The barriers between us

In an era when freedom, democracy, free trade and globalization are the mantras of the day, there’s a good deal of construction going on that runs counter to these overly bandied about terms — Walls. Or fences, or ‘separation barriers’, ‘peace walls’ or ‘apartheid walls,’ depending on your political perspective, as well as how rigidly you hold to the proper definitional terminology of structure. But we can all agree such structures are meant to keep people out. That’s been the purpose of walls ever since stones or logs were piled together to ward off the neighboring tribe. Walls have left us with some great historical monuments, but since the Berlin Wall came down to much fanfare in 1989, walls were supposed to be confined to history. Instead more are going up, though none with the aesthetic grandeur of the Great Wall of China. Concrete, sandbags, pipes, barb wire and metal