Walls divide people and cause mayhem

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.

Michael Commane

 I lived in West Berlin in the mid-1980s, indeed not too far from the infamous Wall that divided the great city between East and West. West Berlin was an island city inside the territory of the German Democratic Republic or more commonly called, at least in Ireland, East Germany.

These days Aer Lingus and Ryanair have daily flights from Dublin to Berlin and Ryanair also operates a twice weekly Kerry Berlin service.

When I lived in Berlin there were no international flights in or out of the city. Getting to West Berlin was an adventure. Travelling from Ireland meant flying usually to London then to a West German city and from there to West Berlin. 

If you went by train it meant travelling on second-rate rolling stock. The train would stop for a lengthy period at the West German/East German border where the locomotive would be changed from an electric to an old Russian-built diesel locomotive.

Walls divide people, destroy cities and cause mayhem for everyone.

I saw it with my own eyes in Berlin. My job regularly took me to East Berlin.

Every time I crossed into East Berlin I saw the pain and suffering in so many faces as they crossed that Wall in fear and dread.

Of course I’m thinking of Trump and his attempt at executing his election cry ‘Build that Wall’. 

While the Berlin Wall was more or less functional in that it did divide people one from another, it still was not one hundred per cent fool-proof. Eventually it came tumbling down.

Trump’s Wall, on his own admission, will not go from ocean to ocean, instead be erected in specific places. In other words, a nonsense wall. Yes, cosmetic but at the same time capable of causing suffering to people.

Anything that divides people, any structure, physical or mental, that keeps people apart is detrimental to our wellbeing.

Brexit too is a wall of sorts. Surely it is an attempt in some form or other at cutting people off from one another. Walls separate people. Walls inhibit cooperation, they prevent the free-flow of movement and ideas. With walls one ‘crowd’ can easily get the wrong idea about the other ‘crowd’.

The EU is not perfect, like all organisations it always needs to be checked but surely the European Union has played a significant role in enhancing and developing a spirit of unity and prosperity across the European continent.

It is ironic that Hungary played such a significant role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and now it is erecting barriers to keep out migrants. In 1989 it was the Hungarian government that cut down its 240-long kilometre electric fence with Austria, which allowed East Germans escape to the West via Vienna.

We seem to be living in frightening times, times of distrust and fear. And it’s we who have elected the leaders we have.

Last Sunday week there was a discussion on the Anne Will Show about Brexit. It is one of Germany’s most-watched television programmes. The guests included two German politicians, an English MP and a ‘Guardian’ journalist. A large part of the programme concentrated on the Backstop. I kept wondering why there was no one batting for Ireland on it. A bad slip up by our Department of Foreign Affairs.

Maybe another sign that we too have vestiges of a walled-in mentality, which prohibits us from looking beyond the horizon.

People who build walls, people with wall mentalities, are frightened people and need to be challenged.