Occupation. I wonder what feelings emerge as people think of this word and what it means.
Is occupation always bad? Are there examples of occupations that have been successful or worthwhile? Or, is it always an evil that we should resist, whether we are the occupiers or the occupied? How would you feel if you lived under an occupation?
These theoretical questions could bring about a lot of good discussion. When my plane touched down in Tel Aviv, Israel, I immediately made my way to the Bethlehem, Palestine, in the Occupied territories. Since 1967, Israel has occupied Gaza and the West bank, including East Jerusalem. Palestinian quality of life has continued to deteriorate under the occupation, as Israel controls their every movement. Human dignity, the right to life, and rule by law are constantly ignored by the occupiers everyday in this ‘Holy Land’. But that isn’t the ‘news’ you will hear about in the USA.
For a month I lived and worked in the Occupied Territory. I heard many stories about the occupation from a variety of sources, and I will share some of their stories.
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Background about the trip
I will be traveling and doing service work in three continents: Africa, Asia (the Middle East), and Eastern Europe. I left home on February 4th and will arrive back at BWI on August 1st. I am not with any sort of program- I just decided that this is what I wanted to do, so I bought a plane ticket and contacted different agencies in these places. Some responded, and some didn't. But, I have set up different volunteer opportunities in several different countries, and will travel overland to each of these places, taking only two planes-one from Africa to the Middle East, and then one from the Middle East to Eastern Europe. My funds have come mainly from money that I have saved up, but several people have generously given me some money to help cover some of the costs.
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About Me
- Ray
- I am a Christian- a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
1 comment:
Occupations vary. Good occupations? Occupation of the South during Reconstruction. Occupation of Germany and Japan after WWII. These last two resulted in stable democracies with two of the largest economies in the world merely a few decades after the political, economic, industrial and transportation systems of the countries were completely destroyed.
Bad occupations? East Timor. Iraq. Japanese occupation of Manchuria (well, for that matter no Japanese occupation from those years that I've heard of could be called "good") Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Soviet 'occupation' of Eastern Europe.
So it's a mixed bag. In general people being occupied don't like it even when the occupation does turn out to have been for the good. That's not always true though. The occupation of West Germany by the US, France and the UK after WWII was certainly rather popular (given the alternative).
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