Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” which begins “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,…” can be read on many levels. Have we learned from historical precedent? Many empires have tried to build walls, yet all have failed in time.
In a recent article in the NYT, it is noted: “Amid the optimism of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall should surely have marked the apogee of wall building, to be replaced by the free movement of ideas across national lines, exemplified by the nascent World Wide Web — in Thomas L. Friedman’s words, “the walls came down, and the Windows came up.” But today, there are actually more border walls than during the most tense periods of the Cold War. Rather than becoming more “flat,” in Mr. Friedman’s telling, the world increasingly looks like a steeplechase course.
“According to the geographer Elisabeth Vallet, there are more than 50 border walls (using the word broadly) in the world today; 15 were built last year alone. These range from the 600-mile barrier Saudi Arabia is constructing along its border with Iraq as an anti-Islamic State measure to the sturdy, 13-foot-high fence backed with razor wire that Hungary has erected along its borders with Croatia and Serbia to stem the flow of migrants to the “separation barrier” built by Israel in the West Bank (like other countries, Israel steadfastly avoids using the word “wall”).”
Saudi Arabia’s Northern Border Security Project, also known as the Great Wall of Saudi Arabia, about 600 miles long, was built by Airbus Defence and Space to keep Islamic State militants from entering Saudi Arabia. CreditFayez Nureldine/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
So as our world views, religious views, economic concerns, and attitudes toward immigration take a firmer fearful stance, saying “good fences make good neighbors” seems to ring quite hollow.