Two books about borders
STUPID OR OPEN BORDERS?

National borders are something we take for granted, although they are historical constructs. Borders are often unfair, cruel and sometimes just plain stupid.

By Holger Moos

© Katapult The oldest European state border is the one between the Pyrenean Principality of Andorra and Spain. It dates back to the year 1278. But most borders are much more recent. “More than half of all the kilometres of today’s borders only came into existence in the 20th century,“ says Fabian Sommavilla, editor of the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard in the preface to his book 55 kuriose Grenzen und 5 bescheuerte Nachbarn (55 Odd Borders and 5 Stupid Neighbours).
 
In historical terms, borders are a European “export hit“. Before the European powers colonised the rest of the world, there were often no clearly-defined borders. A result of colonialism as famous as they are notorious are the ruler-straight boundaries between African countries, taking no account whatsoever of the people living there. What Sommavilla compiles in his book goes far beyond generally-known facts on the subject of borders. He sums up his findings as follows: “The more involved with borders you become, the more you see how absurd they are and the arbitrary way in which they were drawn.“

ABSURD, ODD, LETHAL

Borders sometimes nest inside one another like matryoshka dolls. In the United Arab Emirates, for example, there is an enclave of Oman, in which in turn there is another enclave of the United Arab Emirates. On a map, it bears some resemblance to a fried egg. This special geopolitical feature is known as a second-order enclave. Another bizarre feature is a small river island that alternates between French and Spanish administration for six months at a time. A territory thus administered by two or more powers is known as a condominium. And did you know that Google Maps nearly sparked off a war because of a cartographic imprecision, that Malawi, a country bordering on Lake Malawi, has no access to the lake, or that the world’s most complicated border is in the Netherlands?
 
As well as such absurdities and oddities, the book is also about inhumane and lethal borders, like the Mexican-U.S. border, where hundreds of people die each year, or the border between North and South Korea. Borders are also used to earn money, for example through the overflight charges that every country makes, sometimes resulting in airlines choosing surprising air routes to save money.
 
55 kuriose Grenzen und 5 bescheuerte Nachbarn is a cornucopia of weird and wonderful anecdotes and entertaining history lessons. The Katapult editorial team’s graphics, as always, are also very imaginative, giving this book great visual appeal and inviting readers to browse.

MORE PERMEABLE BORDERS

© Hoffmann und Campe This book picks up on the theme that borders are not set in stone. While borders cannot simply be abolished, they could at least be made more permeable and fairer. That is the case made by political scientist Volker M. Heins in his book Offene Grenzen für alle (Open borders for all). The author regards open borders not as some crazy idea of dreamy idealists, but as a “necessary Utopia“, the book’s subtitle. He starts by presenting a “short history of freedom of movement” and shows how racism and restrictions on the freedom of movement spilt over from the colonies to the societies of the colonial powers. In view of the privileges regarding travel and freedom of movement enjoyed today, particularly by the citizens of the Western world, contrasting with the vast majority of humanity, who are massively disadvantaged, with countless people dying every year in the attempt to cross borders, he argues in favour of what is no longer a prevailing view, “the idea of equal rights world-wide. That would mean making open borders a perspective and leitmotif of all migration policy.“
 
For Heins, more permeable borders are also vital for democracy and freedom within a state. In the medium term, massive isolation undermines the interests of a country’s own population. There comes a point where “militant repulsion of immigrants turns into a reduction of freedom within the countries concerned. Once you have finished with the migrants, women are next in line, and then come homosexuals or intellectuals. We are seeing a dismantling of democracy and domestic freedom.“ And that really should not be the aim of human coexistence!