DO NOT CROSS THE LINE

There are lines that should never be crossed. Well according to the people who live on the other side of them.

People are motivated by different reasons to migrate across borders. Sometimes, they have no choice. They may be asylum seekers, they may be climate refugees. Many are economic refugees, looking for a better life. Very often they are seduced by stories of great opportunities by family members, friends or fellow nationals who have made the journey  before them. It can be a high stakes journey. It often costs them a huge amount of money relative to their regular income. More significantly, they will often risk their lives and the lives of their families on the way. If they make it, then what often awaits them is a life of low paid manual labour on the fringes of society. Something that is still much better than where they came from for the most part.


But what if they do not make it. What if they are caught on their way, or even after they arrive by the authorities and deemed not to be illegal refugess who are not "genuine asylum" seekers. In the U.S. they will go to a detention center, often in an orange jump suit. Their children may be separated from them. A traumatic event to happen to a family at their most vulnerable time. In Europe, since 2016, the EU have been paying Turkey to host millions of refugees in a deal that will see Europe and Turkey trade some political favors at the expense of keeping a few million refugees in harrowing conditions and conveniently away from Europe. It wasn't long before President Erdogan of Turkey started using the threat of opening the gates for the refugees to enter Europe unless Europe complied with some of his demands.

Borders have been around forever. You only need to watch your cat urinating to demarcate its territory or a bunch of monkeys fighting it out over a mango tree to understand why this is so ingrained in our psyche. Mine!!!!!  Most borders are intangible. Sometimes they follow a river or a mountain or the coast. But the majority of them are invisible, virtual. They exist nowhere except in our mind and on a map. Yet what do you think of when you hear the word border? I doubt its beeches, rivers and mountains. More like Checkpoints? Barbed wire? Machine Guns?? Refugess? And of course WALLS. The great wall of China, Hadrian's wall, The Berlin wall and more recently Trumps wall. This all sounds rather ominous. And they can be.

Borders can be a good thing. We can draw a border around nations to inspire us to look after every citizen that lives in it, to make it a better place. But the darker sides of borders are taking an increased importance in our political and social structures. It’s important humans control borders and not the other way around because they are everywhere.

At a high level, we have trading blocks, where nations club together, draw an economic border around themselves with the aim of getting one up on nations outside the block through more favourable trading arrangements. Just look at the fuss made over Brexit. We draw them around Nations for similar reasons. The border between Ireland and the UK has contorted Brexit into something of a mixed bag of compromises that will please no-one. Countries like India and Pakistan (with the best part of 2 billion people between them) have come close to war on numerous occasions over an invisible line. At county level, we watch and cheer on as our elite athletes tear strips out of each other on the pitch. And at a more local level we tell our under 10 teams to hit where it hurts for the pride of the parish. Residents committees object to social housing on their streets. Not in our backyard. We also like to erect fences, hedges and walls to demarcate our land from that of out next door neighbor. We can prosecute trespassers and are free to shout get off my property and mean it. In many countries, that can be backed up legally with deadly force. And just when you think I might be finished, even in our own homes, for those of you who are lucky to have moody teenagers, you know what it’s like to dare to cross the threshold of their bedroom on a bad hair day.

I get it. I get why countries would never just erase all borders. The millions of refuges and migrants who come to Europe and north America every year would turn into tens of millions every year. We would have to deal with desperate people in large unwieldy numbers. But to steal a line from Gorbachov, closing a border to seal yourself off from a problem does not solve it. It just gets bigger and bigger. And that is exactly what is happening. The problem of disparities engineered by our borders is getting bigger by the day. Voting is veering more towards the far right. And people have become desensitized to the sight of desperate people struggling in the harshest conditions on our borders. We have to start fixing the problems.

But as the population of the world increases and we put increased pressure on our natural resources, people are getting more and more desperate. So desperate, they will risk life and limb to leave their country and cross borders. Their welcome can be less than hospitable. In fact, it is often deadly. But we continue to build walls and border crossings rather than trying to fix the source of the problem. Refugees are deliberately left floating, desperate, starving at the mercy of the sea for what? If we are honnest, for silver and gold. For space. Because we do not want to share what we have.

But take a step back. Look at the ultimate border, the final frontier. Space. Unimaginably large, inhospital, untraversable. If you added up the distance of every border in the world, every parish, county, country border, it would be an insignificantly small distance in the grand scheme of things. We like to think of ourselves of sentient beings, far superior to all other  species on earth. Sapiens are the last remaining species of many hominoids. A common narrative is that we had some superior way of thinking. Something that allowed us to  form complex social structures and share ideas. Something maybe that could bond us together and allow us to survive. And yet we draw lines everywhere to divide people into virtual groups that can work with each other but as often compete with each other.

I am not suggesting we just instantly erase all borders. Lines do exist if only in our head and so much of our political, administrative, social and economical constructs are heavily based on these borders. Removing them instantly would lead to absolute chaos. But they are preventing us from solving big problems and they are keeping some of our fellow human beings in a constant state of crises.

•  When we compete so ferociously against other economies, it becomes more difficult to take short term costs to encourage things like more environmentally friendly technology. Global warming cannot be solved by one half of the population if the other have continue to pursue economic policies that will make the problem much worse.
• When we don't ensure people are educated in poor countries, apart from the inequality, they have more children. More people means more woodland need to be cleared to feed them.
• When we focus on the differences between people on either side of a border, it can lead to inefficient practices, pointless overheads of security costs and sometimes the most wasteful human activity of all…… war.

So what do we need to do? We need to promote a global, borderless set of policies.  We often do this when it is clear that everyone gains. Such as our initiatives to wipe out polio, TB and small pox. When we reversed the tend of CFC gases on the ozone layer. It all starts with a change of culture. We need to do it in our homes, our neighborhoods and at the ballot box.  Most adults have a vote. You can lobby your local politician. You can maybe speak up the next time someone objects to a refugee center. You can make sure your neighbors know your door is open to them. And you can even encourage your kids to not treat their room like their fortress.

But it  would be much more galvanizing if we had something much more tangible to aim for. Solutions that would tackle the root cause of our global problems. Solutions that we could be proud of. So let's hear your suggestions. Bring them on.