It Could Happen Here - Borders with Andrew

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Andrew sits down with Gare and James to explain the history of borders and how states have used them to control people    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

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or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him.

Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here. I'm Andrew, of the YouTube channel Andrewism. And I'd like to borrow some of your time today or tonight or whenever you're listening to talk about movement, the fact that humans move around, and the most inane 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. Glad to be here and to be here with you guys. So even before I was an anarchist, I would say there were three things I really despised. Things I despised from like a fairly early age. That being the education system, advertising, and borders.

I believe freedom of movement is fundamental i don't know if that's controversial or anything but these days it feels like it has reached a point of 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 now to give you some context in case you couldn't tell by my accent I'm from the Caribbean particularly from Trinidad and Tobago and being from an island nation a twin island nation actually um I have been made aware of the constant through history that has been inter-island migration whether you're talking about the Polynesian migrations across the Pacific, whether you're talking about even within the Malay archipelago or the Philippine archipelago, or even when you're talking about, of course, the Caribbean,

there's always been this movement of people going from island to island. You know? Like, Trinidad is very close to northeastern Venezuela, only 11 kilometers off the coast of northeastern Venezuela. Our northern range, literally called northern range, is an extension of Venezuela's maritime Andes mountains. But the connections don't end there. Human settlements in Trinidad date back at least 7,000 years.

in Trinidad dates back at least 7,000 years. In fact, one of the oldest human settlements discovered in the eastern Caribbean, the Banwari Trace Site, is found in southeastern Trinidad. One of the leading theories of human dispersal across the world places the migration of the Caribbean as beginning in Trinidad and going up the Antillean chain. A lot of the indigenous groups that settled in Trinidad and in the other islands north of Trinidad have for the most part migrated up the Orinoco River in what is now Venezuela.

So exchange and migration between the continent and the island has continued undisturbed freely for thousands of years before the arrival of the Spanish and today in our free quote-unquote post-colonial quote-unquote world what was once a 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 the sand, and demand a deference. And yet still, migration continues,

because migration is a constant of human existence, legal and illegal. The recent Venezuela crisis and subsequent migration is just another uptake of the same refugees desperate to escape the pressing thumb of american imperialism and venezuelan government mismanagement and all the component issues that have caused the venezuelan crisis have been fleeing to colombia to brazil to the dutch car Dutch Caribbean islands, to the other Latin American countries, and of course, to Trinidad. A lot of this migration is extorted by opportunists, facilitated by the organized crime of human traffickers. Because when you try to restrict that kind of demand,

when you illegalize that kind of movement, the people on the margins will 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 they serve 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 struggle to find work and secure the basic necessities of life the Venezuelan refugee crisis is a disaster I've seen unfold before my own eyes, one I've witnessed firsthand, and one that is facilitated and exacerbated by the existence of

borders. We've seen similar issues occur in other parts of the world too, you know, borders are enforced between the US and Mexico, between Haiti and Dominican Republic, between Spain and Morocco, and Mexico, between Haiti and Dominican Republic, between Spain and Morocco, between Europe and the Swana region, between India and Pakistan, between Australia and Indonesia, between Palestine and Israel. And being journalists, I'm sure you guys have experienced, perhaps first-hand, other examples of the violence enforcement of borders. James, you have any experiences? Yeah, 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, as you said, it's become increasingly violently enforced. And it's just ugly scar on the border and like it's as you said it's become increasingly violently enforced and it's just ugly scar on and on the landscape now and it it's uh i know 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 Kumeyaay land to the north of the border and Kumeyaay land to the south of the border, in my case.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. The way that borders have cut through the homelands of many different indigenous groups has been absolutely disastrous for them. This has taken place in, of course, the US and most, I suppose, recognizably in Africa, where these colonial borders have been causing tremendous harm to this day. Yeah, yeah, that's a very good point. I remember just talking of like weird border things. I remember in 2020, 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 some old dude in England drew 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 like trade of plastic bags across this border. And it's just such an odd and constructed and entirely unnecessary and strange sort of legacy of the colonial plunder of Africa. Yeah, I didn't even hear of that before.

