Borders with Andrew

Andrew sits down with Gare and James to explain the history of borders and how states have used them to control people

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M hey everyone and welcome. It could happen here. I'm
Andrew the YouTube channel andrewism. I would like to borrow
some of your time today or tonight, whenever you're listening
to talk about movements, the fact that humans move around

(00:20):
and the most Indian restrictions on it in our modern world. Today,
I'm joined by my co hosts. Hello Garrison here, Hi,
it's James as well, right, Glad to be here and
to be here with you guys. So, even before I

(00:41):
was an anarchist, I would say there were three things
I really despised. Things I despised from like fairly early
each that being the education system, advertising and porters. I
believe freedom of movement is fundamental. I don't know if

(01:02):
that's controversial or anything, but these days it feels like
it has reached a point of like really great restriction,
more so, I think than at most points of human history.
So I want to talk about the history of borders,
the role of borders, and the fight against borders. Not

(01:27):
to give you some context, I guess you didn't talk
about my accent and from the Caribbean, particularly from Turno,
Tobago and being from an island nation twin island nation. Actually,
um I have been made away of the constant through

(01:48):
history that has been into Ireland migration, whether you're talking
about the Polynesian migrations across the specific whether you're talking
about even within the Malay Archipe Loco or the Philippine Archipelago,
or even when you're talking about of course the Caribbean,
there's always been, you know, this movement of people going

(02:10):
from Ireland to Ireland. You know, like Tronada is very
close to northeastern Venezuela, only eleven kilometers off the coast
of northeastern Venezuela. Our Northern Range literally called Northern Range
is an extension of Venezuela's maritime and these mountains, but
the connections to end there. Human settlements in turn IAD

(02:34):
dates back at least seven thousand years. In fact, one
of the oldest human settlements discovered in the Eastern Caribbean,
the Banuari Trae site, is found in southeastern Turndad. One
of the leading theories of human dispersal across the world
places the migration of the Caribbean as beginning in TURNAD

(02:57):
and going up the Antillian chain. A lot of the
indigenous groups that settled in turn Ad and in the
other islands north of turn Ad for the most part,
migrated up the or No Coal River in what is
now Venezuela. So exchange and migration between the continent and
the island has continued undisturbed freely for thousands of years

(03:21):
before the arrival of the Spanish, and today, in our
free coote and code post colonial code and code world,
what was once the norm is now criminalized. Now you
have to go through this proper process in order to migrate.
You have to ask permission from governments who draw these
invisible lines or in some cases violently physical lines in

(03:45):
the sand and demanded deference. And yet still migration continues
because migration is a constant of human existence, legal and illegal.
Recent Venecuela crisis and subsequent migration is just another uptake
of the stay. Refugees desperate to escape the present um
of American imperialism and Venezuelan govern mismanagement and all the

(04:09):
component is ues that have caused Venezuelan crisis have been
flee into Colombia, to Brazil, to the Dutch Caribean Islands,
to the other Latin American countries, and of course to
turn that well, this's my creation is extorted by opportunists, facility,
by the organized crime of human traffickers, because when you

(04:30):
try to restrict that kind of demand, when you illegalize
that kind of movement, the people on the margins, we'll
try to take advantage of those who are who need
to move around, because that need is still there. And
so lines also, of course are not necessarily creating, but

(04:54):
they still to exacerbate issues like xenophobia, which is you know,
only amplified by the existence of borders. And they also
deal with, due to their paperless status, a lot of
gross exploitation because they struggled to find work and secure
the basic necessities of life. The Venezuelan refugee crisis is

(05:16):
a disaster I've seen unfull before my own eyes when
I have witnessed firsthand, and one that is facilitated and
exacerbated by the existence of borders. And I've seen similar
issues occurd at the parts of the world too. You know,
Borders are enforced between the US and Mexico, between Haiti
and the Binican Republic, between Spain and Morocco, between Europe

(05:38):
in the Swanna region, between India and Pakistan, between Australia
and Indonesia, UM, between Palestine and Israel, and being journalists,
I'm sure you guys have experienced perhaps foostand other examples
of the violent enforcement of borders. James, you have any experiences, Yeah,

