Exclusion Zones
While in the UK in August, I stopped in London for a few days to visit friends
and to see an exhibit at the Tate Britain called State Britain. Mark Wallingers
installation recreated peace campaigner Brian Haws five-year Parliament Square
public witness against the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq and the subsequent
war.
Two years ago Parliament passed a law restricting such protests and public
witness within a one kilometer (three-fifths of a mile) radius of Parliament
Square. The catalogue for the exhibit continues, on the night of 23 May 2006, 78
police officers were detailed to remove most of Haws placards and personal
items. Since then, he has been permitted to occupy a space on the pavement that
measures just three metres by two....On the other side of the street, tourists
take photographs of Big Ben while commuters hurry to work. They appear to be
oblivious to Haw living in the middle of the square, apparently the last person
in Britain to be allowed to protest outside Parliament without permission.
I was reminded of this exclusion zone when I was in Oxford a couple of weeks
later. Christ Church Cathedral is in the middle of Christ Church College. The
colleges restrict access to their physical plants, citing privacy for staff and
students. There is an admission fee to get into Christ Church, even more popular
now because of its association with Harry Potter, and entrance for the public is
limited to the gate opposite Christ Church Meadow. I tried a number of times to
go to the Cathedral outside of regularly scheduled services through the gate at
Tom Tower, on a main street, but was denied access by the bowler-hatted men
staffing the gate. An Anglican priest told the story of being denied access to
the Cathedral through another gate around the back of the College, although he
was finally let in with three of the six people with him. Apparently there is
disagreement between cathedral and college staff around access, cathedral staff
believing that there should be open access to the cathedral as sacred space.
Finding a way to get to the cathedral was like finding a way in, through, or
around Hebrons Old City when gates or streets are closed off by the Israeli
military or law enforcement.
On the third Friday of Ramadan I was reminded of this exclusion zone when I read
that access to Al Aqsa Mosque was denied to a leading imam in Palestine, and
when I saw a photo of men, denied access to Jerusalem, praying at the Qalandia
checkpoint, the major way into and out of Jerusalem on the north.
Five years ago in Hebron I was coming through the Bab ibBaladeyyah as people
were making their way to Friday prayers. Again the Israeli military stopped the
men, demanding their ids for an id check, which technically should take less
than five minutes. Noon approached and the men waited. Shopkeepers brought out
pitchers of water and basins and towels for the men to do their ablutions.
Prayer rugs appeared. The men spread them outside the shops in the shadow the
Beit Romano yeshiva, once a school for Palestinian boys and earlier the
headquarters of the British Mandate in Hebron, and they prayed their Friday
prayers there.
I can hear some friends saying, Oh, Donna, get a life. You finally got into the
cathedral for evensong, didn't you? And yes, I finally got in outside the times
of a scheduled service, to pray in a particular place.
But I am still bothered by what these exclusion zones mean for people of
conscience in terms of free expression, public witness, and freedom to worship.
And that is part of why I wept and prayed when I reached the chapel housing the
Bell altar, dedicated in memory of George Bell who opposed the saturation
bombing of German cities in World War II. Incised in the floor are these words:
No nation no church
no individual is guiltless. Without
repentance and without forgiveness
there can be no regeneration.
George Bell
1883-1958
Bishop, Scholar, and Tutor
of Christ Church
Durham NC
29 September 2007
Michaelmas
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