On p. 245 of the novel Horizons, Ahni Huang declares: "The only way to keep them safe is to be separate. A nation with the power to protect its own." Do you agree with her?
Upon reading this quote, I thought of Israel. The establishment of Israel as an independent Jewish state in 1948 was a way for the Jewish community to feel as though they had a safe haven following the second world war. Although controversial, Israel has served as a safe haven for millions of Jews, housing them in a country that allows for freedom of their religion and cultural tradition. The sanctity of Israel helped the Jewish people recover from the trauma and persecution their people faced through out the majority of human history. Jewish people are constantly at risk of anti-semitism and attack, so having a state like Israel was deemed necessary for their community to survive and thrive. However, Israel has not put an end to anti-semitism in the slightest. The idea of separation for security is something that has been thought of various times in history. Communities crave security and homogeneity; they want to be safe and amongst their own people. Israel has, for the most part, granted that to its people. They have the means to protect their own and maintain and unified community of Jews. Israel is obviously pretty different from the situation in Horizons, but I thought it was relevant enough to draw a comparison between the two. In Horizons, the Upsiders and Downsiders maintain an “us” versus “them” mentality throughout the entirety of the book, and that mentality is also applied to the “evolutionized” people, like Koi. At one point in Horizons, Dane even states that the Upsiders will get used to people like Koi, but the Downsiders never will. Since this mentality is maintained in the novel (and in real life!) it seems like keeping different people separate from one another to guarantee safety is a good idea, but in my opinion, it only leads to further conflict. This further conflict would arise because separation allows the idea of difference and segregation to manifest, leading to people believing the differences are wrong and bad and reason enough for complete division. If people think in such a way this could lead to radical reactions if the separation that was put in place to protect them was ever disturbed. So, with that, I both agree and disagree. I agree because it is true that in being separated, safety will ensue. However, I disagree because it adds another level of foreignness to the difference between people and could later lead to extremely unsafe conditions for those who are different and need to be separated for safety.
1 Comment
12/10/2018 10:32:55 am
When I read this blog question I had the opposite reaction. I thought, history has taught us that separating people based on their differences is a bad thing, usually that separation eventually becomes a genocide. Israel is actually a good example of people who do need to be protected and did so of their own volition, rather than being forced into separation by a tyrannical government. I think the latter comes to mind when reading the book, because the World Council is kind of totalitarian. Even though there are those that are comfortable living side by side with evolved people, others who hate them will probably never come around, especially if they believe their safety is at stake. In some cases, there is no overcoming prejudice, whether it is deeply rooted Anti-Semitism, or bias against evolutionized people. One thing I noticed in this book is that there wasn't a lot of diplomacy going on, the main characters knew they had to protect their interests and themselves by violent means.
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Hey there! I'm Halle Jaymes and I'm a first year SIS student from Southern California. I'm hoping to focus on Europe as my region of study and hone in on sustainable fashion and general fashion in International Relations. Archives
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