As it is presidential election season, we are once again discussing border walls. From the refrain of “build the wall” during campaign events for the former president to recent reports about Harris’s changing position on the matter, The Wall is once again in the news and on our minds. So, let’s talk border walls.
I have just returned from the city of Berlin—the site of what was perhaps the most famous (or notorious) of all such walls. The Berlin wall cut the city in two, separating it into the GDR east and the BDR west. Erected by the East Germans in 1961, the wall was designed not to keep people out, but to keep them in. And it did this quite well up until its fall in November of 1989.
Border walls—whether designed to hold people in or keep foreign migrants out—divide and separate. They institute a deliberate and calculated cut in the fabric of our shared humanity, dividing us from them. And they arguably work, but the costs are high. Barriers like the Berlin wall were expensive to build, maintain and police. And brave and desperate people—either those held within or excluded outside—have always challenged these artificial boundaries.
During its 28-year existence, at least 136 people died trying to surmount the Berlin Wall and many more have already perished trying to cross our southern border. So before we undertake the task of building new walls, we might want to revisit the history of such efforts. And Berlin is a good place to start.
