By Wendy Jones Nakanishi
It may seem perverse to submit an article advocating the benefits of borders to a journal entitled Borderless. I hasten to explain that I agree with the guiding principle of this publication – that the human spirit should be encouraged to soar, transcending cultural limitations and national boundaries. But I’m also reminded of the observation made by the American poet Robert Frost that high fences make good neighbours.
Borders! It’s one of those words that has developed an almost completely negative connotation in recent years, having taken on the emotive sense of exclusion and unfairness. A second example of this phenomenon is the term patriotism, which now is denigrated for similar reasons. Borders and patriotism refer to values and beliefs valorized in the past that are currently under vigorous attack. Their stock has plunged dramatically in this modern globalised society.
It’s no wonder. We inhabit the age of EDI – equality, diversity, and inclusion. Few voices are raised to question its tenets. Most people seem, for example, unreservedly to believe in multiculturalism as an undisputed good, and love of one’s own country has become a questionable – often dismissed as a deplorable – sentiment.
The present disdain for borders and patriotism is unsurprising. We are witnessing the mass migration of people from one part of the world to others on a scale unseen since the post-1945 refugee crisis, when an estimated 175 million people were on the move, in part because of the defeat of the Axis powers but also because of new civil wars. Nowadays, the US, the UK and Europe are proving particularly attractive destinations for individuals fleeing countries troubled by violence, corruption, poverty, religious persecution, and social discrimination. I would like here to explain why I believe in the benefits of borders while acknowledging their potential demerits.
I think the propensity to erect borders is an essentially human trait, coexistent with human existence. The world’s first walls originated with its first cities – places like Jericho in the Bible, constructed twelve thousand years ago – where Joshua waged his famous battle to bring them down. The ancient cities had walls for defensive purposes. Walls intended to divide countries came much later, with the first instance originating in Mesopotamia in 2000 BC.
David Frye observes in his book Walls: A History of Civilization in Blood and Brick that the idea of constructing barriers to keep people out is as ancient as human civilisation. It is only the people excluded that has changed. In the past, it was invading hordes of armed warriors. Now barriers are erected to control immigration, to keep out terrorists, and to halt the flow of illegal drugs.
In Frye’s opinion, borders originated as a means of creating a safe space where civilization could develop and flourish. Walls gave people the security to sit and think. Frye links the building of the Great Wall of China in the late third century B.C. with the creation of the ancient Chinese state. In Britain, Hadrian’s Wall was constructed around 112 A.D. by the Romans to keep out the ‘barbaric’ tribes in the north while they ‘civilized’ the inhabitants further south.
Borders seem to be coming back into vogue. Donald Trump’s vow to expand and reinforce the Mexico-United States barrier was a crucial component of his successful 2016 presidential campaign platform. But in January 2021, the newly elected president Joe Biden halted construction of what had become known as ‘Trump’s Wall’. Since that date, the southern border of the States has been swamped with illegal migrants, and in July 2022 Biden backtracked, announcing a plan to fill in four gaps in the barrier in Arizona that had seen some of the busiest illegal crossings. Some might argue it’s too little too late. In July 2022, there were reports of four thousand Mexican family encounters at the border; a year later, that number had quadrupled. And that’s only Mexican immigrants. Economic and political turmoil in such countries as Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, and Columbia has seen large numbers of people trying to escape to the States: their near neighbor where they seek not only safety but a place where they can aspire and thrive.
Similarly, the EU is in the process of having to reconsider what it once identified as one of its guiding principles: the unrestricted movement of people (in particular, workers) within its twenty-eight EU member states. Countries such as Austria and Denmark have significant percentages of their populations who are opposed to this policy. It has been argued that citizens in richer member states are more likely to have negative views. Until the 2000s, only one percent of EU citizens lived in a country other than the country of their birth. That situation has changed dramatically in recent years with the EU’s enlargement to central and eastern Europe. Now intra-EU migration involves millions of EU nationals who are, in general, their countries’ best and brightest – their most highly educated or highly skilled workers – moving from poorer to richer EU member states. What some EU nationals see as an opportunity, others regard as a threat.
