Editorial June 16, 2003 Issue

Do fences make good neighbors?

Editor

The world, as we know, is getting smaller. Cultures that once knew nothing of one another now exchange everything from cuisine to music to religions. Yet, people continue to suffer in countries that have erected barriers between themselves and the rest of the world, shutting people and ideas within, and the rest of the world out.

When walls build up between neighbors, the tendency on all sides is to draw inward. Fear and suspicion cause people to bar their mental doors to all but those who are most familiar.

Nearly 100 years ago, one of America's most beloved poets, Robert Frost, addressed this mindset in a poem titled "Mending Wall." The speaker is walking the fence line with his neighbor as they begin the yearly task of rebuilding the stone wall between their properties. The poem begins:

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