The palindrome I wrote is inspired by an interview I saw by a CIA officer (Amaryllis Fox), in which she states during a debriefing of an Al-Qaeda soldier, the terrorist told interviewers about all the films Hollywood releases about the “small scrappy band of rebels” who always fight against a “technologically advanced invader”. He said, “that to us, to the rest of the world – you are the Empire and we are Luke and Han.”. Fox also states that when you get on a humane level with them and ask them what motivates them they say the same things as the soldiers do – “hope for their children”, and “specific policies that they think are unfair”. Both sides want freedom and they each have policies, but what Amaryllis Fox argues is that unless your enemy is a psychopath and as long as they are depicted as such by the government and media – war will never end. However, “if your enemy is a policy, however complicated” you can work with that and change rather than commit murder. Ultimately, during war “everybody believes that they’re the good guy”, and from contrasting both perspectives of the rebels and soldiers I believe I displayed this message.

I enjoyed writing this poem, it alludes to the message of both sides essentially fighting for the same idea – freedom. I also feel like the palindrome I made continues to fully express what I want to say which is that both rebels (or terrorists as most of us see them) and soldiers think they’re Will Smith, fighting against the alien invaders in Independence Day. This juxtapose can be seen through lines such as “Giving freedom to rebels” (line 2) from the soldier perspective, and “Rebels giving to freedom” (line 18) from the rebel’s perspective. These two lines are also ironic, because in the second line, soldiers are taking life to obtain freedom, while in line eighteen the rebels (knowing they are outmatched) are laying their lives for freedom. Overall, the title of the poem “Juxtapose Freedom” coats the overall theme of the poem from laying down irony in both sides, to contrasting the same message with a different perspective.