Ever since the start of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign there has been speculation of the possibility of a wall going up on the border of Mexico, however, most people are unaware of the fact that there is already a fence up, and it has been around for quite some time. The idea of the wall was primarily proposed under the Secure Fence Act of 2006 under the Bush administration, with its construction being completed the following fiscal year. According to the abridged version of the text the sole purpose of the border is to “prevent the illegal entry of narcotics, instruments of terrorism, terrorists, unlawful aliens, and other contraband” which makes sense until you actually look up the symbolic importance of a wall.
There are three main internal reasons for building a wall, the first being to establish sovereignty. Now, establishing sovereignty in terms of borders or partitions means placing a concrete object in between two countries, almost like when you were forced to share a room with your sibling(s) and you put a piece of tape in the middle. One side is yours, meaning that what is on your side, is not to be touched or had by anyone other than you. You were establishing sovereignty, or, visibly displaying that that half of the room (and its contents) belonged to you and you only, and that no one could tell you what to do with it.
The second reason for building a wall, is the presence of a “poorer” or less developed country on the opposite side of said partition, which feeds directly into the concept of establishing sovereignty. Sovereignty by definition is supreme power/authority, the authority of a state to govern itself and/or the authority of a state to govern another state.
The third and final reason for building a wall according to Reece Jones of nacla.org, is fear. The fear that the movement of said population could, in some manner, change the way of life within the area in which the foreign (foreign meaning not of said nation) peoples immigrated to. A lot of what is happening now, is a direct result of fear coupled with ignorance. People are ignorant and as a result, have become fearful because they don’t know, or they don’t understand and they don’t want to learn and understand. Symbolically speaking, as history has shown, walls are meant to either keep something/someone out, or keep someone/something in, it just depends what side of the wall you’re on. Take the Berlin wall in previously Nazi Germany, for example. The wall was constructed to keep the oppressed in, and prevent help from those who believed that Nazism was wrong. At one point, we, America, believed that ideologies such as racism, Nazism, sexism, etc. were unjust, but unfortunately, we have come to a point in the history of our country, where we have forgotten what exactly it was that we stand for. Let us not forget, that we are a country of immigrants, with differing religious backgrounds and beliefs than the original indigenous peoples who lived in this area long before Christopher Columbus stumbled upon it (his discovery wasn’t even really a discovery, it was more of a mistake, but that’s a different article for a different day).
I think that in order to rewrite the narrative, to change this series of unfortunate events, we need to ask ourselves some serious questions, and figure out what exactly we stand for.
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” –Thomas Jefferson
