The Wall, Random Thoughts on a complex word

In ancient times like when we did not have flush toilets, that’s approx. 5000 B.C. to you, walls were perceived as structures that acted as insulation from the elements very often in circular structures, houses in today’s terms, that also housed their animals. These houses with inner and outer walls protected them from wild animals, the unknown, the outside, the predator, the aggressor, even the boogieman and helped them to feel more secure in an unruly world.

The Great Wall of China originally built in the 7th century B.C., present structure form 13th century was built as a fortification to protect their civilised society from the marauding nomadic invaders.

Hadrian’s Wall built around 140 A.D. was not there to block or close off the northerners from the south of England but to control and tax these enterprising people.

The word wall has many interpretations and is woven into the literature and folklore of many cultures. It’s a strong word, loaded with history, memory, innate knowledge, connotations etc. and has developed into a powerful iconic symbol with a broad clutch of meanings as our politicians are well aware off!

In our present world the word wall has come full circle and now exists also as a divisive political tool to exploit and satiate the masses. We hear threats of walls being proposed on the border of Mexico and around the world. On the edge of townships and even built to divide cities, not forgetting gated communities including their high perimeters. Throughout Europe the wall has popped its ugly head once again as a tool to enhance power, first in Hungry and then beyond.

Walls are perceived as hard solid structures, impenetrable, isolating, dividing, disrupting and dare I say manipulative, particularly the word. The alternative to this solid structure is porous open and opaque structures marking space, as lines, ditches, dykes, fences and openness, which act as pressure control facilities that stimulate and at the same time control movement.

Today the word ‘wall’ has accumulated a multiple diverse cache of meanings. It’s an iconic word as ‘just another brick in the wall’, a divisive tool used for political purpose and still encompasses all the old and used meanings.

In a rapidly expanding world of seven billion people, collaboration, cooperation and participation are a critical component of a dynamic world. But a volatile world prone to disaster and now ‘climate change’ causes increased mass migration as never seen before and needs less ‘wall’ and more openness. Diversity is the essence of a sustainable and vibrant society and can be facilitated by more open structures not closure or isolation. We need to take this word ‘wall’ from our politicians, subvert the guts out of it and reinvent it in other contexts, positive ones, now that could change the world.