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pldcrl · 9 years ago

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Walls

My uncle wrote a great essay about history and walls. His name is Peter Vella. He doesn’t have an “internet presence” or any social media accounts, so I thought I would post it on his behalf.

Henry Ford said, "History is (more or less) bunk." He was wrong. Just like his timing for the Model A, and his idea that Adolf Hitler was a swell guy, Henry was wrong about history. History gives us a chance to avoid the mistakes that our predecessors made. Recording and studying human events means we will never have to sport mullet haircuts again, we will never think it is someone's right to smoke a cigarette inside an airplane, and we don't need to go to war to stimulate an economy.

Donald Trump’s signing of an executive order to start the construction of a wall along the U.S. Mexican border shouts that the newly elected president skipped a history class or two.

There have been ten or so major walls constructed in the history of the world. The biggest wall by far was the Great Wall of China. Its length varies depending on who you ask. The most famous portion built in the Ming Dynasty measures 8,850 kilometers. A different source claims the entire structure spans 21,196 kilometers. It was built and rebuilt from 700BC to 1644 AD which is longer than it took to finish the Montreal Olympic Stadium. It was meant to control immigration and military intrusion. However, international news agency GB Times reporter, Riho Laurisaar claims “the Great Wall may have been a manifestation of power that put fear into the hearts of barbarian raiders, but it failed miserably when it mattered most". And, “The Great Wall was nothing more than an ambitious project contrived by a vainglorious emperor, trying to make a clear distinction between civilized people and barbarians”. Now that sounds familiar. Today the Great Wall of China is a tourist attraction.

The Romans were usually pretty bright, yet they built (not one, but) two walls in England. Hadrian; the Roman Emperor from 117 to 138 AD was responsible for the first one. It was to” keep Romans and barbarians apart”. The 110 kilometer wall wasn’t working too well so Hadrian's successor Antoninus built a wall north of Hadrian's to supplement the whole process, and get his name on a wall as well. This second wall was like having a mud room to keep cold drafts from coming into the kitchen when you open the back door; except that mud rooms work. The barbarians (Scots) got by anyway. Hadrian's Wall has become a famous hike and today is a tourist attraction.

The history of Jerusalem is a litany of "build it up, and knock it down" by all the major Fertile Crescent state religions and the Romans as well. The West Wall or Wailing Wall in Jerusalem is part of the fortification of the Temple Mount. It was built by King Herod about twenty years before he supposedly tried to kill baby Jesus. The wall around one of the holiest of holy places may as well have had a revolving door on it though. Today it is Israel’s biggest tourist attraction.

The French Maginot Line was not really a wall per se. It was a wall of defence consisting of bunkers strung in a line along the French German border. The bunkers were connected by underground trains and were equipped with artificial sun rooms and gourmet canteens. Built in the 1930s, the line was meant to keep Nazi invaders at bay. However, the Panzer tanks took the Belgian detour route and you could order schnitzel in Paris restaurants a week or so later. The Maginot Line does get tourists, but most of them are German.

If we zip over to Turkey we have the Walls of Troy. This edifice withstood a lot of abuse in a ten year war with Greece about 1190 BC. As the story (myth) goes, those crafty Greeks gave up on knocking the wall down and set up a large wooden statue of a horse stuffed full of soldiers by one of the gates. Curiosity got the better of the residents of Troy and they dragged the faux equine into the secured area. That night the Greek soldiers popped out and the expression, "Duh" was heard for the first time in history. The Walls of Troy are now small sections of stone but are definitely in the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey.

If Donald Trump was a guest on Celebrity Jeopardy he may be forgiven for answering that the Ming Dynasty is a Chinese soap opera, or that King Herod was the guy that opened up that department store in London, or that Hadrian was Rocky's girlfriend, but he should know the story of the world's most recent wall; the Berlin Wall. Built by East Germany (aka the Soviet Union) and eventually covering a distance of 96 miles, “the Wall” marked the region where American and Russian troops had met in their occupation of Germany. After about fifteen years of tense co-existence, the two “allied” victors decided that they would start a war against each other. It was only a Cold War; still, it cost a lot of money, and kept most Europeans awake at night. Starting in 1961, the Berlin Wall became a physical monument to the world’s efforts to avoid a third World War and nuclear devastation. What made the Berlin Wall novel was the fact that it was built to keep people in, not out. This might be the same premise for Trump's next secret project; “The Canadian Wall”. It will be there to keep “Trump Dodgers” from skating across the frozen Detroit River to Windsor, or claiming refugee status when they step off cruise ships in Vancouver or Halifax. The Berlin Wall lasted only twenty eight years and the deconstruction party became lore. This was the only functional world wall that could be witnessed in my (or Mr. Trump’s) lifetime. I did cross it at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie gate. The elevated tourist passage showed me that the Berlin Wall was actually a pair of walls. In between them was the “death strip” consisting of mine fields, speed bumps, ditches, electric fences, and a series of frightening looking steel structures. “X” shaped rough cut metal protrusions with rusting edges were meant to snag would be escapers until they could be shot by guards in towers. Maybe this is where the expression, “overkill” came from.

