Walls

A Story by Sharrumkin

Essay about walls

Walls

He only says, good fences make good neighbours.

Robert Frost Mending Wall

When I was young the East German government built the Berlin Wall. That wall built to keep East Berliners from entering West Berlin became a symbol of the Cold War. With its watch towers, barbed wire and armed guards it told me that East Germany was little better than a prison. The Soviet Empire was an empire of walls controlling its peoples. Freedom of movement existed only in the Democratic West. When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 Demolished by Berliners I rejoiced. The west had won the Cold War. Walls were coming down all over the world. The crumbling of walls meant more than just the free movement of peoples. It also meant a greater flow of ideas and the crumbling of totalitarian regimes. Now the walls are rising again. Then came the eleventh of September 2001. Across Europe and Americas walls began to rise. The other great symbol of the time representing the west was the Statue of Liberty.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.

The song of the Statue of Liberty celebrated the belief in personal liberty that lay at the core of Western Democracies. The right to seek out a better life, the right to travel freely, to think freely and to speak freely. Walls stood against that against freedom of movement. That was what the Cold War was about to me. Did this mean that walls were inherently evil? Of course not. They were simply a tool developed as other devices were to serve human needs. In the same way it could be argued that the right to the freedom of movement was not an absolute good. With the masses yearning to be free came criminals and political extremists. But there was nothing new there. The benefits in talents that a society received from a lenient immigration policy more than outweighed the hazards.

There are two purposes to walls, security and control. When early man first gathered brush together to make a primitive shelter he first began to make a wall. Within these flimsy structures mankind found shelter from predators and from the rain. Keeping people and things in or out was the first purpose of walls. The second seems to have developed with agriculture, the marking of boundaries. In pre-agricultural societies, walls, with some exceptions, reflected their builders in being mobile., tents, igloos or simple grass huts. Where permanent food supplies existed as with the tribes of the Pacific Northwest.With agriculture walls became more permanent. The keeping of herds needed enclosures to protect them from predators and to keep them from wandering off. The raising of crops brought a sense of attachment to particular bits of land, and with an attachment the need to protect it. Knowing that the crops were rooted to one spot brought about the building of permanent structures and the need to protect both crops and structures. The art of building walls contributed to the creating of civilization, to the building of schools, hospitals and homes. It also led to the building of slave pens, prisons and extermination camps

Walls are more than a matter of concrete and steel. There must be a reason for a wall. The reason may be motivated by the common good as in the constructing of a protective wall around a village. It may be motivated by the fear of another group as in the construction of a ghetto. For a wall whatever its purpose implies separation: separation of people from one another, separation of people from goods or from a place but always separation. By the end of the Twentieth Century, idealogical and political walls seemed to be crumbling. Then came the eleventh of September 2001, the beginning of the twenty first century.

Minds locked into Religious extremism attacked New York. The lady wept when New York was attacked but she still held her torch high. That was her finest moment. Sixteen years later she still holds it although she is now obscured by the rising walls of ignorance, fear and hate. The words at her base are now being rewritten.

Take away your huddled masses yearning to be free.

Now another wall is being raised, along the Southern border of the United States. Perhaps someday words will be engraved upon the wall.

From California to the Gulf Stream Waters

This land was meant for only me.

Nine Eleven also witnessed one of Canada's finest moments. As American airports were closed dozens of flights found themselves with no place to go. The Canadian government opened up airports across Eastern Canada. Crews sand passengers were taken in, fed, and kept safe until they could go home. It was not done for gain, or for gaining political goodwill. It was simply the right thing to do. Being a good neighbour is not a matter of building walls. It is just a matter of helping when help is needed. Robert Frost knew that as do most people. Good people make good neighbours.