The Symbology of Transportation
Posted by Jim Reilly on Sunday, December 21, 2008
Note the associations that different ethnicities have with different forms of transportation.
I'm half Irish, and in the collective memory of the Irish-Americans, travel by ship is mainly positive. For all its difficulty, it was a journey by ship that liberated my Irish ancestors from famine and oppression in their homeland, and brought them to America.
Ships are a dark presence in the collective memory of most African-Americans, because ships were what made possible the oceanic slave trade, which killed and enslaved millions of people. For many blacks, trains, not ships, are the symbols of hope. The movement to help blacks escape from slavery was called the Underground Railroad. In modern times, the creation of a TV show called "Soul Train" reflected that associations with the idea of trains are mainly positive.
I wouldn't expect trains to have positive associations in the Jewish community. Trains were what mediated the Holocaust, bringing millions of innocent people to their deaths in concentration camps. But if trains meant the beginning of the nightmare, tanks meant its end. Elie Wiesel's Night ends with his memory of an American tank standing at the gate of the camp, bringing liberation. A tank is one of the last images in the movie Life is Beautiful, the visible image of a promise kept to a small boy in an Italian concentration camp. That's why it didn't surprise me when I saw a large van in New York City, used by a Jewish outreach group, proudly labeled "Mitzvah Tank."
There is no way that you'd find such positive connections with tanks as symbols among Palestinians. Tanks are the weapon of those that they fight. A tank lumbering into a Palestinian neighborhood is bad news.
So, for Irish-Americans, ships good.
For African-Americans, ships bad, trains good.
For Jewish people, trains bad, tanks good.
For Palestinians, tanks bad. I wonder what form of transportation is good in their symbology?
I'm half Irish, and in the collective memory of the Irish-Americans, travel by ship is mainly positive. For all its difficulty, it was a journey by ship that liberated my Irish ancestors from famine and oppression in their homeland, and brought them to America.
Ships are a dark presence in the collective memory of most African-Americans, because ships were what made possible the oceanic slave trade, which killed and enslaved millions of people. For many blacks, trains, not ships, are the symbols of hope. The movement to help blacks escape from slavery was called the Underground Railroad. In modern times, the creation of a TV show called "Soul Train" reflected that associations with the idea of trains are mainly positive.
I wouldn't expect trains to have positive associations in the Jewish community. Trains were what mediated the Holocaust, bringing millions of innocent people to their deaths in concentration camps. But if trains meant the beginning of the nightmare, tanks meant its end. Elie Wiesel's Night ends with his memory of an American tank standing at the gate of the camp, bringing liberation. A tank is one of the last images in the movie Life is Beautiful, the visible image of a promise kept to a small boy in an Italian concentration camp. That's why it didn't surprise me when I saw a large van in New York City, used by a Jewish outreach group, proudly labeled "Mitzvah Tank."
There is no way that you'd find such positive connections with tanks as symbols among Palestinians. Tanks are the weapon of those that they fight. A tank lumbering into a Palestinian neighborhood is bad news.
So, for Irish-Americans, ships good.
For African-Americans, ships bad, trains good.
For Jewish people, trains bad, tanks good.
For Palestinians, tanks bad. I wonder what form of transportation is good in their symbology?
Tags: "symbology of transportation" "transportation and ethnicities"
