LAND _TO _PLENTY
After watching last month Wim Wender’s «Land of Plenty» it was inevitable seeing the world through Lana’s eyes, with a mixture of precautious satisfaction and ingenuous optimism. Somehow the reconciliation of opposites (in this particular case Lana and Paul) seemed to me the result of a hazardous happening more than a diplomatic procedure, which clearly engaged a process of progressive brightness in the way they both perceived their differences. Though facing the opportunity to say something about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, as an architect, can be perhaps the same type of challenge that Wender’s faced in the realization of this movie.
«The film is based on the hope that truth is not an altogether lost notion in today's political and social realities. Even in America, even in 2004», Wenders said.
Well, in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict I would hope that the truth would be revealed. Even the most remote truth, beside all accusation and victimization, beside the horror off the holocaust and the ethnic ravage that led to the endless violence. And the only way I can see this happening is not through the words of the conflict intervenients but on the actions off their everyday life.
In this sense we challenge their compromise in the dispute of the land by introducing in the battlefield a third intervenient – the careless tourist. Neutral players to the conflict that can confront Israeli and Palestinians with the irrational process of aggression-reaction and make the real objectives of each part come to life.
The dispute of the land only makes sense for the sionist partisans, as it can be the only way to ensure a permanent source of wealth and richness. On the other hand, land for Palestinian people only makes sense, as it can be the guarantee of a nation, the land of their culture.
In this way tourism can be the hazardous event, the chance that leeds to a peaceful cohabitation between these two people – israeli and arab. Maybe leaving behind the opportunity of wealth and economic growth the native land and resources which Palestinian culture so richly preserved. The land should no longer be the battlefield, but instead the great leisure resort, no longer filled with panzers but with caravans, the land that can no longer be divided but united for a common goal of prosperity – THE LAND TO PLENTY.
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