How to build a wall

The first book I completed as part of my #SixtyBooks challenge was A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen. It tells the story of a young girl named Gerta who wakes up in her hometown of Berlin on August 13, 1961 to find a wall being constructed ---the wall that would divide East Berlin from West Berlin for the next 30 years. For Gerta's family, the wall also meant separation from her father and brother, Dominic, who had travelled to West Berlin looking for work and did not return prior to the wall's construction. This left Gerta, her mother and her brother, Fritz to fend for themselves in East Berlin. The book details Gerta's desire and ultimate decision to defy the wall and risk everything to gain freedom and be reunited with her family. 

As I read the book I reflected on the experience of living in a world where citizens were told what to think, what to say, and even how much to eat---a world where dissent was a punishable offense. The wall was built in Berlin long before the wire and cement appeared. The wall was merely a tangible symbol of a culture nurtured by fear and apathy. While it may not be to the extreme of walls and armed guards, there are businesses, schools, churches, and communities that are building walls when the leaders operate by the following norms:

• Maintain the status quo at all costs -Make decisions based on preserving the power, position, and privileges of those in the inner circle. Use those on the outer circle to protect and provide for the inner circle. 
• Intentionally surround yourself with people who make you comfortable and agree with you - Value blind loyalty above all else. See anyone who makes you uncomfortable or asks challenging questions as an enemy. View conflict as an obstacle rather than a pathway to growth. 
• Ostracize bold opinions and personalities - Send messages both directly and indirectly that disagreement equals disloyalty. Suppress discussion. Make decisions in secret.
• Ignore or rationalize any feedback that implies shortcoming on the part of the leadership or organization - Any discussions about the issues raised in the feedback should involve intense problem admiration and/or vilification of the ones who gave the feedback.

You would think that any community that embraces these norms would not be able to survive and thrive; however, as long as the individuals within them choose to stay constrained by and compliant to these tenets, then walls remain. 

So the burden of freedom rests not on the nation, city, school, or organization that builds the wall; rather it is on the individuals who choose to reside within its shadow.