Borders not only keep people out but also keep people in. That is one of their least attractive features. The barbed wire that was the first manifestation of the structure that came to be known as the Berlin Wall appeared almost overnight in August 1961. But this wall had an unusual purpose. It was erected to prevent immigration from East Germany to West Germany when the economy of the former was on the verge of collapse because of the many people fleeing to the west. The Berlin Wall staunched that flow of emigration, leading President Kennedy to observe that ‘A wall is a hell of a lot better than a war’.
Arguably the Korean Demilitarized Zone constructed after 1953, which is 250 kilometers long and five kilometers wide, separating the north and south of what was once a single country, has similarly acted as a deterrent to armed conflict. It has been described as a ‘comfortable wall’ that ensures an ‘uncomfortable peace’. For the North Korean government, it acts as a barrier to invasion from the far more prosperous and less repressive government of South Korea. But it has also trapped millions of people in a state that increasingly resembles a huge prison camp. North Koreans are among the poorest people in the world as well as the least economically free. It is estimated that a tenth of the population died during a famine that lasted from 1995 to 1998. While a thousand escape the country every year, many are imprisoned, tortured, and even killed while making the attempt. But they are willing to brave the danger, reluctant to remain in a country where they are systematically denied any civil, religious, or political rights.
Borders are not limited to the demarcation of cities and countries. Physical structures indicating property limits are a fact of everyday life for people throughout the world. In my native America, fences are a prominent feature, indicating boundaries for houses and fields. In Japan, where I lived for many years, the traditional family compound – including farmhouse and storehouse and courtyard – is enclosed within clay walls. In the corner of northwest England where I am currently residing, the countryside of rolling green hills is crisscrossed by dry stone walls and hedges. Hedges in Britain have their origins in the Bronze Age (2500-700 BC), when they were used to manage cattle and to keep them separate from crops. There is speculation that some hedges of sufficient age, density and size may even have once served as military defenses. But while their first function was to act as barriers, they now serve an important role in the environment, as the preserve of insects and wildlife, including sixty species of nesting birds.
A house itself represents a kind of delimitation: a declaration of private space as opposed even to the yard or garden, which are semi-public. Americans tend to be house-proud, their dwellings often boasting large picture windows that afford a view to passers-by of the carefully decorated front room. Japanese, on the other hand, are sometimes ashamed of inhabiting a cramped small house sometimes separated only by a matter of inches from their neighbours’ homes on either side, and they tend to use opaque rather than clear windows to preserve their privacy. Even the big traditional Japanese farmhouse is somehow secretive – bearded in heavy shrubbery, stooping under the weight of a heavy tiled roof. Of course, there are many types of houses in Britain, but I happen to live in one of the most common – a terraced house with a tiny garden out front and a cement yard at the back. My bay window looking out onto the street has its lower half shrouded in a thin net curtain. When I stand nearby, I can look out at my domain – my little plot of earth densely planted with bushes, flowers, and shrubs.
Living in the UK, I’m often reminded of the saying ‘An Englishman’s house is his castle’. The typical British home has an emphasis on the cozy and comfortable, and while few still have coal fires, many retain the old fireplaces as a decorative feature. Alas, nowadays, many British people pave over their little front gardens to use the space for parking. But traveling by train affords wonderful views of long strips of narrow gardens backing on to the tracks, and I sometimes think their owners are like public benefactors, entertaining us with the sight of their patios and pergolas, their beds of flowers and rose trellises as we speed to our destinations.
The observant reader may have noticed that I have begun this short essay on borders by examining those surrounding countries and cities, and then continuing with an ever-narrowing perspective. I would like to conclude by looking at the barriers we put up between ourselves and others.
