If I could put a notion in his head:…
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’
I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself
(Mending wall, by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

PESHAWAR: People in this part of the world seem to love walls for their own protection, but have no respect for public space. There are not only walls in literal terms, but barriers which differentiate between those walled out and walled in.

The security arrangement – the sandbags put outside every government building – as protection speaks out loud that all people are equal, but some are more equal than them. Thus they can even encroach on a thoroughfare by putting their huge sandbags or cement barricade for their own protection.

One can easily spot sandbags outside any civil or government building and residence occupying quite a big part of the main roads around the provincial capital. It is as if people who are inside those buildings feel no shame in protecting themselves at the cost of inconvenience to the passers-by while curbing on their right of freedom of movement too.

The people who use those roads, it seems, have also forgotten all about their rights or have lost their voice to speak up about this offence. There are no Elves around to bring down these walls and barriers too, unfortunately.

The law-enforcement agencies have set up checkpoints and put up barriers at various sensitive locations. Walls were built to completely block the movement of civilians on certain roads in the Peshawar cantonment.

These walls or barriers cropped up through the years all over the province and especially in Peshawar to protect against the menace of terrorism. However, roads have been narrowing down due to the worst kind of security or protection walls or sandbags around most of the civil and military government offices, residences and buildings.

When these barriers or walls were built, no one from the locality was ever asked if he or she really needed that wall to make them feel secure. Walls and barricades have been here for almost a decade now. People have to take detours and take longer time to reach a very nearby locality. The least the government could do to facilitate the public is kindly request the inmates of those buildings having sandbags on roads to put these bags inside since most of these buildings have spacious lawns. They should use their own space instead of encroaching on public space for their own protection.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2015