Defiant Gardens

Sometime in the last year I read a news article about some prisoners at Guantanamo who were cultivating a garden. Using spoons and saving seeds from vegetables they got in salads (and we all know they're eating like royalty) these men had managed to grow a small vegetable garden in that harsh environment. I found that story very moving. I have not heard any more about it, so I do not know whether or not that garden continues.

Then last month I read an article by Robert Fisk, entitled Our Need For Beauty in the Midst of War about the almost impossible existence of flower markets and balcony gardens in Beirut and Baghdad. In his essay Fisk noted the publication of a new book, Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime by Kenneth L. Helphand. I was happy to find it at my local public library and have been reading it.

There is so much in this book! The author mainly covers the first half of the 20th century, including WW1 "trench gardens" (grown by soldiers who were literally in the trenches), gardens in the Jewish ghettos of Eastern Europe, gardens grown by P.O.W.s -- civilian and military -- during WW1 and 2, gardens in the Japanese-American internment camps, and then he touches briefly on today's urban gardens, reclaimed from city lots, as well as examples from the first George Bush's Gulf War.

This book is both scholarly and poignant. It is a powerful testament to the stupidity and wastefulness of war (when will we ever learn?) as well as the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. It also illustrates again (and I think about this a lot with regards to children) how connection to the natural world is a basic human (and probably animal, although God forbid we should think of ourselves as animals) need.

I believe the heads behind the military machinery in any war are aware of this, and use it as a tool to crush the spirit of their adversaries. That is why the Nazis closed public parks to Jews, even before everyone was herded into the ghettos. That is also why the Israeli military bulldozes hundred-years old Palestinian olive and lemon groves; beyond destroying a source of material sustenance it is trampling on someone's heart.

Again and again throughout the book, Helphand emphasizes that creating gardens in hostile situations is ultimately an act of resistance against oppression. It gives me chills (and makes me want to get out into my garden.)