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Rezé students writing for peace

"Heads against the wall"...

They went to Jerusalem,and their text has been carved on the partition wall

Tuesday 10 May 2011, by Gérard C. Webmestre , François Nutchey

Young people studying in a technical high school in Rezé ( near Nantes in the western part of France) are working for peace with their teachers.

Their idea was, with fellow partners of Abou Diss high school (in Jerusalem suburbs), to write a peaceful poem to be carved on the wall, as below:



Heads Against the Wall


 


What are they waiting for


All these men who don’t shout ?


To be delivered like


Some outlaws from prison?


They don’t get no “Shalom”


Only loathing and scorn.


 


What are they hoping for


These women who don’t laugh?


For their soul to be freed?


Their body, their spirit?


They are begging “Salam”


They get answered “rifle”


 


Ô walls without skylines


Instantly they can turn


Habitations to cells


Populations to flocks


Countries and lands to jails


Neighborhoods to ghettos.


 


Illusory ramparts


Not one of these bastions


Or of their avatars


Has fulfilled its design


For sooner or later


Peoples defeated them.


 


Neither Hadrian’s wall


Against the barbarians


Nor the wall in Berlin,


None ever killed the hope


In a brighter future.


 


Our heads against the wall


Writing is our weapon


Fierce is our struggle.


Our words be to this fence


Those Voltaire once issued


Against the Bastille walls.














Four students Andréa, Clément, Gaëtan, Fakri with their teacher and town councillors went to Jerusalem at the begining of May , to bring this message on behalf also of their fellows Stéphane, Benjamin,Assyapaud, Quentin, Jérôme, Thomas, Loris et Yann.

And they wrote this poem on the wall in three languages: french, english and arabic.

This action received a financial aid from 4acg.

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