fenced in

Now Saudi Arabia, like India, is building not one, but two separate border fences on different fronts. The first is on its southern border and is intended to try and get its illegal immigration of 400,000 people a year from neighboring Yemen under control. The second, far more ambitious one, is along the Saudi border with Iraq and is an attempt to prevent Islamist extremists in Iraq, both Sunni and Shiite, from exporting their violence and doctrines back into Saudi Arabia.

However, modern barriers are not just about orders for barbed wire and concrete: They are also about night-vision enhancers and sensors, and every kind of high-tech electronic gadgetry to detect explosives, weapons, drugs and whatever else terrorist organizations and drug gangs try to get across closely monitored borders.

It seems like border fences are popping up everywhere in the world. I hadn't thought about this much beyond the border fence under construction on my country's southern border. The justification for these walls is to keep things perceived as bad out of the home territory.

For some reason it made me think of the Berlin Wall. It was built to keep things, and people, in - not out. It was just as much of a survival technique then as it is now for a society. East Germany was labeled a closed society for many reasons, including the wall. If we continue to wall ourselves off can we be fairly called a closed society?

It doesnt seem to me that closed equals healthy. When I walk into a closed up room the first thing I notice is the musty dead air, and I open a window or a door to let new air in.

When I have a scrape, it heals more quickly when I dont bandage it, but let it have contact with the air.

My business is more successful when I leave the office and meet people, or pick up the phone and call.

I guess my point is that walls concern me as a policy solution. It has a lot of negative impact and feels unnatural.

unless it is the battle of helmsdeep, then I am totally pro-wall.

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