ABSTRACT
In June 2004, a Danish humanitarian agency put up an 8 metre-high wall at the site of a rock festival in Roskilde. The wall was a copy of the wall put up by the Israeli government on the West Bank, with a message ‘make peace not walls’ written on it. The Roskilde wall was put up as a protest against its original in Israel, and not surprisingly, it elicited heated objections from the Israeli embassy to the Danish government. This minor incident, and numerous other protests against the Israeli wall, can serve as a reminder of the symbolic power that walls and borders still hold today. The fall of the Berlin Wall is probably one of the most potent images depicting, and finally confirming, the fall of communism. On the other hand, we are faced with a discourse about, and increasingly perceive ourselves as, living in a global and a ‘borderless’ world. The imagery of glossy in-flight magazines portrays modern travel as an effortless experience where our imagination is the only limit.
