Safety

Safety

Opening my front door is easy.  It is never locked.  The iron gate in front of the door is another story.  I reach through the bars and, using a backhand key move, I open the padlock and remove it from the latch.  Then I slide the gate open, step out, and repeat the procedure to close the door.  Standing in the hallway makes it easier: no need to reach through the gate.

The gate before the door is standard issue in my and many other buildings.  It is also common to see ironworks surrounding balconies and bars in front of windows.  Raz0r wire is ubiquitous on already 6 foot high iron or concrete fences.  Across the road from my office, which is located behind an always open, but guarded gate, workman have been busy for weeks to increase a fancy villa’s security wall from six to eight feet.

I can imagine some reason behind the security fences around large private residences.  Until very recently and still to a large extent, doing well financially suggest close ties to the government.  The recollection of anti-government riots in 1988 and 2007 may induce a crony capitalist to build a high fence with razor wire.   

But I have seen razor wire around meditation centres; and what about my front door in a country that the CUSO security briefing describes as "the safest of all the countries in which we work?"