As I noted at the beginning of this piece, the American poet Robert Frost wrote a poem eulogising high fences for ensuring good relations with our neighbors. Because the States is a relatively new country – and one of considerable size – many Americans can enjoy the luxury of living in houses surrounded by a good deal of land. Driving through any suburb you can see large expanses of grassy lawn separating the house, often a ranch-style dwelling, from the road. In that sense, Frost’s high fences aren’t needed. Unlike the Japanese, crammed into close quarters with each other, or Europeans, fond of renting flats, Americans are used to having their own space. The pioneer spirit lingers on with a focus on rugged individualism.
This can be a curse as well as a blessing. There have been shocking instances in recent years of abducted American women and children spending years as captives in houses so remote or so barricaded against the outside world that their kidnappers could act with near impunity.
Such a situation is unimaginable in Japan. Many Japanese, and especially those in Japan’s cities, live in what they call ‘mansions’ – huge buildings with apartments the inhabitants own rather than rent. Few secrets can be kept in such an environment. In towns and rural areas, the strong emphasis on community activities means that there is constant interaction between households.
While many Americans like to preserve a physical distance from others, the Japanese have developed ways to preserve their privacy in public places as a sort of psychic skill. During my long residence in Japan, I often marveled at how the Japanese can make a virtue of necessity, and this is a case in point. On packed trains, the Japanese self-isolate by reading or dozing or using their phones. In dense crowds in cities, they manage to retain personal space by skillfully skirting each other, scarcely touching, as they walk. Whenever I find myself in one of the huge subway stations in Tokyo or Osaka, I occasionally pause to marvel at what looks like a carefully choreographed dance. Throngs of well-dressed people silently rush past me. They are dignified, intent on their own business, and no confusion or chaos is perceptible. Despite the closest proximity imaginable to each other, they somehow manage to preserve their own personal borders.
The situation in the UK is between those two extremes. Despite inhabiting one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, the British can enjoy incomparable scenery preserved as so-called ‘green belt’ areas around cities as well as landscapes protected by their designation as national parks or as areas of outstanding natural beauty. Unsurprisingly, the British are great walkers. As an American, I’ve had to learn that when a friend suggests a stroll, it can easily mean a four or five-mile hike. The British can escape to the great outdoors when they feel a need to be alone.
There are those who dismiss national stereotypes as nonsense, but I’m inclined to credit them with at least a grain of truth. I think, for example, there are affinities between the Japanese and the British that are perhaps attributable to their both inhabiting island nations and being, as a result, insular. They are bad at learning other languages. They are traditionally characterised by a certain reserve – lacking, for example, the American fondness for confessing details of their private lives to complete strangers.
Borders. Patriotism. The two are connected. It is often said that those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them. The lesson we might be tempted to draw from the bloody history of the twentieth century is that nationalism is reprehensible and that borders can lead to wars.
But I prefer to draw another moral. It can be argued that the world was plunged into two world wars because evil, opportunistic leaders like Hitler chose not to respect national borders while also twisting patriotism felt by Germans and Austrians into a perverted version of what is a normal human impulse to love one’s own country. As I write this piece, I can’t help but think of how topical it is, with the tragedy unfolding in the Middle East which concerns borders and contested land. I pray a just settlement can be reached and peace achieved as soon as possible.
Finally, I believe we all resort to a variety of measures to define ourselves. We are individuals; we are residents of a certain neighborhood; we are citizens of a particular country. I believe that it is by respecting each other’s borders – personal and public – that we can achieve the ideal of living together on this crowded globe in harmony. Public borders – such as the political boundaries of our own country – can inspire altruism by leading us to identify with an entity greater than ourselves. Private borders – those parameters for conduct and behavior we draw for ourselves, in our daily lives – can confer peace and a sense of individual self.
Wendy Jones Nakanishi has published widely on English and Japanese literature and, under her pen name of Lea O’Harra, has written four crime fiction novels available on Amazon.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
Click here to access Monalisa No Longer Smiles on Amazon International
Borderless 