Building Bridges
Over
the past two weeks, in perfectly timed theater
ahead of the mid-term elections, a fleet of
trucks have been dragging in massive
shipping containers and placing them along a
remote, 10-mile stretch of the Coronado National
Monument in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. The
double-stacked containers are supposed to fill
gaps in the US-Mexico border wall. Arizona
Governor Doug Ducey ordered their installation
in response to what he calls “inaction” by the
Biden Administration to stop undocumented
migrants entering from Mexico.
The
stunt has led to a legal face-off between Ducey
and the feds. From an environmental standpoint,
the makeshift wall damages public land and
jeopardizes wildlife. It blocks a key corridor
for endangered jaguars and ocelots and
other migratory species. But in addition to
that, as Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center
for Biological Diversity told The
Intercept: “It’s designed purely
to foment or promote more fearfulness among
Ducey’s racist followers so more of them will
show up and vote because they’re afraid of the
invasion from the south by brown
people.”
The whole fracas has had
me thinking about walls, in both physical and
metaphysical terms, and of how relatively easy
they are to build compared to bridges. As with
many environmental organizations, we at Earth
Island are engaged in a long racial reckoning
process, as we seek to create a more equitable
and inclusive organization. For the past several
months, staff and leadership have met in an
earnest attempt at this reckoning, and let me
tell you, we are running up against walls all
the time. Walls each of us have created to
protect ourselves from things we fear — failure,
pain, criticism, othering… the list is
long.
Some of us are now finally at a
stage where we are learning to come out from
behind those walls. That work is hard enough
alone. But to then build bridges across our
differences? That is going to be so much more
difficult, especially if we allow fear to rule.
In the months ahead, I hope we have progress to
report. For now, I can say there is a process,
if not progress.
More broadly, I’m
wondering if this is not the challenge
of our times — for all of us, Ducey and his ilk
included. How can we break down all these
walls and build bridges instead? 
Maureen Nandini
Mitra Editor, Earth Island
Journal
Photo by Mark
Autumns/Unsplash
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