A beautiful building or sculpture is a testament to the imagination and ingenuity of the human race. The Berlin Wall was all about what ails us; divisiveness, fear, and control. I was there on a gloomy overcast day, and it felt like it was the Wall that was sucking all the light out of the sky. Approximately two hundred people died trying to escape the Berlin Wall. Today it is a tourist attraction.

History demonstrates that only one substantial wall was built in the United States of America; so far. Situated in the city of Boston, the ominous sounding “Green Monster” has been part of the mystique of the Fenway Park baseball stadium since 1912. At almost four storeys high, it was intended to keep non paying spectators from watching the Boston Red Sox games from outside the park. That only worked until television was invented. The Green Monster did serve to keep hits that would have been line drive home runs in most other parks well within the realm of outfielders. However Jose Bautista and a few other players have foiled the Monster on several occasions. Fenway Park holds the Major League Baseball attendance record at 794 consecutive sell out crowds. Many of those would be tourists. Possibly, concerning the rhetoric needed to sell Congress on the idea of the Mexican Wall, Mr. Trump may alter a famous baseball phrase, “Build it and they won’t come”.

The Dutch are known for dykes to hold back the sea, but you may not be aware that they are also responsible for creating a wall that was relied upon to impede the process of millions of invaders. The “modern” contraceptive diaphragm was developed after the vulcanization process of rubber was patented by Charles Goodyear in 1844. Eighteen years later Wilhelm Mesinga not only designed the device but his name would be used on the only brand available for sale for decades. It may be a dubious distinction. Even though one third of American married couples were using the “Rubber Wall” for contraception in 1940, there is physical evidence that the diaphragm was only moderately effective. Some of that evidence may be in the same room as you right now. There are three cities in the world that have been able to advertise a contraception museum as part of what tourists may want to visit; the cities are Toronto, Vienna, and Cleveland.

There were other walls; in places such as Peru, Croatia, Iraq, and Zimbabwe but the recurring theme that comes from this frightfully abridged history lesson is, that large walls do not work as static defense: not for long anyway. It seems the inherent flaw is size. Even if you have tens of thousands of slaves to build an enormous edifice, how do you secure it? A perfectly good soldier is at their post sixty kilometers away from the subverting action enjoying the sunset or playing solitaire on their I-pad.

The total border length between the United States of America and Mexico is 3,201 kilometers; or 1,989 miles for those that live on its north side. There is already 700 miles of security fencing where the Border Patrol feels the majority of illegal action is focused. That leaves a 1200 mile reno. Donald Trump's wall to keep out “drug dealers, criminals and rapists” is going to cost 10 to 25 billion dollars to build. He says he is going to get Mexico to pay for it. That would make his wall historically unique at least. Is it going to be a toll wall?

A wall in this climate zone is going to be hot dirty work to build. Your average American isn't going to want to do this kind of work. So.....why not hire Mexicans. Save them all that travel to do farm work in Ontario or housework in Los Angeles. The trick will be to somehow get them to pay to do the work. That would really secure Don's place in history. But even if he pulls it off, how effective will it be. What about an innocuous bus filled with Mexicans dressed like Japanese tourists; or a giant Trojan Piñata that looks like it just might be stuffed with donuts?

Admittedly there are still large numbers of illegal aliens entering the United States, but the numbers from Mexico have been reduced by more than half in the years of 2008 to 2012 according to a joint study by the University of Texas and the University of New Hampshire. The researchers believe this is due to a drop in the birth rate and the availability of work in Mexico. They go on to suggest that the most recent illegal immigrants are leaving Mexico to “flee violence”. Twenty five billion dollars could go a long way to help Mexico clean up its internal problems, and end the need to escape Mexico for good.

Maybe the whole thing is intended to fail and become a tourist attraction like all those other defunct walls. Maybe there will be a theme park. Speaking of theme parks, the first theme park in the world was built by none other than Henry Ford whose Greenfield Village ironically became a "historical" reproduction of a rural Michigan town site, like the one he grew up in. In his later years Henry spent more and more time strolling around in Greenfield, happy to be in another era than the one he invented. So much for history being bunk.

When the Trump Wall is torn down, like Berlin, there will be a heck of a party. I see a big show with lots of celebrities. The highlight will be the famous Mexican guitarist Carlos Santana playing "Soul Sacrifice" which he scorched through at Woodstock in 1968. Check it out on U Tube. By the way, the walls didn't work at Woodstock either.

In case you were wondering, Donald Trump’s mother was Scottish and his father was German. So his relatives have had experience being on the wrong side of a wall.

#walls #history #trump

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