EUROPEANS are still celebrating the amazing events of 20 years ago, when the wall separating East and West Berlin finally tumbled. It symbolised the collapse of the Soviet empire in central and eastern Europe and the end of several decades of armed stand-off we knew as the Cold War. In that year, 1989, the dense clouds of a long, dark period of political and social repression, privation, limited economic development under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation began to dissipate.

The much-ballyhooed celebrations in Berlin three weeks ago featured the toppling of several thousand dominoes made of huge slabs of styrene foam for a couple of kilometres along the route the wall took through the heart of the German capital. Likewise, in 1989, popular movements against authoritarian regimes installed by Moscow began one by one to realise the fruits of their efforts. By the early 1990s all countries had held free elections and installed democratic regimes. Dynamic forces heading toward the dissolution of the old structure had taken root in the

USSR itself.

The fallout of those events continues to this day, with some countries doing better than others at operating democratic systems and the rewarding but often bewildering free-market system. Germany, which had the monumental task of gluing back together two parts separated by decades and totally opposing economic and political systems, is still a work in progress. The federal government has pumped large sums of money into the much poorer east, and big companies from the west moved in with gusto to sop up inefficient industries. Easterners migrated to the west for the bright lights, jobs and social safety nets.

Many easterners have had difficulty adapting to the hard-driving, competitive attitudes in the west, and westerners have treated the easterners as unsophisticated yokels. More important, even though the current Chancellor Angela Merkel is from the east, the culture of democracy has yet to take firm hold in that region.

The European Union has opened its doors to the former Soviet bloc members but that has brought its own set of challenges, both for the established members and for the new ones. Dislocations in the practices of work, development and social relations have been the order of the day, but generally things are working better than you would expect.

In the years since The Wall came down, a curious paradox has developed — authorities in three places actually began erecting barriers to prevent the free movement of people.

The United States shares almost 3200 kilometres of border with its southern neighbour, Mexico, and has erected various kinds of barriers along several stretches of that border. The stated aim is to stop the illegal movement of people and drugs. The slew of government agencies responsible for the boundary will tell you the barrier is for security, but what really concerns them is the vast number of migrants trying to get into the US for economic reasons. Considering the vast gap in earning power between Mexico and the US, it is only natural that people will brave all manner of obstacles to get in.

The barrier is the main response to that threat. It’s not a continuous obstacle as in the case of the elaborate security fence between Soviet and western Europe. The completed sections of border fence are found in California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. In some places it is a substantial structure, bolstered by approaches designed to make it impossible, or at least extremely difficult to get close. In others it is a simpler affair, but monitored by electronic sensors and regular patrols by vehicle

and aircraft.

The cities of San Diego and Tijuana abut the border right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and while you can easily walk from the US into Mexico, getting through the other way has become a major hassle. As the barrier reaches the beach, it becomes a palisade of stout steel poles driven deep into the sand and extending into the ocean. It is well patrolled, making entry via the water well-nigh impossible.

The barrier has worked, considerably reducing the human flow, but people still get through. They try going through rugged mountain terrain and the hostile Sonoran Desert of Arizona. In the latter case they have to walk some 80 kilometres before reaching the first trans-desert highway. The heat, desolation, dehydration and rugged terrain have claimed countless lives — in fact, human rights groups claim that in the past dozen years or so more than 5000 people have died trying to get

into the US.

There are varying opinions on whether there should be a barrier at all, but many Americans support it and the work of the agencies trying to control illegal immigration. Some opponents patrol the most hazardous areas with food, water and other supplies to help the would-be migrants survive their arduous trek.

The possibility of making a decent living is an extremely strong attraction for people from poorer lands and this has led another economic powerhouse to erect a barrier of its own. You may not know it, but the southern border of Europe is actually in Africa. Spain used to be the colonial master in Morocco, and retains two small enclaves known as Ceuta and Melilla. These have become the focus for people from all over Africa seeking to enter the European Union for a better life.

The barriers surrounding both places consist of parallel fences topped with barbed wire with a roadway in between to accommodate vehicles. There are guardtowers with searchlights and the whole thing is peppered with electronic devices to detect movement and to supply video. There have been a few cases where aspiring immigrants have actually rushed the barrier, leading the guards to shoot and resulting in many injuries and deaths.

The Moroccan government objects to the barrier because it does not recognise Spain’s presence in the two enclaves. Many Africans who have made the trek have been forced into makeshift camps near the two enclaves because they don’t have money to go back home. Some rights groups accuse the Moroccan authorities of scooping up people and dropping them off in the Sahara desert to die of exposure, starvation and dehydration.

Perhaps the most contentious barrier is the one being put up by Israel to separate itself from Palestinians in their territory commonly known as the West Bank. It consists mainly of a network of fences and vehicle exclusion trenches surrounded by a 60-metre exclusion zone. In some areas it grows into a concrete wall eight metres high. It is located mainly in territories occupied by Israel in the West Bank and partly along the demarcation line agreed to in the armistice of 1949, commonly called the Green Line.

The government approved a barrier about 700 kilometres long but it’s not yet completed. It probably won’t be finished until next year, seven years after it was originally supposed to have been completed. Israel decided to put up the barrier after the Palestinians mounted their Second Intifada, in which zealots blew themselves up on buses and in public places like restaurants and nightclubs.

Israelis, always on guard against attack, generally welcome the barrier, which in fact has reduced the number of terror attacks. But a significant number of Israelis also oppose the barrier, along with the understandable opposition of the Palestinians, who in many cases have to put up with long lines at checkpoints and constant hassles just to go about their daily activities. There have been cases where women on their way to clinics have had to give birth at checkpoints. Opponents claim that the barrier amounts to an illegal attempt to capture Palestinian land under the guise of security.

The barrier is another severe irritant in a part of the world which has had much more than its fair share of strife, enmity, argument, contention, confrontation and bloodshed. And there’s no end in sight to this miserable state

of affairs.

This whole business is full of ironies and paradoxes. The grey apparatchiks of the Soviet Bloc erected their barrier of concrete and barbed wire to keep their people from leaving for a freer, better life in the west. The three new barriers are being put up to keep people out and, ironically, were erected not by dictators but by democratic governments.

keeble.mack@sympatico.ca