JOHN HEWITT SUMMER SCHOOL:"GOOD FENCES make good neighbours," was the message of Conor O'Clery's presentation to the 21st John Hewitt Summer School in Armagh yesterday.
In his lecture, The Paradox Of Walls, the former Irish Timesjournalist argued against the theme of this year's summer school, Let There Be No Wall ,a line from John Hewitt's poem, Freehold.
Quoting Barack Obama as he stood near the site of the Berlin Wall last week, when he said "the walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand", O'Clery said the very notion of a "wall" now has an inherently negative connotation.
"But I think walls have been getting a raw deal, especially at this summer school," he said. "There is too much anti-wall discrimination going on. So I would like to redress that here today and talk about the paradox of walls."
He pointed out that while most were glad to see the Berlin Wall go, many were dismayed, particularly communist believers in the east who saw it as an essential protection from the capitalist west.
O'Clery, who was Irish Timescorrespondent in Moscow and Beijing before serving in Washington, said the removal of the Iron Curtain led paradoxically to many new divisions between peoples, yet these new borders were shown to illustrate perfectly the benefits of walls.
"There was no boundary of any kind between these countries and other Soviet republics during the lifetime of the Soviet Union," he said.
"In practice this meant they were overwhelmed to a greater or lesser degree by the industrial, cultural and demographic demands of their bigger neighbour.
"These newly-liberated countries knew the necessity of erecting boundaries for protection, security and order, and for getting a better sense of themselves in relation to the rest of the world.
"Borders allowed them to define themselves as a country - and to enter the Eurovision Song Contest!"
Remarking that the aphorism "good fences makes good neighbours" appears in some form in almost all languages, O'Clery commented that the real problem with that other notorious wall - the "security wall" Israel is building - is not the wall, but that it is "the wrong wall in the wrong place".
"The problem in the Middle East is that there was never any proper border fence dividing Israel from the Palestinian territories it occupied in 1967," he said. "The reason seems evident: Israel always wanted to annex parts of these territories permanently.
"If there was a wall or a fence delineating the prewar borders, and recognised by both sides, the Middle East peace process might have a better chance of succeeding."
Drawing a parallel much closer to home, he said "arbitrarily imposed borders spell trouble".
"I remember Enoch Powell going on about the need for certitude in relation to Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom, to put the question of the Border beyond doubt. He was right in theory. Except that he was tilting at windmills looking for certitude in this respect, when a large part of the population felt they were on the wrong side of the wall dividing North and South."