Barbed wire
All over the ferry terminal fences are going up. Some of them are a bit more visually appealing than this one but all of them are higher and stronger than before and many of them are appearing in places where no fence existed before.
This is part of the money BC ferries received to upgrade security in advance of the Olympics and is just a small taste of what lies in front of us in the months to come.
Sadly, most of these measures are not temporary disruptions but permanent installations that will shape our thinking about place and space and, ultimately, each other. There is no way to stand behind a 10 foot fence topped with three strands of barbed wire and not feel differently. You just can't help yourself.
In a famous experiment conducted at Stanford in the 1960s and recently recreated for a chilling German film, individuals randomly assigned to "guard" and "prisoner" roles quicky assumed behaviour that fit with their fictional personae.
How long before my fellow passengers and I start acting out? How long before civility breaks down on both sides? Does an intervention that corrodes relations between people, that screams "We don't trust you!", really make us safer? Aren't some of these things actually worsening the situation rather than making it better?
I think we need to ask these questions and consider kinder, gentler alternatives. But I fear these are actions that become embedded, then taken for granted and then no one can even remember just trusting your neighbour.
...r
Comments [1]