If you don't live under a rock, you should know by now that Donald Trump wants to build a wall across the southern border of the United States. He also wants to make Mexico pay for it.
There has been a lot of discussion of the implications of this idea: What would this do to our economy and workforce? How would we pay for this wall? Is this the kind of foreign policy that America should pursue? How in the world would Mexico pay for this? Historically, this isn't the first time a person has suggested that building a wall would solve a country's problems. Let's look back and see if history supports Trump's idea.
1. The Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is one of the most recognizable symbols of Chinese history. The idea to build this wall was dreamed up by Emperor Qin Shi Huang (c. 259-210 B.C.) as a way to prevent barbaric nomads from attacking the Chinese Empire. It never really did that. Instead, according to the article "The Great Wall of China" on History.com, " ...the Great Wall never effectively prevented invaders from entering China, it came to function more as a psychological barrier between Chinese civilization and the world..."
The Great Wall also didn't prevent Genghis Khan from invading China...
Huh. Looks like this wall idea didn't really work in Ancient China... But it must have worked somewhere else!
2. The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was started on August 13, 1961 by the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic. The wall was constructed to keep Western Germans from entering East Germany so they couldn't undermine the socialist government. The wall relatively effectively stopped people from entering or leaving East Germany: the flow of refugees stopped but an estimated 171 people were killed trying to cross and more than 5,000 people did in fact manage to cross the border.
However, when the Cold War tensions began to relax, the wall became a barrier between a common people. On November 9, 1989 East and West Berliners united to break apart this barrier, and "the reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall."
OK, so the Berlin Wall was pretty effective in keeping people separated! The only problem was that these people didn't want to be separated, and reunified themselves after the Cold War. Their common culture and family connections beat out tensions between Super Power countries and warlike tensions that did indeed pass. Huh. Interesting.
3. Walls of Babylon
The walls of Ancient Babylon were legendary, as the hanging gardens of Babylon were deemed one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. "Babylon, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad, was one of the great capitals of the ancient world (and most closely associated with King Nebuchadnezzar II, 605-562 BC); but it is also a center-point for myths and stories." The exact size of these walls may have been exaggerated with time, but the ancient Greek historian Herodotus claimed: "The entire city was...enclosed within a wall from 10.5 to 14 to miles [16.8 km to 22.5 km] on each side."
Despite the walls great size and grandeur, Babylon was still sacked by the barbarians whom the walls were supposed to keep out.
Although these are merely three examples chosen from various places and times in history, they go to show that building walls hasn't really worked out through out history. The Great Wall of China tells us that even if a wall is huge and grand, it can still be vulnerable. The Berlin Wall tells us that artificial barriers between people are weaker than family connections and cultural connections. The Walls of Babylon tell us that even if a wall is trying to protect a culture, empires fail but people move on from the wall. The rigidity of a wall does not stop change nor can a wall completely prevent the movement of people. A wall can be a tourist attraction or a religious site, but let these walls be examples of foolishness in the past.
Sorry Trump, looks like building walls doesn't have that great of a track record. Let's not repeat history.
