Wall of Separation

By Dee Allen

Its name is displayed on petitions circulated online, in people’s fondest memories.

Eight months passed and mourning persists over the loss of a great square of soil popular with locals housed and un-housed.

Change came to sidestreets off Telegraph Avenue–Dwight Way, Haste Way, Bowditch Street—January 3, 2024. University of California Regents decided people should lose a piece of Berkeley.

A piece of my Anarchist past I used to visit for events. Daily food servings from Food Not Bombs, always free and herbivorous. Mardi Gras celebrations—colourful costumes, beads, masques, gigantic green frog float on wheels—HOPPALEUIAH! Festive anniversary of blessed land’s liberation from the Regents’ greedy grip, hard-won on the

streets, clashes with police at the university’s foot, Summer 1969. Native American drum circle, live bands on the painted wooden stage, dancing on open grass, poetry, gardening tutorials. From past revolt, these short blessings. Good times that were mine—

Local legend says Julia Vinograd—late jester hat poet from the late, lamented Cafe Babar—was a regular visitor on the land. Often she blew soap bubble trails into an open void joyously—

What stands in its place?

Rusty Corten steel enclosure. Two levels of stacked shipping containers. Real-time Tetris structure 17 feet high. Flood lights, Apex security guards, metal NO TRESPASSING sign. The land sits idle, clear behind imposing new wall of separation, alien to Berkeley’s no-nukes, anti-war, eco-sustainable, peace-loving bohemian character.

Wall of separation in the Middle East—splitting Israel from what’s left of historic Palestine—may not share those traits. Al-jidar goes against the 1967 “Green Line” surrounding Israel and international law. Built at the height of Al-Aqsa Intifada. Approximately 34,000 miles. 435 miles long, 26 feet high—Israel’s expression of hate. No guards, flood lights or prohibition signs.

What the other wall of separation shares are these: Assimilation of the blessed land into the system’s framework, humanity and land forced apart. Both discourage people’s right to return.

On an unseasonably warm afternoon in late February, my friend and fellow writer Debby Segal and I took a brisk walk through Berkeley, from U.C. Berkeley’s Art Museum and campus of different, transplanted trees, straight on through Telegraph Avenue. As always, Telegraph bustled with college students and older locals that hit up its convenient shops and restaurants. A race of willing consumers.

On our way past Mars Vintage Clothing and Rasputin’s Music, in the direction of Amoeba Music, my eyes bulged in utter shock at the gross steel monstrosity where the blessed land used to be. It’s reported that the walled-off land awaits construction offor 1100 beds. Debby and I walked far away from the ugly thing that played a prison wall part so well and secured a glorious future for someone—unlike me.

I long for the day that wall of separation sees dismantlement and removal. Container by container.

Regents of U.C. Berkeley

Have chalked up a victory

Keeping all the People’s

Out of their own Park.

_________________________

W: Hiroshima Anniversary 2024

[ For Whitney Sparks. ]