(06:00):
for sure. I actually live just about the same distance
you live from Venezuela. I live about the same distance
from the US border with Mexico. So I've spent quite
a lot of my journalistic career crossing the border and
reporting on the border. And like, it's as you said,
it's become increasingly violently enforced, and it's just ugly scar

(06:21):
on on the landscape now. And it's and I often
like to say, the border doesn't protect people, it controls people.
It's yeah, it's a very cruel and vicious and entirely
arbitrary distinction between what is Kumi is Land to the
north of the border and Kumi is Land to the

(06:41):
south of the border in my case, yeah, exactly exactly.
The way that borders have cut through um the ame
lands of any different indigenous groups has been absolutely disastrous
for them. This is taken place and of course the US,
UM and most I suppose recognizably in Africa, where these

(07:07):
clunial borders have been causing tremendous harm to this day. Yeah. Yeah,
it's a very good point. I remember just talking of
like weird border things. I remember in just before the pandemic,
I was on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, and when you did, it just seems
so absurd, like to think that you know, some literally

(07:29):
some I'll do in England, or a line on a
map or whatever in Germany. But one of the things
that it creates is this weird situation where plastic bags
are illegal in Rwanda because they're trying to protect the
environment and they're not in Congo. So there's like this
illegal arbitrage trader of of plastic bags across this border.
And it's just such an odd and constructed, entirely unnecessary

(07:52):
and strange sort of legacy of the colonial plunder of Africa. Yeah.
I didn't even hear that before. And that sounds quite interesting. Um,
he says, between Rwanda and Democrats Republic of the Congo. Yeah,
I think it's the border town there, um right, Yeah,

(08:14):
people people will come across with their plastic bags. Be
interesting to see how that develops. I know they are
attempting to unify Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda,
Salt Sudan, Um, I think Jubooty and and Somalia and
a few other places I think into like an East

(08:36):
African federation. So be interested to see how those umscan
seas and laws developed. Yeah, the rwandam bordered with Congo
is that there's a soldier every fifty ms with a
big machine gun, even going right through the middle of
the Young Way rainforest, which is very remote by rewinded standards,

(08:57):
a busy country with lots of people. But yeah, that's
a very militarized border right now, right, Yeah, Yeah, that
reminds you it's a less militorized example. UM. I mean,
people point out the disparity between the US Kindada border
and the US Mexico border, But I remember reading a
story somewhere about how person on the Canadian side UM

(09:20):
had like they could very easily cross over onto the
US side, but there was like a steep trooper or
something just standing there and it's like if you cross over,
have to arrest you. And it's just it's like you're
right there, We're literally having a conversation face to face,
and yet if I walk over this our cherry designation,
I have to be jailed. Yeah, it's biz. There's a

(09:44):
very arbitrary The border between Neanmar and Thailand is it's
a funny example like that where like it's a river
and this is unfortunately resulted in people trying to cross it.
Here we're able to swim dying, which is terrible, right,
But one thing that happened, it's like if you're in
the river, you're in neither country. And so people will

(10:04):
make stilts, like little stands on stilts which come up
to the level of the river bank so that they
can stand in like no man's land or every man's
land maybe everyone's land, and sell alcohol without paying the
Thai taxes and things to people who are standing on
the bank in Thailand. And again it just really illustrates

(10:25):
how stupid now, but treat this whole thing is so
as we're talking about the absurdity of boilers, I suppose
it's wanting fair to get into their history because for

(10:47):
most of the rule and for most of human existence,
really free movement has been the status school traders, migrants,
hunter gatherers, nomads. They freely each a boost. This little
blue marble, as they call it. Of course, many ethnic
groups maintains it in relationships with particular lands. But even
when city states on such rules, it was rare for

(11:10):
rulers to delineate precisely where their realm ended and another's began.
The first like large scale restrictions really a rose under
the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century when he
forbade serves from leaving their lord's land. Documents, of course,

(11:33):
had to be created to request save passage to ask
O king, will you please allow me to move from
point A to point B? My lord, your majesty soon whatever?
What what do we call the first past sports is

(11:53):
what quickly in rules the medieval era essentially bound large
parts of yours population in place by sufdom, and movement
was viewed by rulers as ruin us to their low
and order. They needed static populations to stay in place
so that taxation and the raising of troops and whatever

