Jeff Key

WALLS

With so much in the news these days about building walls to keep people out with physical and legal barriers, I created some pieces that comment on why these obstacles get implemented and the consequences they generate.

Pope Francis, in an audience at the Vatican in 2016 stated, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

Although the Pope never directly referred to Donald Trump, the President felt compelled to tweet in response, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

The Great Wall in China, the Berlin Wall, Trump’s vision of a barrier on the Mexican-American border and now his mandates on immigration policy—only time will tell what effect these structures and policies will have on the arc of history.

As Martin Luther King said in his 1964 Baccalaureate sermon at the Wesleyan University commencement, ““The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quote was so important to President Obama that he had it woven into a rug that graced his tenure in the Oval Office.

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Is it a Fence, a Wall, a Partition, or a Barrier?

Is it a Fence, a Wall, a Partition, or a Barrier?

Is it a fence, a wall, a partition, or a barrier?

The first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang never asked himself that question.

In 220 B.C. semantics was not on his mind—his primary concern was building

the Great Wall to keep barbarian nomads out of his empire.

Ghandi couldn’t figure it out in India, Hitler found his “solution” in Auschwitz,

Khrushchev thought he had all the answers for Berlin, Sharon was buying “peace”

in Palestine, Trump wants one on the US border to keep out “killers and rapists,”

and the Pope says, “It’s not Christian. “

A physical presence or psychological divide inhabits

space located on a plot of land or rooted in the mind.

Fear draws a line, drives the tractor, and constructs obstacles

while loose tongues spill words meant to wound and demean. 

From the mountains of Kashmir, the desert in Gaza,

to the Sudanese savanna, the camps in Kabul and Bangladesh,

and the long march from Allepo—Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians,

Sunnis, Shiites, Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Anarchists—

all gather at the gates of inequity to caucus for exclusion and righteousness.

A shifting timeline marking the arc of history—

A perpetual conundrum riddled with illusion

leaves a trail of unanswered questions in it’s path.