The return of the walls is not surprising

Padua had walls of the 16th century, pink brick. Since last August, the small town in the North of the Italy also has his wall of the 21st century, grey steel. But it does not have the same function. The walls had been built when Venice dominated the region, to protect the city against the offensives of the League of Cambrai, the Papacy, the France and the Holy Empire. The long wall of 80 metres, it was built in a few hours. Fifteen days earlier, of Tunisians and Nigerians living in a former residence Hall nearby violently fighting for control of the local drug market. The fighting have flooded into the surrounding streets. The municipality of left ordered the construction of the wall to isolate what the inhabitants had nicknamed long "ghetto". To protect against an enemy from within, not outside.

Who said that "the Earth is flat" This is the title of a book to success of the American journalist Thomas Friedman, who has sold three million copies across the Atlantic and which found its public in France since his release last October, after having difficulty finding a Publisher. For Friedman, the lowering of barriers to imports and the Internet create a totally new world where the products and ideas flow much more easily than in the past. The major market and the competition winds now violently around the world. It cannot give it wrong. He began his first chapter by: "November 9, 1989." A new era of creativity: the walls fall and the Windows Open (in computers). "Of course. But this is only a part of the story. Or maybe the history of the last part of the 20th century. And certainly not "A brief history of the twenty-first century", as indicated by the subtitle of his essay.

Because, in the early 21st century, great is the temptation to rebuild walls. Physical walls first. Padua has made an innovation with the first inter-city dike. This type of architecture had up to this fact the misfortune of cities overlapping a border (as Berlin until the infamous night of 1989). But the Berlin wall was to prevent the expatriation (in case of fire the GDR), while the creation of Padua seeks instead to avoid invasion.

The Italian city is not the only search and the ancestral protection of the great wall of China, the wall of Hadrian or the Maginot line. In Israel, the Sharon Government decided in 2002 to build a "security fence" to protect itself from suicide bombers coming from West Bank incursions. 335 kilometres have already been built (last official Encipherment, of April 2006) and there is as much to do. Essentially, it is a triple curtain wire, 50 metres wide, with a road reserved for patrols. In the urban passages, it is a real concrete wall which is up to eight metres in height.

Even longer: fortification who shall separate US from the Mexico. On 26 October, ten days before the mid-term elections, US President George Bush signed the 6061 for the construction of a wall of 700 miles (or 1.125(5) kilometers) between the two countries, but welded by the North American free trade agreement. President-elect of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, denounced what he considers as a "great mistake" and compares the book to the Berlin wall. Here, the goal is not to prevent terrorist infiltration, but the massive influx of immigrants. About 400,000 Mexicans attempt each year to enter in the rich neighbor to the North, creating a rejection more increasingly strong on the part of Americans.

The temptation of the wall WINS not only the Governments. It also affects individuals who decide to confine, collectively, in a protected and guarded area. It is the phenomenon of the "gated communities". In the United States, several million people have decided to live in "closed communities", as Quebecers. The phenomenon also exists in the Brazil, in China or South Africa.

Finally, the appeal of the wall is not only material. Person claiming (for now) the suffocation of the Internet and technologies of information, one of the two vectors of the flattening of the world. But more and more many voices to call for protections in trade matters. Starting with those that appear to be today the two main candidates in the presidential election in France: Nicolas Sarkozy refers to "a path balanced between protection and protectionism" and Ségolène Royal proposes to tax products imported by the companies that have delocalised. In the United States, some of the new Democrats elected to Congress are devout lawyers of protectionism. And the deadlock in trade negotiations at the world Organization of trade shows clearly that the Apostles of the flattening lose ground to the religious of the terrain.

The return of the walls is not surprising. In an increasingly open world, the aspiration for security grows. Both among those who have the most to lose and the most ways to protect the poor from the rich and the rich in poor countries. And especially all those who do not follow the infernal pace of globalization. Yet, the rampart is never a lasting solution. The Communist countries have failed to build the ideal society free from the iron curtain. Developing countries were unable to build powerful industries behind tariff barriers. The Maginot line, Hadrian's wall and the wall of China have failed. The best solution is to move forward. And to not go... in the wall, it is essential to reach out to all the unreached of the acceleration of history. Padua, the good news is that the Mayor has pledged to evacuate the "ghetto" and rehouse families in the year. The new wall of shame can rust in peace.