(12:19):
they wanted to extract could easily be extracted. Because you know,
if these persidents were able to just move as they pleased,
they will probably try to evade taxation that got a
little bit too excessive. Um, they would probably trying to

(12:40):
evade the oppression of their rulers, and that they did.
I mean, throughout feudalism, peasant revolts and uprisings very commonplace,
and it's due to those revolts of the masses that
sifdom would come into a decline as a wage labor

(13:03):
rules in the fifteenth and sixteen centuries. But that would
mean that free movement came back because now people were
commodity that a country's government wanted to keep within its borders.
Surrulers offered citizenship and tax incentives and want to encourage migration.
And yet while they were encouraging migration, they were also

(13:24):
kicking people out. So countries like Spain and France were
either executing or expelling ethnic and religious minorities and mass
So this period also bring about the rights of nationalism,
which would tap into an earlier sense of um I
suppose connection and sort of subvert that from connection to

(13:51):
community to connection to this abstract notion of nation state,
the imaginary community of the nation jenn. Nationalism in Europe
would attempt to unify a vast and diverse range of
cultural groups and classes under one state, while defining themselves

(14:13):
against outsiders, and of course this ruling class meta narrative
exists as a mechanism of manufactured, meaningless loyalty in order
to control you. But that's a topic for another time.
This era has also been described as one of the

(14:34):
largest periods of involuntary migration in human history, that be
in the Transatlantic slave trade, which trafficed and estimated twelve
point five million in slave African people between the sixteen
and nineteenth century. But there was this one key movement
in history of borders that would have lasted effects to today.

(14:55):
At the end of the Thirty Years War, the Peace
of Westphalia was signed by a gen nine principalities and
touchies and imperial kingdoms which basically agreed in sixty eight
that the state's borders were inviolable and an absolute sovereign
state could not interfere the domestic affairs of another. Now,
of course, this is all just talk right at the

(15:18):
end of the day, states have continued to interfere the
domestic affairs of others, will continue to violate the words
of other states. There are plenty of board disputes that
are alive and well some decades or even centuries old,
um on this planet. And then, of course this whole
idea of West Philian sovereignty would not really be applied

(15:43):
to people outside of Europe. The actual inhabitants of the
interesting looking maps that the West Fillian era produced, we're
not actually made privy to any of those um this
visions about the drawing up borders. They would also be moving,

(16:07):
of course people continuously, so you know, Spain was kicking
out um Jewish people and more's and people who relate
the heretics as un the inquisition Um. The British was
moving their dissenters, criminals and general pains and new bombacy
to settle colonize in places like Australia, which is why

(16:31):
Australia is like that. And things progress a bit further,
you have the notion of free trade and free market
gain in some ground thanks to Adam Smith's new school
of economics. At the same time, concerns of population and
the mouths, unemployment and social unrest in Europe led governments

(16:54):
to start facilities and emigration moving out their colonies the
more general free flow settler clonalism, which would lead to
domestic depopulation in Europe. And then there was another shift
as tend to be the case in human history. As
in the nineteenth century, migrants from now underdeveloped regions began

(17:15):
to stream towards the more developed areas and drews. So
you had North Africans going to France, Italians and Irish
headed to New York and all the while, of course,
racism and xenophobia festeran and proliferating as nationalists with top
fay against the so called threats to their nation. Of course,
Italians and Irish were eventually assimilated into the hegemonic notion

(17:40):
of whiteness. But North Africans in France have not been
so lucky. Oh, I suppose lucky could and could because
there's a whole conversation about how whiteness destroys cultures and
erases the unique identities that these people would have come
up with in an efforts to unite them against minorities

(18:03):
such as African Americans in the US. Do you see
this period of lockdown, of this increased nationalism and these restrictions,
These bad restrictions would also try to manipulate access to

(18:26):
certain technologies, um the telegraph, the railroad. Yes, they enabled
central governments to assert their presence across their whole territory.
But they would also try to compete with other nations
UM and keep certain secrets regarding technology. See that particularly

(18:48):
UM during the Cold War, but we'll get to that
a bit later. During the First World War we have
the death of some sixteen million people, the Great War UM,
as you should probably call it if you ever happened
to time travel to that period. I don't think people
would want to hear that this is just the first