And that sounds quite interesting. He says between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yeah, I think it's Kiseni, the border town there. But yeah, people will come across with their plastic bags. It'll be interesting to see how that develops i know they're attempting to unify democratic republic of the congo tanzania kenya uganda south sudan um i think djibouti and not djibouti um and somalia and a few other places i think into like an east an East African federation. So be interesting to see how those, um, yeah, season laws develop. Yeah.

The Rwandan border with Congo is that there's a soldier every 50 meters with a, uh, with a big machine gun, uh, even going right through the middle of the, uh, like new way rainforest, which is very remote by Rwandan standards, Rwanda. So 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 militarized example um i mean people point out the disparity between the u.s canada border and the u.s mexico border yeah but i remember reading a story somewhere about how a person on the Canadian side had like, they could very easily cross over onto the US side, but there was like a state trooper or something just standing there. And it's like, if you cross over, I have to arrest you. And it just, it's like, you're right there. We are literally having a conversation face to face. And yet if I walk over this arbitrary designation, I have to be jailed.

Yeah. It's bizarre. There's a very arbitrary, the border between Myanmar 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, unable to swim dying,

which is terrible. Right. but one thing that happens is like if you're in the river you're in neither country and so people will make stilts like little stands on stilts um which come up to the level of the river bank uh such that they can stand in like no man's land or every man's land maybe everyone's land uh and sell alcohol without paying the thai taxes and fees to people who are standing on the bank in thailand and again it just really illustrates how stupid and arbitrary this whole thing is yeah welcome i'm daniel thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturn from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

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I suppose it's holding fair to get into their history. Because for most of the world and for most of human existence really free movement has been the status quo traders migrants hunter-gatherers nomads they freely traversed this little blue marble as they call it of course many ethnic groups maintain certain relationships with particular lands but even when cities stayed on such rules it was rare for rulers to delineate precisely where their realm ended and another's began the first like large-scale restrictions really arose under the roman emperor constantine in the fourth century when he forbade serfs from leaving their lord's land. Documents, of course, had to be created

to request safe passage, to ask, O King, will you please allow me to move from point A to point B? My lord, your majesty, sir, whatever.

What one may call the first passports is what quickly arose the medieval era essentially bound large parts of europe's population in place by serfdom and movement was viewed by rulers as ruinous to their law and order. They needed static populations to stay in place so that taxation and the raising of troops and whatever they wanted to extract could easily be extracted. Because, you know, if these peasants were able to just move as they pleased,

Because, you know, if these peasants were able to just move as they pleased, they would probably try to evade taxation that got a little bit too excessive. They would probably try to evade the oppression of their rulers. And that they did i mean throughout feudalism peasant revolts and uprisings were very commonplace and it's due to those revolts of the masses that serfdom would come into a decline as wage labor was in the 15th and 16th centuries. But that didn't mean that free movement came back because now people were a commodity that a country's government wanted to keep within its borders. So rulers offered citizenship and tax incentives

in order to encourage migration. And yet while they were encouraging migration, they were also kicking people out. So countries like Spain and France were either executing or expelling ethnic and religious minorities en masse. So this period would also bring about the rise of, you know, nationalism,

which would tap into an earlier sense of, I suppose, connection and sort of subvert that from connection to community to connection to this abstract notion of nation state, the imaginary community of the nation. attempt to unify a vast and diverse range of cultural groups and classes under one state while defining themselves against outsiders. And of course, this ruling class metanarrative exists as a mechanism of manufactured meaningless loyalty in order to control you, but that's a topic for another time. But that's a topic for another time. This era has also been described as one of the largest periods of involuntary migration in human history,

that being the transatlantic slave trade, which trafficked an estimated 12.5 million enslaved African people between the 16th and 19th century. But there was this one key moment in the history of borders that would have lasting effects to today. At the end of the Thirty Years' War, the Peace of Westphalia was signed by 109 principalities and duchies in imperial kingdoms, which basically agreed in 1648 that a state's borders were inviolable and an absolute sovereign state could not interfere in the domestic affairs of another. Now, of course, this is all just talk, right? At the end of the day, states have continued to interfere in the domestic affairs of others, would continue to violate the borders of other states.

