Can Divisions be Healed?

Looking back to move forward

It feels as if the divide between people in the US and other places in the world is becoming so entrenched as to preclude any possibility of healing the breach. There are two sides. The specific issues seem to fade, leaving nothing to discuss other than simply declaring which side is yours.

I have been thinking about the research and books by Beatrix Flatt, whom I met almost ten years ago. Since then, she has hiked a long section of the Green Belt in Germany, where the Iron Curtain stretched for forty years. She interviewed people on both sides of the line seeking to discover how they have dealt with reunification after the boundary was summarily removed in the early 1990’s.

We discussed it at length in this interview she so graciously granted me a year ago.

For forty years, people, sometimes members of the same families, had been completely separated from one another, with absolutely no contact permitted.

She published a book about her experiences, Borderless: Encounters along the Green Belt (Grenzenlos: Begegnungen am Grünen Band). She has published another book titled Grenzenraum: Encounters on the Oder and Neisse after riding her bicycle through areas along the Oder and Neisse rivers in Germany, Poland, and what is now the Czech Republic.

The people interviewed had experienced the transfer of a large population of Germans out of what had been Germany and a large number of the Polish population into that same area after the borders were moved in 1945. That move happened so quickly that the Germans had to leave behind most of their belongings, which became the belongings of those Polish refugees who had been expelled from the Soviet Union and resettled in the former German territories that were awarded to Poland after the war.

Trixi’s next bicycle trip will begin this summer, spanning nine weeks starting in Northern Finland. She will make two more bicycle trips covering the entire former Iron Curtain in the two years to follow. My understanding of her agenda in all these trips is to look for ways that people who had been enemies, separated by an impenetrable boundary for forty years, or had been physically displaced from one side to the other, have sought to reconnect once the boundary came down. Maybe there are things that can be learned by talking with ordinary folks who have experienced decades of division and then found themselves confronted with the need to find some sort of path to allow them to live together.

I am both discouraged by the reality of divisions and hatred so intense that they may never be healed and encouraged by glimpses of hope, however small they may be. I remember a story about a farmer who always saved the best of his crop and did not consume all of it so that he would have seeds for the next year. Each year, his harvest was the best. He would give the best seed to his neighbor farmers so that they also had good quality harvests. As a result, his grain was pollinated by the good-quality grain of his neighbors.

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I have no illusions about the ability of people deeply entrenched in a particular narrative, that of their tribe, to magically become open to new information, to the narrative of the opposing tribe.

I am also not willing to let go of the possibility of a better future, one that is inclusive rather than exclusive of others.

One of the ways Trixi told me that the people on both sides of the former border are coming together is around the unique ecology of that space, mostly undeveloped for many decades allowing wildlife to thrive without interference. “The European Green Belt, a former barrier, now serves as a vital habitat and migration corridor for a diverse range of species, including large mammals like bears, wolves, and lynx, as well as various plant and insect species (Google). ” People with a history of enmity are working together on something of great value. That history is alive and well in them; no fiat can make it go away. They have chosen to get their hands dirty together on something that will benefit each of them as they seek to build a healthy and sustainable future. It is hard and sometimes frustrating work but it is worth the effort.

I asked Trixi about one of the projects along the Green Belt that she had told me about. Here is her reply:

“Do you mean the river pearl mussel? There is a river pearl mussel breeding centre near Hof in the border triangle of Bavaria/Czech Republic/Saxony. The young mussels are so sensitive to environmental pollution that they can hardly survive in the rivers. This is why they spend their first years in the mussel breeding centre. A few decades ago, this mussel still lived en masse in small rivers. They continuously purify the water and their presence is also an indicator of the cleanliness of the rivers. Without human help, the mussel would probably already be extinct. Species extinction is at least as big a problem as climate change.”

In the process of working together they are building relationships across the divide between them. They cannot change the past, but they are choosing not to be trapped by it. Reaching across boundaries to build relationships is the only way for people on both sides of the divisions to survive without destroying one another.

I need to be clear. I do not want to project a false equivalency relative to the divide at the moment in the US. In the past days, by fiat, trucks destined for food banks that support thousands of working families in Kansas City have had their en-route shipments cancelled. Container ships have been stopped in place from delivering food to populations in the world who need it to survive, at the same time devastating those in the Heartland who have produced the food who are being denied the payments they are due. Life-saving medications have been cut off to vulnerable populations in the world that have depended on them. Thousands of workers are being fired without cause, losing their and their family’s livelihood.

I cannot accept those actions as victories to be celebrated.

For those in need of hope, here is a community focused on nurturing the flora and fauna along the Green Belt.

The Destination is Now,

Peter