The Wall

by Deniz Ülke Arıboğan

This book, which reveals the inner dynamics of the walled world we live in with all its clarity, is on the list of books that must be read in order to increase our awareness. Thanks to its very simple and gripping language, you can read international politics and the subtexts of the walled world that is its product without getting bored.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the belief that freedom spread all over the world emerged. Unfortunately, the fall of the Berlin Wall could not prevent other walls to be built in the world. Just as the “wall” symbol came to the fore in the globalization and liberalization trends that marked the 20th century, in the 2010s, “walls” occupy our agenda not to be demolished, but to be built.

“The Berlin Wall not only separated people and families; It was a symbol of polarization in Europe and the world, threatening each other with the apocalypse of nuclear war.”

Mikhail Gorbachev

“I’m going to build a big, big wall on our southern border and have Mexico pay for it.”

Donald J.Trump

“The spirit of the new age will be shaped in this atmosphere and this spirit will be the driving force of the restructuring of the political, social and economic fields. If the bridge architects can’t beat the bricklayers, our “future” will be built behind these walls.”

Deniz Ülke Arıboğan

At the turn of the 21st century, the relationship between global actors and states had to be restructured, as terrorism, crisis and intelligence leaks shook the system.

Thanks to the “politics of fear”, which has come from the depths of history to the present day, human beings were disciplined with fear and brought to the right with a fear stick. Borders were being built to suppress these fears. Practices such as blocking entrances from the outside with walls, visa restrictions, and not barring some citizens from entry were commonplace.

Walls, which can also be built against a hated culture or civilization, can be created by indigenous communities who think they are protecting their habitats from the invasion of evil, to keep the outside out and to provide “safe” spaces for the inside. In the psychology of these indigenous communities, there is disdain and exclusion as well as fear.

The phenomenon of the wall has a limiting, encompassing and marginalizing content on its own. The walls erected as a border between states, the walls rising as an idea and identity between peoples, and the walls we build in our minds mean the same thing: they ‘divide, ‘limit’, ‘classify’, ‘blind’. In order to read the developing system correctly, it is necessary to see the meaning, purpose and values of the wall.