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Peace lines or apartheid walls?
Kat Barton
Last month, over a thousand Iraqis took to the
streets of Baghdad in
protest at the building of a
separation wall in the poor,
mainly Shi'ite neighbourhood of al-Washash.
It is not the first wall to be
built in the city: the US military
 which regards separation walls
as a centrepiece of its strategy to
end sectarian violence in the area
 began construction of a three-
mile, 3.6-metre-high concrete
wall in April and are currently
in the process of erecting more
in at least five other Baghdad
neighbourhoods.
However, in a country where
inhabitants are usually too paralysed by fear of violence to venture out onto the streets, October's demonstration is a clear
Peaceline dividing Falls Road from Sha
sign that opposition to the wall
is strong.
The use of separation walls in
modern conflicts is hardly a new
phenomenon. The wall separating Israelis from Palestinians is
the most well-known, but several other walls around the world
fulfill similar functions.
Partition
In 1989, India constructed a
security barrier along the frontier with Pakistan, and in 1983,
Morocco built a massive 1,500-mile, three-metre-high barrier of
sand and stone to separate itself
from the Saharawi people  who
for 30 years have lived in tents
as a result of Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara.
In the 1990s, Saudi Arabia
unilaterally began constructing
a barrier on land disputed by
Yemen, and in Cyprus, the UN
sponsored a security fence reinforcing the island's de facto partition.
Closer to home, so-called
"peace lines" in Belfast have
been used to separate Protestants
from their Catholic neighbours.
Safe behind walls?
Proponents of such walls argue
that they are a necessary evil
which ensure the safety of one
side or another and enable residents to feel safe from the risk of
terrorist attacks.
According to Ben Thein, writing in the right-wing Middle
East Quarterly, as a result of
Israel's wall, suicide attacks on
the country "declined 75% in
the first six months of 2004
compared to an equivalent period in 2003".
In addition, physical barriers
between opposing groups are
perceived as a means of creating
a space in which stability can be
restored, as is the case in Baghdad.
Supporters of separation walls
claim that in places such as
Northern Ireland, the resulting
decline in terrorist attacks have
allowed diplomats to resume
negotiations for peace.
It seems that for some at least,
as Robert Frost wrote ironically
in his 1914 poem "Mending
Wall": "good fences make good
neighbours".
Which side are you on?
In each of the cases where a separation wall has been constructed, it is described as a temporary
measure: for defensive purposes
only. But in reality, such walls
inevitably  and sometimes, no
doubt, intentionally  serve
other purposes as well.
In the Israel-Palestine case,
the Israeli-built wall severely
encroaches on Palestinian land,
effectively re-drawing the border
lines, and enabling Palestinian
land to be appropriated by
Israel.
For the Palestinian people, the
consequences of the wall Â
which the International Court of
Justice ruled to be a violation of
international humanitarian law
and human rights law  have
been devastating.
Thousands of homes have been
destroyed and much of the population finds daily life impossible as they are simply unable to
get to school or work, or to
access essential water resources,
health services and fertile land.
One needs only to read the
accounts of those who have visited the West Bank to understand
the impact that the wall is having  both economically and
socially. Even Tony Blair, on his
recent visit to the region, was
reported to be shocked by the
reality of what the wall means
for ordinary Palestinians.
Barriers to peace
Further, examples of the use of
separation walls have been
revealed as counter-productive
to the process of building peace.
A Guardian study conducted
in 2002 showed that in the case
of Northern Ireland segregation
between Catholics and Protes-
tants living near "peace lines" in
Belfast had actually grown worse
since the 1994 ceasefire, a period
in which the number of "peace
lines" doubled.
Despite these and similar
findings, in Northern Ireland
today, 40 "peace lines" remain,
with new ones still being built.
Some of these, as in Palestine,
cut through schools  areas of
shared space which are essential
if peace is to be created in the
long term.
Even if one were to accept the
view that separation walls can be
of limited use in creating short-term stability, the fact remains
that as Michael Wardlow, chief
executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, said recently: "the reality
is that if walls go up, they don't
come down."
So why do separation walls
continue to be a feature of mod-
ern-day `peacebuilding'?
In the Dragh neighbourhood
of Baghdad  formerly a wealthy
area where Sunnis and Shi'ites
lived side-by-side  it was the
residents who demanded that
US forces put up a barrier to
protect them from gangs in
nearby Washash and Iskan.
Quite clearly, it is fear that is
motivating residents to make
such requests. But as history has
shown, policies driven by fear
rarely, if ever, bring lastly peace
and security. The polarisation
caused by what is actually a
form of "spatial apartheid" solidifies group identity, making it
ever harder for communities to
live comfortably alongside one
another.
Walls came tumbling down
In the West Bank last month,
one hundred Palestinian and
international activists gathered
 as happens every week  to
protest against a wall that is
regarded as a "terrorist fence" by
the Israeli government and as an
"apartheid wall" by Palestinians
and many observers.
Meantime, however, the Israeli
government has recently confiscated more Palestinian land near
Jerusalem for the purpose of
building a segregated road, literally underground, for Palestinians. Israeli settlers will be
able to commute back and forth
from the territories without so
much as having to see a Palestinian, essentially making Palestinians all but invisible.
Of course, making a "problem" invisible does not make it
go away. In fact, a policy which
tries to contain problems rather
than address them is likely to
exacerbate things further still.
Whilst relationships between
different communities are clearly stifled by separation and segregation, it is at the very interface between these communities
that positive social relationships
are formed.
What is needed is for an environment to be created whereby
people can imagine what it
would be like if the metaphorical walls came down. Ultimately, erecting physical barriers can
never contribute to that process.
Kat Barton is joint manager of the
Quaker Peace and Disarmament
programme.
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