Reading Response 10

I'd like to continue Monday's unfinished conversation regarding the Peace and Freedom Youth Forum. This is the first time I have heard of this group and I am extremely impressed, both at the group's ingenuity and overarching purpose. I like that the group permits any message, save for explicitly offensive slurs. This allowed freedom of expression has multiple effects. First, it allows the forum to transcend a limited conflict and instead take a general and encompassing platform for individual expression, even if that expression is mere levity or personal messages. This allowance symbolically destroys the wall. Where political graffiti maintains the wall as a symbol, this group relegates the wall to mere idle and blank space. For all intents and purposes, the wall could be any random urban alley wall. Finally, avoiding censorship (except in extreme cases) ensures that the group does not devolve itself into the behaviors of prohibitive Israeli (or militant Palestinian) forces. At its heart, this movement is a strong example of direct democracy.

The sums drawn from these message and their destinations also represent the group's noble aims. However, I feel the Dutch involvement somewhat diminishes the group's standing. Of course, I do not know what economic/political factors resulted in the charity's Dutch incorporation. On one hand, the multinational approach has the same effect as no censorship; it draws the group's message out of a narrow framing. The group is designed to benefit the wall's victims, though, so I feel that some effect is lost by not making the group a wholly Palestinian operation.

I am also conflicted by the Banksy videos. His work is certainly admirable and a worthy addition to the political art already present on the wall. However, as the "old Palestinian man" noted, the wall is not a chic easel. Banksy may come in for a week, send his videos to British news agencies and then leave. What understanding does he have of the wall's greater context? Perhaps I am being cynical; however, I have a hard time doubting an action so publicized was truly done out of pure altruism.