THOSE WHO BUILD WALLS... THOSE WHO BREAK WALLS







Bruce Barton’s poem – ‘TWO SEAS IN PALESTINE’ – once again, appeared before my mind, today. “There are two kinds of people in this world… There are two seas in Palestine.” Yes, this is how the poem ends…

Every time I read or listen to this poem, I am challenged to ask this: “To which kind do I belong?”

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who build walls… and those who break walls!

At 7:30, this morning, as I opened our house door to leave for work, TOI newspaper was placed outside the door. In a hurry, I just glanced through some headlines… “Donald Trump, who hasn’t even taken his oath, was bragging about building wall – “Nobody builds a wall like I do… I will do it inexpensively… and I will make Mexico pay for it, mark my words!”…. And, there were his provocative statements about Germany, NATO, Russia and the whole world for that matter…. “What a kind of leader he is?” I regretted pausing for those few seconds to read the headlines… That was not the news I wanted to read, early as I was about to start my day… and, that’s not the way I wanted to live life…. Building walls… through constant confrontations… by shamelessly bragging about myself…

I remembered whatever had happened to Hitler and his so-called ‘Superior Aryan race’… the mighty wall that divided Germany… I remembered Mussolini and Sadam Husain… I remembered Lenin and Stalin… I remembered Idi Amin and every despot on this planet…and, I asked: “Do we ever learn from the history?”

Donald Trump will never listen to anyone, mark my words. He will do only what he wants to do… Including ‘the Wall’. Because, he belongs not to the Sea of Galilee. He belongs to the ‘other sea’… ‘the Dead Sea’!

When I reached my office, I chanced upon a video shared by my friend, Sandeep. It was ‘The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. The host made  some young men and women speak their heart s out at the portrait of Michelle Obama hung on the wall… They had to tell her (portrait of Michelle) what difference she, as the First Lady of America for eight years, had done to their lives… “I will wait for the day we speak for a leader or a leader’s wife like this,” Sandeep had written while sharing the video… Those were moving testimonies from all types of individuals about their country’s First Lady, who was now stepping out of the White House…

Did Obama and Michelle build walls? To which sea did they belong?

Bruce’s poem is timeless. There shall always be these two seas in Palestine… and there shall always be these two kinds of people in the world…

And, yes, yes… there shall always be a choice to make for all of us: TO WHICH SEA TO BELONG!

God ‘bless’ America… God ‘bless’ Donald Trump!

Did I mean ‘SAVE’?


GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Anil Bedi

Comments

Amit Gupta said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
January 21, 2017 at 3:31 AM
Amit Gupta said…
Happy New Year 2017, Gerry sir;

I believe Donald Trump is God's effort to treat us all to be humble; every adversity has in it an opportunity...He is also here to test the integrity and popular will of this great democracy. The journey is panning out exactly how it was meant to be :-)

Warm Regards,
Amit
January 21, 2017 at 3:33 AM
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