For your interest and that of your readers I want to share a link to a lecture by Wendy Brown, a professor of political science at the University of California, which she gave at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

http://www.resistnetwork.com/research/interviews#Prof_Wendy_Brown_-_Why_do_people_desire_walls

In the lecture she explains why walls and fences basically do not work.

“The list of walls she gave is absolutely alarming, especially considered that she focused on the ones that have risen since the much celebrated fall of the Berlin Wall: the U.S. border with Mexico and the Israeli West Bank barrier (these two share high technology, sub-contracting and they also reference each other for legitimation), Post-Apartheid South Africa’s internal maze of walls and check point, Saudi Arabia concrete structure along its border with Yemen, India’s reinforced border with Pakistan and Bengladesh, Botswana’s electric fence along the border with Zimbabwe, the wall between Egypt and Gaza, etc. But also walls within walls: gated communities so popular in the U.S. (in particular in Southern Californian communities living closer to the Mexico border), walls around Israel settlements in West Bank, walls around the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem and the walls that partition the city itself, the triple layer of walls around Spanish enclaves in Morocco, the wall of Via Anelli inside the Italian city of Padua that separate white middle class with immigrants living in an “African ghetto” (i’d recommend Italian readers the documentary Stato di Paura, you can find the trailer here), the Baghdad wall built by the U.S. military, etc. The list goes on and on and the analysis Brown makes of the phenomenon is thought-provoking. I can’t recommend enough the audio file of Prof. Brown’s lecture.”

Reprinted from “Why Do People Desire Walls?” Regine Debatty, June 22, 2009 9:39 AM; http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010021.html