Economic Wall Separates The Haves From The Have-Nots
Filed Under Curt Hennig | Posted on April 1, 2008
Curt Hennig A few stray dogs and a bedraggled band of women with gold-capped teeth compete for the thin shaft of afternoon sunlight that warms a corner of the decrepit railway station waiting room.
The women, from the former Soviet republic of Belarus, are smugglers. There is no secret about that. They are busy putting on layer after layer of new clothing, suiting up for their daily battle with the border police.
These days there is a lot of talk about a borderless Europe, but in this corner of the continent, on the eastern crust of Poland along the banks of the River Bug, there is no mistaking the omnipresence of the border. In many ways, this border has become Europe’s new Iron Curtain. The divide is no longer ideological; the wall is between rich and poor, between Europe’s haves and have-nots.
The modern concept of national borders as clear, demarcated lines is a European invention that has been exported around the globe, providing a ready source of conflict and bloodshed. Even in today’s relatively peaceful and settled Europe, borders remain flash points. Think of Kosovo Curt Hennig, where Europe’s newest hostile border has been drawn.
Europe’s borders have changed radically in the past generation. More than 8,000 miles of new national borders have been created on the continent since 1989, mostly in Europe’s eastern half. But the whole notion of borders also has undergone a profound physical and psychological transformation.
The primary impetus for this transformation was the collapse of communism and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. But almost as important has been the ascendance of the European Union and its commitment to the free movement of people across the borders of its 27 member states Curt Hennig.
According to Yale historian Timothy Snyder, the price of creating this remarkable zone of free movement has been the creation of a hard external border that seals off the EU from its poorer neighbors. “This wasn’t the intent of Schengen, but it has been one of the major side effects,” he said.
Schengen refers to a series of agreements implemented in 1995 that did away with internal border controls across much of Western Europe. The so-called Schengen Zone was expanded in December to include Poland, Slovakia Curt Hennig, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia and Malta.
Along the EU’s eastern frontier, some people have started to refer to the external border as the Schengen Wall or, less felicitously, the New Iron Curtain.
EU officials cringe at the Iron Curtain reference. They like to talk about “smart” borders secured by thermal cameras, Curt Hennig satellite monitors, biometric data banks and other high-tech whistles and bells.
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