Bordering On Madness

Published on January 4, 2006 By O G San In International

Some years ago, a British documentary crew followed a group of soldiers as they patrolled the border of Northern Ireland. A young officer, squatting in the Irish mud of a wet weekday, pointed to the farmhouse in the distance. "You see that farm over there?" he asked. "Half of it’s in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the other half’s in the Republic of Ireland. It’s all very silly." Even those charged with defending borders can sometimes appreciate the absurdity of drawing lines on maps.

We live in a world of fences, of walls, of gates and locks. These barriers are erected, not just between households, but also between states. Utopians dream of a day when there are no more borders but those of us who inhabit the real world understand that this will never happen. Since the first hunter-gatherer put down his spear and picked up a hoe, there have been borders. It is a sad fact of life but a fact nonetheless. It is inconceivable that there could be a single global jurisdiction. There must be boundaries, the only question is where.

The past fifteen years have seen a huge growth in the number of lines on the map, particularly in Europe. It is ironic that this orgy of border-drawing should have been triggered by the most dramatic boundary removal in human history - the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe and Soviet Asia have fractured as ethnic groups decided that they must have their seat at the UN General Assembly. In a few instances, like the Velvet Divorce of Czechs and Slovaks, the process was peaceful, civil even. But in many other cases, the break-up was of the furious plate-smashing variety.

Only a fool, or a Francis Fukuyama, would expect this process to end now. The burst of borderisation in the early 1990s still left many ethnic groups as orphans, without a fatherland of their own. In the next decade a Kosovar state will almost certainly be born in the Balkans, as its non-Albanian population flees or clings forlornly to the northern tip. Another line on the map, another bastard statelet born in the Balkans.

We may also soon see three Iraqs were once there was one, as the country’s principal ethnic groups carve up the land between them. Those caught on the ‘wrong’ side of these new frontiers may recall Hobbes’ reflection that life is nasty, brutish and, above all, short. The process of ethnic homogenisation is already well under way in places such as Kirkuk, where the non-Kurdish population is being expelled

I am reliably informed that some Canadian cartography may soon be in order as Quebec splits off. But why stop at these three examples? Why only the Kosovars, Kurds and Quebecois? Why not the Chechens, Corsicans, Tamils, Tibetans, Basques and Berbers? The process of creating mono-ethnic states will never be complete. For as long as ethnic groups co-habit in the same space, states can never be ‘pure’.

This is not to say that drawing new borders is always wrong, it is not. Few, outside of Russian nationalism, would argue that Latvia should not be a state. But likewise few outside of Latvian nationalism would not admit that by solving one problem, that of the Latvian minority in Russia, a new problem is created, that of the Russian minority in Latvia. As our friend in the Irish mud could tell you, minorities don’t always go quietly.

It is not the creation of new states per se which is wrong but rather the mentality which too often underlines these nation-building projects - that every ethnic group needs, deserves a land of its own.

The preoccupation with statehood and all the little trappings that come with it - the flag, the anthem, the passport, the football team that never wins - is very dangerous. These symbols of nationalism are important, those of us who can not take them for granted know this better than most. But they are not the be all and end all.

I was born in Northern Ireland, a subject, however grudgingly, of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. But a quirk of history allows me to carry an Irish passport, which I do with pride. I am glad to be able to own this little book. To carry a passport bearing the British crest would hurt. But my sense of nationality does not rest with this document. I consider myself to be Irish and I don’t need a song, a flag, a map or a scrap of paper to prove this.

There can’t be a world without borders but that does not mean that there has to be a world of borders.

Comments

Deference

on Jan 04, 2006

Great article.

shadesofgrey

on Jan 05, 2006

Yay! You're back!

I am eagerly awaiting your take on Spy-gate and Sharon's health! Please don't disappoint me

Utopians dream of a day when there are no more borders but those of us who inhabit the real world understand that this will never happen.

Not the first time that I've stumbled across the possibility that I didn't inhabit the real world.

Of course, I'm more of a "borders would be irrelevant" type of person. You can still have them, and would need them for ease of taxes, social services, and the whatnot--but borders wouldn't be obstacles to movement.

Ok, I'm heading back to my land of make believe now!

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