THE GREAT WALL
I knew that things had taken a turn for the worse when the Anticlock authorities began talking about the Great Wall. They made the announcement on a specially arranged TV broadcast to the nation. We always listen carefully when they make announcements on TV. We’ve learned from bitter experience that they don’t believe in idle talk. They never fail to deliver on their promises and most of the time what they’re proposing isn’t good for us. They’ve got fixed ideas about things, so they generally don’t take note of what anyone else has to say. They don’t have to. They’ve got the answers already. They spend most of the time listening to themselves.
Anyway, they announced their decision to build a Great Wall on the state TV channel the other night. They told us all that the Anticlockwise Empire was now under serious threat from external forces hostile to our way of life. They blamed the terrorist group SafrAntic
(Safronika Against Anticlockwise) for planting the car bombs that had recently exploded near the central government offices in Globopolis killing twenty innocent people. They assured us that these pathetic attempts to destabilise their rule would be mercilessly crushed and warned that any pro-Safronikan terrorists or supporters caught red-handed would suffer extremely painful retribution. Anyone suspected of harbouring sympathies for Safronika was now even more vulnerable than before.
State security was to be increased. The numbers of Snoops on the streets would be doubled. In order to keep the terrorist threat to the minimum, a Great Wall would be constructed at the frontiers of Anticlockwise. This Great Wall would be an immense feat of technological engineering, a gigantic laser screen in outer space that would act as a defensive barrier against alien hostile threats. All incoming spacecraft would undergo rigorous security checks as they passed through the Great Wall. No Safronikans would be granted entry. Not one. They reassured us that this would provide all citizens of Anticlockwise with the greatest protection in the known universe.
I wasn’t convinced. I kept my opinions to myself of course but I suspected immediately that the wall was as much about keeping us locked up inside Anticlockwise as it was about protecting us from dangerous outsiders intent on doing us harm. I knew that there were still a lot of people in Globopolis who wanted to escape. And I’d also read enough science fiction to appreciate that authoritarian leaders frequently exploited fears of external dangers to keep their populations in order. The threat of external attack was a perfect justification for the construction of a Great Wall.
If there had been any lingering doubts in my mind about the value of the Great Wall, Olaf Kaminski soon dispelled them. `Great news’, he bellowed in my ear. `It’s about time we cracked down on these lunatic Safrantics. They need to be taught a lesson about who’s in charge’. Olaf likes black and white solutions that ride roughshod over life’s complexities. The simple expedient of excluding all Safronikans with a gigantic wall solved the problem for him. Punishing a few terrorists in the bargain was just extra icing on the cake.
Olaf’s version of life convinced me of the folly of the Great Wall. There would always be people smart enough to devise clever ways round it. A gigantic laser wall is just another challenge to an ideologically committed and technically astute terrorist. Walls are just a crude solution to a complicated problem.
Building the wall though would change everyone living inside it. It would create a defensive mind-set that would transform our thinking forever. We’d become inward-looking and fearful. We’d be condemned to remain within the limitations of the knowledge enclosed behind the wall. We’d abandon forever the opportunity to have our thinking challenged by opportunities and alternatives beckoning to us in the distance beyond our reach, beyond the outer perimeter of the Great Wall. Walls create closed minds.
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