The most dangerous of walls

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban

No anniversary has been given the celebrations, writings and speeches and wide-scale western interest as the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall on November 09.  A significant number of western officials marked the anniversary in Berlin and many of them made eloquent speeches on the occasion.  Arab, western and international media competed in publishing articles and analyses on the subject.  The anniversary was the cover subject of The Economist, Newsweek and maybe tens or hundreds of magazines throughout the world.  If this is proof of anything, it is proof of the persistence of double standards in Western culture, which considers any event that concerns it an international event, while other, very similar, events in other parts of the world, do not qualify to being ‘international’ no matter how significant for humanity they might be.

The interest in this event reached an extent that made many people, like me, wonder why I do not feel the same enthusiasm for this anniversary.  Why do I not realize the results and implications all these leaders, authors, opinion leaders and analysts talk about?  Even politicians, who are usually reserved in their statements, gave full rein to their imagination to the extent that poverty in Africa has become ‘metaphorically’, a wall which needs to come down; and where restrictions in a certain region and tears and pain in another became Berlin walls which need to be removed.  Even personal pain and loss of hope were likened to the Berlin wall, and hence the call for bringing them all down.  One leader even considered the fall of the Berlin wall a call for fighting oppression, while the US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton said: “A wall, a physical wall, may have come down but there are other walls that exist that we have to overcome and we will be working together to accomplish that”.

What is strange, however, is that none of these politicians, leaders, analysts and those concerned with public affairs saw a wall winding in  the occupied Palestinian territories like a snake because they have shut their eyes with a wall thicker than that of Berlin.  This, despite the fact that the International Court of Justice took a decision five years ago that constructing the wall should be stopped, the constructed parts destroyed and the Palestinians compensated for the damage it caused them.  None of those world figures noticed that the wall separates children from their schools, farmers from their farms, families from their relatives and that it tears apart the social fabric of Palestinian society and constitutes one of the cruelest methods of oppression and injustice imposed on any people in the 21^st century. 

The suffering of people from, Africa to Burma , were highlighted, but not the suffering of the Palestinian people, although it is unparalleled in the 21^st century.  It warranted no mention whatsoever in the whole of Western media.  

No one mentioned the walls built in Iraq between one city and another, one sect and another, using pretexts like security and fear, as if the Arab world in particular, and the developing world in general, occupies a memory which has no link with the memory and interest of the West, although most of the 21^st century walls mentioned by the US secretary of state are American made whether in concept, reality or funding.

Some of these walls were mentioned by US president, Barak Obama, when he said: “Today, the barriers that challenge our world are not walls of cement and iron, but ones of fear, irresponsibility, and indifference”.  The question is: what world is the US president speaking about?  Is it the whole world or the Western world?  For the world of the Palestinians is still occupied by the ugliest and cruelest walls in history, including the cement and iron racial segregation wall, the walls of settlement, ethnic cleansing, judiazation, occupation and detestable racism which reached the extreme of issuing religious edicts for killing children and infants.

Any attempt of bringing two Arab countries, which have geographical and historical ties, closer is faced by extreme hostility by a West which opened all borders between its peoples to the extent that it connected the two shores of the Atlantic with a vibrant air and maritime movement which created a real sense of belonging to a single political, economic and cultural world.

The US president is right in describing walls other than cement and iron ones which exist in today’s world.  These barriers could be more difficult to bring down.  One of the most dangerous of these walls is the real one built by Bush, Cheney and the neo-conservatives between the East and the West which made of the wars on Gaza, Iraq and others walls of crime, suspicion, secret prisons, torture and Judaizing under the title of fighting terrorism.  This gap is the result of a Euro-centrism born with Western empires which once occupied a world on which the sun never sets.  Although these empires shrank politically and geographically, but they still exist epistemologically and morally.  

An event is something that takes place in the West; and interest and concern are awarded to what happens in the West and a news-story is a story told to us by the West.  What happens in other parts of the world might not get mentioned by news agencies and might not be of interest to Western officials, particularly if it does not touch the life of a Western individual or not related to Western economy or a western phenomenon. 

This is the most dangerous wall, which had a real presence after the events of  9/11, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan , and after Western silence regarding what is happening in Palestine , has become a disgrace to the civilized world.

This wall separates a world which boasts freedom and democracy but practices invasion, killing, settlement, house demolition and torture without batting an eyelid while using double standards every day.  Its leaders make speeches on human rights while allowing daily killing of Palestinian children.

Can the leaders who met in Berlin on November 9 visit Gaza in Palestine ?  Can they visit Baleen instead of Berlin to see for themselves what the most horrible racist wall in human history is doing?  Can they know the feelings of a Palestinian when his father, mother or children are killed in front of him without that being considered a violation of human rights?  It is no longer convincing to any one for the West to justify its position by the claim of fighting terrorism, because the results of these policies have increased the severity of oppression and terrorism in the world.

The most dangerous wall in the 21^st century is the loss of Western credibility, the loss of trust between Western countries and third world countries in Asia and Africa to the extent that language can no longer serve as a means of communication between the two sides because Western officials proved again and again that their actions are at odds with their words.

Peoples’ awareness has grown to an extent that they realize the nature of these walls and their objectives and purposes.  They are no longer convinced by ceremonial celebrations and eloquent speeches which exacerbate the loss of credibility.

The 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall was an occasion for the West to show some credibility in unveiling the reality of the racist separation wall in Palestine and the walls of poverty and suffering resulting from a horrible racist occupation which deprives Palestinian civilians of their freedom and land.  By ignoring this stark and bitter reality, they have added to the walls separating their world from ours in the hearts and minds of millions of our peoples.  Are they going to do something about it, or is Western culture still suffering from the remains of colonial arrogance where the world means only the Western world?   If this is the case, when would Arabs too concentrate on their world and make it their top priority far away from Western influences and judgments?

Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She's got Ph.D. in English Literature from Warwick University , London . She was the spokesperson for Syria . She was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.