There are plenty of border disputes that are alive and well, some decades or even centuries old on this planet. And then, of course, this whole idea of Westphalian sovereignty would not really be applied to people outside of Europe.

The actual inhabitants of the interesting-looking maps that the Westphalian era produced were not actually made privy to any of those decisions about the drawing of borders. They would also be moving, course people continuously so you know spain was kicking out um jewish people and moors and people who relates to heretics as in the inquisition um the british was moving their dissenters criminals and general pains in the bum sea to settle colonize in places like australia which is why australia is like that and um

things progress a bit further you have the notion of free trade and free market gaining some ground thanks to adam smith's new school of economics. At the same time, concerns of overpopulation, alamalthus, underemployment, and social unrest in Europe led governments to start facilitating emigration, moving out their colonies to a more general, free-for-all settler colonialism, which would lead to domestic depopulation in Europe. And then there was another shift,

as tends to be the case in human history, as in the 19th century, migrants from now underdeveloped regions began to stream towards the more developed areas in droves. So you had North Africans going to France, Italians and Irish headed to New York, and all the while, of course, racism and xenophobia festering and proliferating as nationalists whipped up fear against the so-called threats to their nation of course italians and irish were eventually assimilated into the hegemonic notion of whiteness but north africans in france have not been so lucky oh i suppose lucky quote quote-unquote,

because there's a whole conversation about how whiteness destroys... Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America.

From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors I know you. Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Gianna Prandti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck.

You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you

end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

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as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Cultures and erases the unique identities that these people would have come up with in an effort to unite them against minorities such as African Americans in the U.S. So you see this period of lockdown, of this increased nationalism and these restrictions.

These border restrictions would also try to manipulate access to certain technologies. 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 and keep certain secrets regarding technology. You see that particularly during the Cold War, but we'll get to that a bit later. During the First World War, we have the death of some 16 million people the great war um as you should probably call it if you ever happen to time travel to that period i don't think people would want to hear that this is just the first two world wars but after the world war um the great war um the segregationist woodrow wilson who was u.s president at the time proposed 14 points to the international community in order to prevent

such horrors and one of those core principles of the 14 points was that the globe's borders be redrawn 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 world leaders actually cared about the territories they carved up in africa and i think there was a point that i wanted to make about technology and how technology has been restricted because when you look at again the railroad and telegraph while they enabled central governments to assert their presence and assert their control unlike ever before,

the potential of these technologies was kind of lost. Yes, the railroad and the telegraph can help a government assert its control over its territory, but it can just as easily empower people to travel further and faster than they ever had before to communicate across greater distances than they ever had before and instead in the hands of the state these technologies are of course used for oppressive ends back to the end

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 had continued to tighten and passports gained greater prominence. Last, once the nation-state was cemented in place, of prominence. Alas, once the nation-state was cemented in place, fascism and Nazism would quickly arise to guard its supposed 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 largely refuse to assist. After the Second World War, nation-building would continue to displace and slaughter 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 change and poverty. And yet immigration controls only tighten further, and they will likely continue to tighten due to the effects of climate migration and climate collapse. Especially in our post-9-11 reality, U.S. Border Patrol in particular has escalated to employ 20,000 agents, and Israel runs the largest open-air prison in the world. These days, militarized borders with heavily guarded barbed wire and electrified fences,

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 imaginary lines on the map have become, in some places, violent fixtures on the landscape, where 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 know more now about the people they govern

The people within their territory Than at any point prior in human history Cross-border surveillance keeps neighbours in the know Managing and monitoring their populace like lab rats Data has become more valuable than black gold itself. These governments have chosen to wall and survey. This is our world now. It's not some future cyberpunk dystopia.

