By Falah Maroun, For original article, click here.
Save for the sporadic spikes of terrorist attacks and the delivery of mother earth bad dreams, the major international news has been dominated by the unfinished story of the Mexico/U.S. wall particularly more in focus since President Trump campaign election.
This should not surprise us since the history of walls though entertaining and in part fascinating is as old as our Homo Sapiens existence.
The art of building began in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and was considered a sacred duty to fulfill by every citizen.
The erection of houses and walls was accomplished by fragile bricks needing frequent revisions. The purpose of these constructions was meant to protect people, food and animals.
The first wall was created 4,000 years ago and was located in Syria separating the cities from the wasteland. It was 100 miles long and was known as the very long wall (Trés long mur) or TLM for short. Barriers, castles, fortresses, bunkers were also included as primarily defense walls. There are 37 listed ancient and medieval walls including the Great Wall of China and the Hadrian wall on the England/Scotland borders. Eleven of these are part of the UNESCO heritage site. Thirteen other modern walls are listed.
Among them are the well-known Berlin wall and the U.S./Mexico one.
Most of these walls may have served some temporary benefit but all at the end failed to achieve their permanent goal. For some reason, the Spartans were the only people who viewed sleeping in walled cities to be a sign of cowardice.
The present revival of wall building at the end of the 20th Century and mainly at the beginning of the 21st Century is quite complex and multifactorial.
At the root of it is the migration, a common feature of human beings looking for security and greener pastures. As the dictum goes “fight and stay in your homeland or flight and migrate.”
With overpopulation (8.5 billion in 2030) coupled with the changing climate resulting in drought, water becomes an essential commodity. In simple terms, the East is forced to move West.
The big flood of migrants coming from nations ruled primarily by totalitarian regimes has brought with it new problems. A status of ethnic and religious tension and misunderstanding is thus created resulting in social unrest. Who said that globalization is the ideal solution for human coexistence?
Name it the “clash of civilization” of Huntington or the “deadly identities” of Maalouf, we are still away from the real symbiosis that people dream of.
Building walls with bricks, iron or laser is not the issue but creations of walls at the human soul level is frightening.
As the Dalai Lama points out in his last book “A Call for Revolution” talking to the youth of the world: “break down the remaining walls of shame, not least those that have been erected in your minds, walls of selfishness, walls of nationalist pride, of the cult of individualism, of pride and greed. Everything that divides belongs to the past.”
Good luck and until we get civilized, remain human and repeat with the Canadian astronaut talking from the space station “up here there are no boundaries between nations.”
