Loca Lingo Multicultural

« From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Varsovie, Berlin, Prague, Vienne, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucarest et Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. » (Fulton’s speech). Iron Curtain

Iron curtain, Korea’s border, Israeli wall… just a shallow solution to much deeper problems, with anyway heavy consequences on the local population - usually depending on how long this separator has been settled… clearly creating cultural gaps at the end that can create huge sources of conflict. To my opinion, it might limit some insecurity problems, but just superficially and on the short term only. I believe indeed this can be the cause itself of deeper troubles on the longer term, rather than erasing them. A refusal to dialogue ?

The Iron Curtain, during the cold war, separated Europe in two different blocs, during 40 years in the wake of Nazi’s loss. Now that Europe is being “re”-unified, we realize that mentalities aside this former “border” are pretty much different ; mainly tainted by different economical experiences and lack of “political freedom”. One population had the possibility to travel, express itself. The other not.
On the Eastern bloc, machine-guns along the curtain were usually oriented inside the territory - soviets were not afraid of invasions, but more on their population fleeing away their influence. When the wall felt, Wessies (West-Germans) “merged Germany”, and actually bought out lots of business in this eastern Eldorado (because better educated to the market economy (as other systems in general), easier access to capital markets,…).
A good part of the Ossie (Est-Germans) population got left out in this process - not ready to what happened. Nowadays, transition after more than 15 years is still not over ; significant social problems are present in the former RDA (East Germany), the highest unemployment rate of Germany (a whole generation “wrongly educated”, being “wasted on the capitalism’s altar”) being just the tip of the iceberg.

Many are comparing the future Korea situation to the current Germany’s one. This border between the two Korea’s. Like for Germany, this wall separating South Korea from North Korea, divides a population sharing a similar culture, language, relatives,… well a Berlin Wall where cold war is still present in the region. Maybe this had an impact on South Korea’s economic boom (like for RFA (West Germany)). The South Korean population is not relax though, because it knows this wall is just a symbol cutting it from his northern/southern relatives becoming more and more strangers to the growing new generation. And anyway planes, rockets, missiles can actually easily fly it over…

In China, there was as well a curtain separating the communist planned-economy world from the market-driven one (”bamboo curtain”) -it is interesting to know (and still nowadays), the majority of chinese can’t go out of their borders because actually they can’t leave their “places of residence” (either a specific city, or a specific region). A bit like in the USSR before.

Israel is building as well a huge wall (”separation fence/wall”) to isolate itself (from) its Palestinian neighbours ; the official point is to protect itself from terrorism attacks, by controlling who is entering and who is going out in Israel/Palestine. There were talks to let a breach in the desert for environmental reasons (could be problematic for certain populations of animals - what about human beings?). But well, from the mountains, you can see the sea, and walls will never be high enough to hamper rockets crossing them over. Is that a solution ?

To these “security walls”, other types of physical curtains exist, “immigration walls” :

The “Rio Grande” is between Mexico and the USA. Stakes for Latin Americans (Mexico being a transition country) are about fleeing their poor conditions and sending money back home. This barrier/border is pretty much a “weird” one. Indeed, the US economy needs those illegal immigrants (the reason they know 11 millions of them live on the USamerican territory). What is therefore this wall about ? All these maquilladoras across the border need so much of this cheap illegal non-existant labour, sometimes considered as slaves by various NGOs…

Concerning Europe, there are no such walls (maybe because there is a Mediterranean see) ; strategy being instead to integrate all the neighboring countries (we are in such a need of a positive birthrate) within the EU project, which - if wrongly managed - might lead to other cultural and social problems inside. But at least there is a dialogue, however imperfect in practice.
What about Ceuta (Spanish city in Africa surrounded by fences), will you be asking me ? Well you are right, Europeans have immigration fences as well.