Walls

The worlds walls are supposed to be coming down. We speak of globalization, international markets and global villages; barriers to trade keep falling, and it is now possible to communicate instantly from nearly anywhere in the world. But just as these virtual walls come down, real walls rise. In this evocative blend of travel writing, history and politics, Marcello Di Cintio visits the worlds most disputed edges to meet those who live alongside the razor wire, concrete and steel. Along the way he shares tea with refugees on the wrong side of Moroccos desert wall; he encounters illegal immigrants circumventing high-tech fencing around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla; he walks Arizonas migrant trails, visits fenced-in villages in India, and stands with those who protest against Israels security barrier to understand what these structures say about those who build them, and how they influence the cultures that they pen in. Venturing beyond politics, he encounters the infiltrators who circumvent the walls, the artists who transform them, and the fenced-in ignored and forgotten people who live in their shadow. The walls discussed are: 1. The Wall of Shame in the Western Sahara, built by the Morrocans in 1987 following their defeat by the Spanish. 2. A high-tech fence around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Meilla. 3. The Indo Bangladesh fence, erected in 1947. 4. The West Bank Wall. 5. The green line that separates the Greek from the Turkish-Cypriot quarters in Nicosia, the capital of Cypress, and Lefkosa, the capital of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. 6. The US-Mexico border. 7. The various barriers throughout Belfast. 8.The lAcadie fence in Montreal, erected as a wall built of chains in 1960.