At the beginning of the second century of the modern era, a fortification of more than 100 km in length was built to protect the Roman Empire from the ‘barbarians’. Three centuries later, Hadrian’s Wall was abandoned forever. What is left of it, a UNESCO world heritage site, is now visited only by tourists. The route taken by the Wall corresponds roughly to the current border between Scotland and England, a border that is not destined to be adorned by watchtowers and barbed wire fences, but how sure can we ever really be?
The rise of the feudal system was mirrored by the rise of battles between nobles, who built fortresses and ramparts to protect their fiefdoms. The image of a fortress, so symbolic of the Middle Ages, has been perpetuated down through the centuries and is still used to this day, in the current joyful context, to describe the European Union itself. Duchies, principalities, nations and empires have always used force to defend their borders, which have repeatedly been redrawn following marriages, successions, battles and treaties. But we often forget that borders were also crossing points, subject to an array of conditions.
The radicalisation of hatred between modern states brought with it the militarisation of boundaries. The Maginot Line, a chain of fortifications on which the French state began work in 1928, bears a badge featuring a pointed cannon muzzle and the words ‘On ne passe pas’ (They Shall Not Pass). The German invasion made short work of it, taking just a few weeks to overcome it. Later, to make it impossible for the Allies to land, Hitler had the Atlantic Wall built, although this did not save him from ultimate defeat.
All these multi-secular trials and tribulations had one thing in common: ramparts, walls and forts were all built to keep out the Enemy. With his sabres, canons and tanks, the Enemy is always proven a redoubtable opponent, well armed, sometimes even over-armed. It was his end that justified all means. The common Enemy also have the immense advantage of tightening ranks around the Master, federate in the classes, downplaying internal debates, all whilst filling the coffers of the death industries.
Once peace had returned, was the post-war era the theatre for a paradigm shift? Was it not the aim of the proletarian, internationalist, revolution to beat swords into ploughshares, to smash the Roman, Germanic or trade imperium, to consign these pointless edifices to history? Oh, quite the reverse! Stalin, in his admiration for the Czars, consolidated the zone of influence he acquired at Yalta. In the wake of the Prague coup d’état in 1948, the treaty of Washington was signed. There were two blocs squaring up to each other, each with its own Enemy, with barbed wire between them. The Iron Curtain, the new incarnation of Hadrian’s Wall, was imposed by the ‘new’ Rome on the Slavic peoples: officially defensive, it felt offensive to them. “They Shall Not Pass!’
There is, as they say, nothing new under the sun, except this Europe of the Communities, which pretends to go about things differently, signing a treaty in the ‘old’ Rome to create new liberties and “eliminate the barriers which divide Europe” (preamble to the EEC Treaty). Yet the construction of the Berlin Wall began in summer 1961.
When the United Kingdom joined the Community, it brought Northern Ireland with it in its luggage. In this anachronistic enclave, barricades had been raised in Belfast in 1966, between Catholic and Protestant areas of the city. Three years later, they were replaced with walls of iron, concrete, bricks and steel, more than 7 m in height. By day, the police or soldiers carried out checks on people passing through; by night, everybody had to stick to their own side. It took many years of horrifying troubles before a form of peace could be brokered at the end of the century, with the involvement of European and American authorities. These walls will be razed to the ground in 2023, if the Northern Irish government keeps its word. They are currently tourist attractions, which are called the ‘peace lines’ (an exaggeration?). They are the only walls of their kind in the whole of Europe and since Brexit, they have been in a third country.
In 1974, a former British colony, Cyprus, was attacked by Turkish troops. The island was slashed in two by a 300 km-long internal border, known as the ‘Green Line’ or ‘Attila Line’, running as far as its capital, Nicosia. All efforts to reunify the island have been in vain.
15 years later and the Soviet empire was entering its dislocation phase. The Austro-Hungarian border was opened up and the rush to the West began. The pioneers in the dismantling of electric fences were the Hungarian border guards (the very same!). And then the Berlin Wall fell. Germany was reunified, but surrounded by a European Union of confirmed attractiveness. A wind of freedom blew through the rubble of the Iron Curtain, paving the way for the unity of the continent and its lasting peace. This time, it must be the right time: no more walls, no more barbed wire!
Yes, but… In 1998, in Melilla, a Spanish enclave on Moroccan soil, a barrier 3 metres in height was replaced by two parallel fences twice as high and topped with razor wire, over a total distance of 12 km, with surveillance posts and electronic sensors. It cost 33 million euros. Three years later, the same process began in the similar enclave of Ceuta, with a total price tag of 30 million, partly financed by the EU. In both cases, the aim was to fight illegal immigration and trafficking. Morocco, which has for many years laid claim to both enclaves, protested against these constructions. In 2005, several hundred immigrants tried to get across these barriers: some 20 people were killed in a hail of bullets fired by Spanish civil guards. Were these two outdated entities going to end up being a ‘practice lab’ for the 21st century? (To be continued)
Renaud Denuit