The surveillance capitalist hellscape is here now. And borders have an important rule to play borders are a power structure they're a system of control as the writers at crime think have said there is only one world and the border is tearing it apart and i think the idea of borders extends much further than just the nation's borders. When you look at the internet firewalls, the checkpoints, the hidden databases, the for-profit prisons and the gated communities, all these different boundaries enforced by ceaseless violence, enforced by deportation, enforced by vigilante attacks, by street harassment, by torture. All of these boundaries are holding us back and tearing us apart. Migrants, due to their vulnerable status, are often the first targets when it comes

to economic downturn repression surveillance and scapegoating nations wield a fear of this other and they use that to prevent their people from fighting for better they turn their ire towards another victim and that's not even getting into all the different categories that have been constructed migrant, expat, refugee, asylum seeker, illegal alien and that one in particular really grinds my gears because it is i believe the pinnacle of the dehumanization to look at a person whose dice just man just managed to like just by happenstance fell on the other side of the border

to look at them and to deem them alien, to deem them illegal, to brand them that, to not even acknowledge their 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 language is. It's particularly violent when you count 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, it has much less restrictions than people. The rich and their capital can cross borders with ease, go from place to place without much processing. In fact, we look at Jeff Bezos and we say that, oh, well, he's the richest man in the world. Forbes says so.

and we say that, oh, well, he's the richest man in the world. Forbes says so. But when you account for the wealth that has not been accounted for, I think it must be put into perspective that Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, etc., they are the richest people that we know of, not necessarily the richest. Our global economy has also been, of course, moving resources for a while now. Resources have more freedom than people. The unequal and uneven development has extracted minerals and materials from some parts of the world, processed them in other parts of the world, manufactured them in other parts of the world,

and then sold worldwide for the profits to be hoarded by a select few countries and a select few people. These wealthy countries plunder the poor and then brutalize those who follow where the opportunities have been taken 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 or do not control passport inequality is a issue that should not exist. Passports should not exist. Palestinians can travel visa-free to only 38 countries and territories, yet those in the West Bank

are restricted by violent checkpoints. And those who live in Gaza call you the stripper tool. Meanwhile, other regions enjoy fast visa-free travel, such as Germans who have access to 191 countries and territories, or the Japanese, who enjoy the most

freedom, visa-free of all, with 193 countries available to them. A billionaire like Elon Musk could fly wherever he wants in his private jet. A political prisoner like Ojori Lutalu can be kept in solitary for years on end. Traditional seafaring channels and land has been militarized and guarded by these vast navies, by these vast troops, by these machines, these structures that disconnect and unravel the deep ties between communities.

Borders turned 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, a sanctuary city, or a migrant community, there are probably already groups that are putting 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 coworker who's undocumented and could use help in that. Try to connect cross-border, formal and informal, public and clandestine. Because these connections these networks are how people move live and evade state violence i obviously i can't speak for every

situation because different people's you know legal status language ability education level gender race class commitments and ability would affect their contribution to this uh anti-borders movement but however you decide to contribute i hope that you'd remember who it is we are trying to help we're not trying to act as these saints for the media. And I recognize the irony of saying saints in particular, considering my old YouTube name. But the media is not our 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 violence of borders firsthand. So they get into direct action to directly affect the material outcomes of people influencing our borders. Whether you're helping a migration prisoner manage to escape or helping one person get a roof over their head, helping an asylum case,

helping a person who is trapped in this system to find the strength to get through a day. These actions reverberate in our communities, and they can help others do the same. We also need, of course, more infrastructure, networks, alliances, skills and resources to be cultivated to strengthen our autonomy from these structures and to develop our ability to defend against them. And of course, these actions should be rooted in some strategy, long term and short term, for overcoming this regime once and for all. Just for a final word,

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, borders would cease to exist. and without them borders would cease to exist. Borders can only exist if they are enforced and together we can make borders unenforceable. Together we can create a world in which everyone is free to travel, free to create and free to exist on their own terms. And that's it.

If you like what I spoke about in this episode, or if you'd just like to hear my voice, feel free to check out my YouTube channel, Andrewism, and you can support me on patreon.com slash stdrew, or follow me on Twitter at underscore St. Drew. It Could Happen Here

is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow.

Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. Danny Trails, and Step Into the Flames of Fright, an anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast you get your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Thank you. costs from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast

of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.