When A Wall Is Built….NEVER AGAIN!

Whenever a government wanted to either isolate its citizens from outside influences or prevent a foreign invasion, a wall was built. The Chinese built the longest wall on earth, Europe has had walls built around towns (medieval age) and even the early Wikings had walls around their villages. Castles were surrounded by walls to protect from “the pitchforks” and so were Christian Convents. In America, Forts were surrounded by palisades. Building walls has always been seen as the most appropriate way of either confining or protecting people. I grew up in Germany after the war. While I was a kid in West Germany the country went through the aftermath of WWII. Germany was divided  into allied zones. Americans were in the south, French had the west and the Brits had occupied the north, and the Russians held the entire east, including East Berlin. While the western allied forces were working towards an orderly release of government to German authorities, the Russians never had any plans of giving back the eastern zone. Instead they started a new country, The German Democratic Republic (DDR). It became a satellite country to the Soviet Union and was systematically robbed of its resources and put under a dictatorship of the Socialistic Unity Party (SED) It was all other but democratic. What had been the Gestapo under Hitler became now the STASI (Staatssicherheitsdienst) in the new state. And of course, the Russian-led DDR government started to build a wall through Berlin “to protect its citizens from western capitalism propaganda and influence”.  I don’t know whether they ever realized that the wall did not prevent western news from its free flow into the east.  Instead, it was dividing families and friends and cutting off any trade across the border. It became the biggest drama and tragedy in Germany after the war. And the Russians didn’t only build a wall through the city but also set up a country-wide border line fortified with barbwire and mines, and guarded by border guards trained to kill people who did not believe in their shrewd anti-western propaganda and  attempted to cross the “Iron Curtain” into the west. Around 800 DDR-escaping citizens have been killed, some execution-style, at iron-curtain borders which led into freedom. I don’t know whether there has ever been a more tragic border in the world, but it made me the most freedom-loving person.   Pictures of a post-war Berlin after the city was divided by a wall.                         By Swedish Photograph  Bernard Larsson   “Bernauer Strasse” w. wall and closed-off windows   Before those windows were closed people escaped the east by jumping down into the street which was West Berlin                                      Make-shift wall                      Hiding the view to “Reichstag” building                                 Young boy with a toy pistol Listening to a self-destructing bigot idiot of a U.S.- Presidential candidate talking about building a massive wall towards Mexico is making me sick to my stomach, even though I know it’s never gonna happen. It’s just one of his crazy sick NAZI fantasies. The mere fact that he now received an “endorsement” of the American Nazi Party, is hopefully making even his most eager supporters realize what kind of fools they have been to even consider him as their president. And if not they qualify as Nazis themselves. Walls may have filled a purpose when wild hordes of enemies were lurking outside, ready to kill and destruct, but walls have outlived their time. Today, our world is facing global problems none of which can be solved by building walls. No country should build a wall towards its neighbours. Instead, every effort should be made to be on friendly neighbourly terms and encourage trade and mutual exchange. Nationalism has never been a way to increase prosperity.