But where is the world without borders where students, tourists, immigrants and goods can circulate without obstacles? Since entering the 21st centurymy century, we no longer count the walls that are built across the planet.
The question of controlling population flows has also become a major issue in political debates, in the United States between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, in the competition to win the presidential elections on November 5, but also within the European Union, in the United Kingdom, with the dangerous crossings of the English Channel, in the Middle East between Israel and Gaza… To the point that political scientist Damien Simonneau, author of Why lock yourself in?evokes a “global frenzy” to describe this important trend.
Professor at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations, the author identifies three functions of the wall. While it is primarily a military tool that allows a territorial defense strategy, it has since been largely dematerialized by bringing together a set of cutting-edge technologies (biometrics, drones, radars, sensors) that allow the controls to be operated. Finally, the wall is above all a control which demonstrates its ability to classify. It filters circulations that are sometimes considered desirable, sometimes undesirable, and in doing so, it reveals itself as an accelerator of inequalities at a global level.
The border is also a door.
Damien Simonneau observes that “ The obsession with the wall » (the title of his previous work published in 2020 by Swiss publisher Peter Lang) has two serious consequences. On the one hand, it fuels fears and fantasies of migratory invasions, which are too high on the agenda of Western political leaders. On the other hand, this obsession causes a high human cost, with an ever-increasing number of deaths, and hinders freedom of movement. In short, “Walls are expensive, largely ineffective in their function of controlling mobility and violate people’s rights”explains.
In July 2009, as a student, he was struck by the absurdity of the check carried out by two young Israeli soldiers on a Palestinian worker at the green line separating the two territories. Fifteen years later, we dare not imagine the situation. This is why Damien Simonneau intends to fight against the ideologies of isolation and confinement spread by the promoters.
If the wall is indeed “synonymous with political failures”We can, in response to the author’s argument, object that the border is also a door, of which the degree of openness is an indicator. On the contrary, the absence of borders creates walls. Having studied the militarization of borders in Israel and the United States, the essayist could perhaps look at the Chinese border, or even take a historical step back by analyzing why the Russian revolution was followed by the establishment of iron curtains throughout central and eastern Europe.
