This year sees the 20th anniversary of the fall of the infamous Berlin Wall and the eventual collapse of Soviet Communism. But what of ‘walls’ in general? Does the erection of physical barriers merely symbolize something much deeper and if it does, what does it say about humanity that we choose to separate ourselves and cower behind such defensive structures?

This subject could be extremely wide-ranging in terms of discussion but also highly emotive. The aim of such a discussion is NOT to score petty political points or be unfairly critical of any one group of people – in our own way we all hide behind walls of one sort or another. So, with this in mind, there is one major condition to taking part in this discussion: this is NOT going to descend into a ’slanging match’ over the Israel-Palestine situation! I’m not saying that issue isn’t a valid topic for debate but this isn’t the place for it – there are plenty of sites totally devoted to just such a discussion, even if they do tend to be rather polarized! What I’m trying to encourage is an exploration of the issues behind the walls, as it were, what drives the idea of walls? So then, time for some lateral thinking and courage to move out from our naturally defensive stance and discuss. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and to reading some good ideas, thanks for taking part.

The Editor