus tent- we enact an ideal human community. This community is characterized by the desire to listen: to the cries of those wounded, the voices of families of the deceased. Unexpectedly we hear ourselves, too, crying out in response.

And in the call and response, there is a fierce longing to overcome distance. Physical distance and political distance. We meet at the wall like Romeo scaling the orchard wall of the Capulet household, and like Juliet sneaking onto her balcony. Their reunion is brief but memorable. The heart opens.

News media so often enhances the distance between two communities. We are accustomed to reading about the violence in Juarez in print, to hearing talk of it on TV and radio. The unanticipated side-effect (as the daughter of journalists, I am shy to admit) can be voyeurism. We get used to knowing, but not understanding. To collecting facts, rather than listening to pain.

In a time where individual isolation is the norm rather than community -iPods are preferred over live jam sessions, cars to carpools, and staring at a screen can seem more normal than looking someone else in the eye- I am grateful to the peaceful protest, which looked for all the world like an enlightened society in miniature. A wondrous display of a community, joined by compassion, that exists on our border and will continue to grow as we respond to the call.

Ghandhi journeyed from the to the coast, in the company of his fellows, to reclaim the salt that was already theirs. On Saturday, a few of us from both sides of the fence journeyed from our homes to meet each other at the fence, like long lost friends, or those Shakespearean lovers who long for reunion.

Juliet cried, “The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, and the place death, considering who thou art.” Romeo responded, “By love’s light wings did I over perch these walls, for stony limits cannot keep love out, or what dares love attempt.” The wall, and the fraught political system that it represents, is ephemeral compared to the force of compassion that unites Juarez and El Paso.

The prison guard who oversaw Gandhi’s cell finally declared that he was the prisoner, not Gandhi. Gandhi, in his cell, was the free man.

Those who gathered this Saturday afternoon are the truly free. Those who commit acts of violence are the prisoners.

_____

Borderzine’s editors also recommend listening to a Latino USA audio report on this protest.

2 thoughts on “Compassion undermines the border-wall of separation

  1. I really like your approach to the subject. ¿Are not these gatherings like wars and revolutions, beautiful and breathtaking by themselves, but useless? An spectacle make to be witnessed, make to change peoples minds through contemplation?

  2. Miranda, what a wonder full series of word photographs; a verbal slide show of the moments of the day itself, and of the links of days that join us back to Ghandi and on to whatever will come. I do believe we are at an important pivotal time in the development of our human consciousness. That does not mean that it will be either an easy time, nor that the development will be consistent. It may mean that learning to use the new tools available to us does change us and take us as a species, at least one or two steps further out of the caves. Your work points us in that direction. Thank you. sss

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