(19:10):
two World Wars. But after the World War UM, the
Great War UM, this seggregationist Wouldrew Wilson, who was US
President at the time, proposed fourteen points to the international
community in order to prevent such horrors. And one of
those core principles of the fourteen points was it the

(19:31):
globe's borders. We were drawn along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
And like I said before, this is of course just
in Europe. It's not like any of these will leaders
actually care about the territories they coved up in Africa.
And I think there was a point that I wanted
to make about technology and how technology has been restricted

(19:53):
because when you look at again the real road and telegraph,
while they enabled the central governments to suit their presence
send assume their control onlike ever before, the potential these
technologies was kind of lost. Yes, the railroad in the
telegraph can help a government to sue its control over

(20:13):
its territory, but it can just as easily empower people
to travel further and faster than they ever had before,
two communicate across greater distances and they ever had before,
and insteadin the hands of the states. These technologies are
of course used for oppress events. Back to the end

(20:37):
of the First World War. In the post war period,
which saw the collapse of four European empires Ottoman, Russian, Austro,
Hungarian and German, millions of refugees were left in a
world where immigration controls are continued to tighten and passports
gained great a prominence. Last, once the nation state was

(20:58):
meanted in place fashion Zalman Nazism would quickly arise to
god its supposed to purity. The world would once again
be plunged into war, the second one, this time which
would again leave millions of uprooted and displaced people that
states like Switzerland quote unquote neutral and the US would

(21:18):
largely refuse to assist. After the Second World War, nation
building would continue to displace and slaughter some millions of
ethnic and religious minorities. Millions of refugees have been dismissed
from lands that have been colonized and imperialized, and intervened
with wars and wrecked with just the destruction of climate

(21:42):
change and poverty. And yet immigration controls only tightened further,
and they will likely continue to tighten due to the
effects of climate migration and climate collapse, especially in our
post ninety leveln reality. US border patrolling particular has escalated

(22:06):
to employed twenty thousand agents, and Israel Run is the
largest open air prison in the world. These days, militarized
borders with heavily guarded barbed wire and electrified fences, which
were once common in times of war, have now been
a staple of times of peace. These managinary lines and

(22:26):
the map have become in some places violent fixtures on
the landscape, with thousands of people lose their lives every
year for simply trying to cross. We've entered an era
of essentially bordering without precedent, and thanks to today's technology,
governments no more now about the people they govern, the
people within their territory, but at any point prior in

(22:48):
human history. Cross border surveillance keeps neighbors in the new
managing and monitoring their populous like lab rates, data has
become more valuable then black Cold itself. These governments have
chosen to wall, and so they this is our will now.

(23:09):
It's not some future cyberpunk, the stupia, the curveillance capitalist
heales keepers here now and borders have an important rule
to play. But as our power structure their system of control.
As the writers A Crime think Of said, there's only

(23:30):
one world on the border is tearing it apart. And
I think the idea of borders extends much further than
just the nations borders. When you look at the Internet,
fire walls, the checkpoints, the hidden databases, the for profit prisons,

(23:50):
indicated communities, all these different boundaries enforced by ceaseless violence,
enforced by a deep autation, enforced by visual anti attacks,
by street haraspment, by torture, All of these boundaries are
holding us back and tearing us apart. Migrants, due to

(24:12):
their vulnerable status or often the first target when it
comes to the economic down to and depression. Civilians and
scapegoating nations wield fair of this other and they use
that to prevent their people from fighting for better. They

(24:36):
turned their eye towards another victim. I doesn't even get
into all the different categories that have been constructed my
grant expert refugee, asylum seeker, illegal alien, and that one
in particular really grinds my cares because it is a

(25:00):
believe the pinnacle of dehumanization to look at a person
who's dice just man just managed to like just by
happen sands fell on the other side of the border,
to look at them and to deem them alien, deem

(25:23):
them illegal, to brand them that, and I even acknowledge
the humanity when referring to them. And it's become a
normalized part of political discourse to speak of illegal aliens.
But I don't think we should forget just how violent
that kind of languages. It's particularly violent when you count

