The Writing Is On The Wall: Babylon, China and America.
‘‘Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge’’
(Charles Darwin, Descent of Man)
When I saw on a certain social media site on Tuesday that Donald Trump had visited the wall in Arizona and had signed it, I could only think of how preposterous an act it was. Admittedly, I assumed, he had signed the actual wall, but later on I realised he had signed a plaque celebrating the building of 200 miles of his ‘Great Wall’. The difference was slight. The act itself was the key and it resonated with me and it must surely have resonated with the ghosts of the past.
It resonated for two reasons. The building of a huge wall across a country was one. And the other was the ‘writing on the wall’. Donald Trump wants to be remembered for this wall and therefore he places his rather ostentatious and large signature crudely upon it. And that is really how the ostentatious and very, very, large Great Wall of China began its truly historic creation. It was the hubris of another man and he was Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China (259 B.C. — 210 B.C.).
Emperor Qin ordered the erection of an almost infinite wall after having brought the Six Kingdoms under his rule and abolished the feudal system. Even this would have been enough to assure his place in the history of the…
