“Many small people, who in many small places do many small things, can alter the face of the world.” East Side Gallery 1990.
I want you all to take a moment and close your eyes. Travel back to East Berlin 1989, a damp and dark city under the rule of the cold hearted Soviets. The house television has just reported that the long standing Berliner Mauer has “fallen”, and all Germans are now free to travel. For foreigners this may be a small insignificant news, however for Germans this signalizes the beginning of the end. It gives hope and faith that the long standing Soviet Rule may be starting to decay, it gives the dream of a new and bright future. Suddenly, you are on the floor crying, whilst other people outside are chanting and celebrating the fall of a decades long rule.
Good morning to my audience, my name is Antonia Escobar and today you will be joining me as we explore the past, in order to analyze the present and future. George Santayana once said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” still many countries are building barriers, ignoring the horrific and terrifying times of the Berlin Wall.
After World War II, when people thought times were advancing for the better, the Soviet Union was about to take Eastern Europeans' lives for a turn. Life was hard for East Germans, basic households were scarce, life expectancy was dropping, and they were grossly underpaid. Approximately 3 million East Germans, looking for a better future, fled to West Germany between 1949 and 1961, leaving East Germany with a big gap in its workforce. The East German Volkskammer took drastic measures and set off to build what would become one of the most significant barriers in the world, stretching more than 120 km. Some lucky ones escaped, resorting to very drastic measures such as building tunnels and faking passports, while others were left trapped behind a wall and under a strict regime for 28 years.
The Berlin Wall meant much more than a partition though. It was the virtual division between the Western world and the Soviet Union. As Winston Churchill once said “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” The “Iron Curtain” was created with the sole purpose of making Eastern European countries dependent on the Soviet Union and to shut off their access to the Western World.
Paradoxically countries are still building walls and shutting off access from other nations. Many of the reasons these countries are building walls are the same reasons why the Berlin Wall was created. One of the main objectives for these actions is to stop the massive influx of migrants looking for a better life. Ironically, the Berlin Wall was erected for the opposite reasons, to stop people from leaving. So why this change? Why are countries still building walls, but for the opposite reasons as those in the 1980s?
The main difference lies in the government that built the Berlin Wall compared to those that are building walls now. The Soviet Union was a communist government, established on the ideals of public ownership and communal control of the means of production. The principle behind communism is that everyone earns the same amount. As with every type of government, this also had flaws. Corruption is not new to the world, and the Soviet Union could be called the capital of corruption in those times. Government officials benefited from the underpaid hard labor of the working class, who worked 40 hours a week, with almost non-existent holidays, making just enough to support their family. Despondent people sought refugee status in West Germany, yet in their absence, East Germany was left without its backbone. Despairing high government officials were left with only one choice, to cut off all access to West Germany.
The Berlin Wall started as flour sacks and barbed wires, though quickly it grew into one of the most notable barriers. Patrol dogs, skilled marksmen and landmines made the crossing practically impossible. 28 years later, in the wake of political reforms, and a miscommunication between the East Berlin Party and its citizens, the wall fell down. Following the decay of the Berlin Wall, the Soviet Union followed suit and in 1991, after standing for 69 years, one of the most powerful regimes fell.
Now, most of the world is ruled by democracy, a system where state power is vested on the commons. Yet the world has never been and will never be an utopia, and as with every type of government, democracy also has its flaws.
The most notable wall is being built by a country that calls itself a beacon of democracy, the United States. Mexican immigrants, driven by poverty and the hope of a better future, the so-called “American Dream,” will resort to even the most extreme and dangerous measures to cross illegally into the United States. Former president Donald Trump won the 2017 election, with one of his main campaign promises being a “big, beautiful wall” between Mexico and the United States. As of the end of his term, Mr. Trump had added 15 miles to an already existing wall, far from the 2,000 mile wall he promised he would build.
Nationalist politicians, such as Mr. Trump, place immigrants at the center of their political agenda, and claim that they steal jobs, put a strain on public services such as education and healthcare, and increase crime rates. Most of these beliefs are wrong, though. Migrants often do the dirty jobs no one else is willing to do, thus keeping the economy afoot. Ironically, the middle and upper classes are the ones that benefit most from migration, in terms of economic gains.
According to Spiegel Information on migration, the construction of border walls may actually bring a faster influx of migrants. Faced with a now or never situation, surges of migrants are prompted into permanent settlements. Prior to 1991, Moroccans traveled to and from Spain as seasonal workers without visa requirements. But when the Schengen Agreement was introduced in 1991, which placed visa requirements, and the Ceuta Border Wall was built in 1993, Moroccans resorted to illegal migrations via land or boat. This rapidly increased a permanent population of over 700,000 Moroccan migrants in Spain. A now or never situation also prompts migrants to take their family with them, increasing migration numbers faster than ever.
Closing access from other countries also puts illegal migrants in very dangerous situations as they resort to one of the most perilous ways of illegal migration: people smuggling. Smugglers transport people in rubber boats, most often than not carrying much more than what is intended. Walls are also being built between Bangladesh and India, and Israel and Palestine. Ultimately walls cut off job access, and further divide cultures, ideologies and spiritual beliefs.
On the contrary, “free” migration also has its benefits. An aging population may be replenished by young migrants, cultures can intertwine bringing knowledge and perspectives from other countries. Opposing the widely believed myth that migration takes a toll on the host countries economies, migration has been proven to strengthen the economy; it fills job vacancies, pension gaps can be filled by the contributions of migrants who also pay taxes, and overall result in economic growth. With all the data, it is safe to say that walls ultimately don’t lead to less migration.
Barriers make migration a risky journey, and at the end of the day migrants bring forth more positive than bad outcomes. Perhaps Germany would have been a completely different country if West and East Germany would have never been separated for so long.
After all of this previous information, I believe it is safe to say that the wrong beliefs about migration are created by nationalist politicians and distributed by the media, which is under their power, in order to create and promote a xenophobic culture. They do so to hide how much they profit from migrant’s jobs, and to make themselves appear as the good guys in the story.