(25:44):
for the fact that while these borders are used to
restrict people on the lowest rung of society, capital has
very few restrictions. In fact, that has much less restrictions,
and people the rich and their capital can cross borders

(26:06):
with ease, go from place to place without munch process.
And in fact, we look at Jeff Bass. Also we
say that, oh, well, he's the richest man the world
for but when you account for the wealth that has
not been accounted for, I think it must be put

(26:28):
into perspective that Bill Gates are Sackaboo, Jeff Beazles, etcetera.
They are the richest people that we know of, not
necessarily the richest. A global economy has also been, of course,
moving resources for a while now. Resources have more freedom

(26:51):
than people. The unequal and even development has extracted minerals
and materials from some parts of the process them in
other parts of the world, manufacture them in other parts
of the world, and then sold worldwide for the profits
to be hoarded by select few countries and select a
few people. These wealthy countries under the poor and then

(27:15):
brutalize those who follow. Where the opportunities of Antica. But
I don't think that one's opportunities one freedom. One's freedom
should be restricted by where they were born or by
the wealth that they do to not control. Passports, inequality
is essue that should not exist. Passports should not exist.

(27:39):
Palestinians can travel visa free to only thirty eight countries
and territories. Yet those in the West Bank are restricted
by violent by violent checkpoints, and those who live in
gas are call you the stript at all. Meanwhile, other
regions enjoy fast These are free travels, such as humans

(28:00):
who have access to d countries and territories, or the
Japanese who enjoy the most freedom, piece of free of all,
with ninety three countries available to them. A billionaire like
Elon Musket flying wherever he wants in his private jet.
A political prisoner like a Jory Luta, who can be

(28:21):
kept in solitary bears on end traditional seafear and channels
and land has been militarized and guarded by these vast navies,
by these vast troops, by these these machines, These structures

(28:41):
that disconnected, unraveled the deep ties between communities. Borderston us
all into prisoners, and I think it's about time we
resisted them. As the underground railroads of anti Nazi and
anti slavery resistance has shown everyday people can help everyday people,
no matter the obstacles. If you live in a border

(29:06):
sanctuary city or a migrant community, they are probably already
groups that are put in this work, and you could
join that infrastructure resistance if not, you can help to
create that infrastructure to connect with people who are affected
by borders in ways that you aren't. I mean, perhaps
you have a neighbor or a cool worker who's undocumented

(29:26):
and could use help in that. Try to connect cross
border formal and informal, public and coland design because these connections,
these networks, or how people move live and evade state violence. Obviously,

(29:49):
I can't speak for everybody situation because different people's legal status,
language ability, education level, gender, raised class, commit muns and ability.
What a fact that can atribution to this anti borders movement.
But however you decide to contribute, I hope that you

(30:09):
would remember who it is we're trying to help. We're
not trying to act as you know, these saints for
the media, and I recognized the irony of saying saints
in particular considered my allD YouTube name. But the media

(30:29):
is not all focus. The audience of our actions is
not public opinion. It is those we want fighting with us,
people who need our help, people who know the violent
supporters forstand so they get into direct action. Two, you know,
directly affect the material outcomes of people influence our borders.

(30:53):
You know, whether you're helping my creation prisoner manach to escape,
or helping one person get a roof over their head
in an asylum case, having a person who is trapped
in this system to find the strength to get through
a day. These actions refupreating our communities, and they kilp
oup others do the same. You also need, of course,

(31:15):
more infrastructure, networks, alliances, skills and resources to be cultivated
to strengthen our autonomy from these structures and to develop
ability to defend against them. And of course these actions
should be rooted in some strategy long term and short

(31:36):
term for overcoming this regime months and for all. Just
for a final would I would say that there is
nothing necessary or inevitable about borders. Only the violence of
their most ardent believers keep them in place, and without them,

(31:56):
what as with seems to exist. Borders can only exist
if they are enforced, and together we can make borders
an enforceable. Together, we can create a will in which
everyone is free to travel, free to create, and free

(32:17):
to exist on their own terms. Now's it. If you
like what I spoke about in this episode, or if
you just like to hear my voice, feel free to
check out my YouTube channel and toism and you can
support me on peature dot com slash seeing True or

(32:39):
follow me on Twitter at and disclore saying true. It
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(33:00):
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Thanks for listening.