A history 101 about border walls and why they don't work
A Texas opinion echo published in The Monitor:
Contrary to Donald Trump’s false assertions, no lawmaker opposes border security. A wall is a non-starter because history’s judgment is clear: The time when walls defended people effectively has long passed.
At the dawn of recorded history, humans surrounded their cities with walls to keep out interlopers. But, since bricks burned, cities invested in larger and thicker walls to keep their residents safe. Defeating these walls was no easy feat: Outlines of 2,000-year-old Roman camps near the ancient walled city of Masada show how difficult they were to defeat.
The Chinese improved and extended the Great Wall at the same time.
By the Medieval era, the Chinese invention of gunpowder destroyed any effectiveness walls could provide. Mehmet II used cannons to obliterate Constantinople’s walls in 1453. Bucking history, Ming Dynasty leaders in China renovated their Great Wall, despite the fact it had repeatedly failed to keep out the Xiongnu, the Mongols and pretty much anyone else who wanted to scale it.
Cities have torn down their walls or allowed them to decay, though some still exist as tourist attractions (in Córdoba and Ávila in Spain, Carcassone in France, for example). The Nazi Blitz of London revealed a Roman wall that delights diners at The Grange Tower Bridge Hotel.
Trump’s decision to tout the need for a wall by visiting one of the safest cities in the country, El Paso, is a piece of theater more absurd than anything Albert Camus could imagine.
As one aged protestor said outside the U.S. Border Patrol Station on Jan. 10, “I can’t believe we still have to convince people that immigration is good for a nation of immigrants.”
Gilberto Reyes, McAllen
At the dawn of recorded history, humans surrounded their cities with walls to keep out interlopers. But, since bricks burned, cities invested in larger and thicker walls to keep their residents safe. Defeating these walls was no easy feat: Outlines of 2,000-year-old Roman camps near the ancient walled city of Masada show how difficult they were to defeat.
The Chinese improved and extended the Great Wall at the same time.
By the Medieval era, the Chinese invention of gunpowder destroyed any effectiveness walls could provide. Mehmet II used cannons to obliterate Constantinople’s walls in 1453. Bucking history, Ming Dynasty leaders in China renovated their Great Wall, despite the fact it had repeatedly failed to keep out the Xiongnu, the Mongols and pretty much anyone else who wanted to scale it.
Cities have torn down their walls or allowed them to decay, though some still exist as tourist attractions (in Córdoba and Ávila in Spain, Carcassone in France, for example). The Nazi Blitz of London revealed a Roman wall that delights diners at The Grange Tower Bridge Hotel.
Trump’s decision to tout the need for a wall by visiting one of the safest cities in the country, El Paso, is a piece of theater more absurd than anything Albert Camus could imagine.
As one aged protestor said outside the U.S. Border Patrol Station on Jan. 10, “I can’t believe we still have to convince people that immigration is good for a nation of immigrants.”
Gilberto Reyes, McAllen
Labels: Gilberto Reyes, McAllen, Texas, The Monitor, U.S. Border Patrol Station
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 5:17 AM
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