Dear Wall,

Unless you're providing structural support, we've always been taught you're bad. I remember watching the Berlin Wall come down and the ensuing jubilation and gushing commentary. Politically, socially and individually, the consensus is you're a negative thing, Wall. There should be no barriers, within reason, between countries, ethnicities, rich and poor. And individually we must always let down our guard in order to have meaningful relationships. But there is a kernel of an idea that has been forming in my mind these last few years - a terrible, treasonous idea. I'm a Liberal. A Canadian. An enlightened being with a heart and conscience. I'm supposed to be the good guy! These thoughts should not enter my mind. But they're there, swirling and threatening to multiply like bacteria in a petri dish. I will never admit this to any of my left-of-centre friends. And at dinner parties I will continue to extol on the evils of Harper and Bush - for I truly do despise those guys. But this idea brands me a traitor to everything I have believed in and held dear. The idea is this: maybe you, Wall, are a good thing. Maybe you're even a necessity. Maybe the grand human experiment of co-existing on this planet has failed. Maybe we need to build a lot more of you, Wall, strong and thick and high. Maybe Al-Qaeda wouldn't have crashed into the towers if you, Wall, had been between us, so tall that we could go about our lives as if the other didn't exist. After the end of the Cold War human beings decided to be human beings and age-old animosities were dug up and acted upon. Would the souls that were lost in the Bosnian War still have been lost if the Berlin Wall had been left intact? In Rwanda, if the Hutu and Tutsi tribes had you, Wall, between them maybe Romeo Dallaire wouldn't have had to shake hands with the devil. And if long long ago Jews had you around them, Wall, incredibly high and protective, would the Hitlers of this world have had nothing to say? Am I wrong? Am I terrible? If my twenty-year-old self were to meet me now would she be disillusioned? Have I turned into an old crank like Archie Bunker before I've even turned 40? It's fitting that I should think of Archie. It was while watching an episode of All in the Family that I remember first learning all was not well on planet earth. Meathead and Gloria were discussing having children. Gloria was pressing for a baby and Meathead got angry and yelled that he didn't want to bring a child into this terrible world. I was 8 or 9 at the time and understood that there was truth in Meathead's words because the studio audience fell eerily silent. How did this happen, Wall? How did I reach a point where I could consider you a good idea? Maybe one day it will make sense. Until then, publicly I will support your dismantling. But privately, between you and me, Wall, I see your merits.
Sincerely,
PC