In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

6 Conclusion The Step All countries that are separated by substantial inequality have a similar type of relationship with the same problems, repeated almost mechanically. There is illegal immigration from the poor country to the rich country on all of these borders. On almost all of them the poor country is a significant producer of drugs and has large networks of narcotics trafficking. The majority of these borders have territorial disputes, as their economic differences are always reflected in politics; the poorer country has a weaker government that is more susceptible to corruption and guarantees its citizens only a nominal observance of civil rights. The poor country is usually not a democracy and is often a tyranny. The NGOs always consider it more corrupt than its rich neighbor. These facts are reflected in the discomfort that some politicians and a portion of the public in Spain feel toward Morocco, which they consider an undesirable neighbor. But in reality, Morocco is only poor and relatively underdeveloped. It is the same in the United States, where everything Latino is openly looked down on and even assaulted by laws designed to limit Latinos’ presence in the country. The economic difference also has a cultural dimension. The societies that are affected ordinarily have different religions, different forms of social organization, and speak languages that are as different as their respective incomes. The unequal neighbors regard each other with suspicion and often with disdain in a difficult coexistence around reciprocal cities such as El Paso–Ciudad Juárez, cities that are repeated as regularly as migration and in which antagonism rules as a way of life underlying inequality. The universal solution to these problems is a wall or a fence. But neither one can shut out the problem, only its expression. Shutting out emigrants can only aggravate the fundamental problem of inequality. Unequal borders are an anomaly, an exception that affects a handful of countries. Unequal borders come about through a perverse interaction of markets, people, and states. It is a multidirectional misunderstanding , where causes and consequences are mutual and interchangeable in a Conclusion 131 process that makes the step steeper instead of leveling it. The process may have started long ago with a territorial claim, and the resulting antagonism may have been rekindled later by various migration crises. The pieces of the puzzle are not natural; they owe their existence to the actions of human beings, starting with their indifference and ending with antagonism . They are a product, a “fabrication,” as Ortega y Gasset would say, that prospers on the slender thread of separation. Without a border, there is no smuggling and no border towns to generate environmental or health problems. Without borders there are no territorial disputes. The sum of these interactions is inequality, which constitutes their foundation and their nourishment. Inequality leads to antagonism, because when there is inequality, it’s easier to consider oneself superior or inferior, to be arrogant or to feel oppressed. Inequality takes away respect and recognition of the other, making it difficult to agree about territory and the shared use of resources. A lack of understanding and consideration forces emigration into illegal channels and makes the economic relationship even more informal, until smuggling becomes almost the only alternative for survival. These elements develop on their own until they acquire enough autonomy to feed off each other, fatten up, and turn into monsters that build an insurmountable step between neighbors. The monster is bolstered by the authorities’ immediate response to the problems it creates. The way in which a narcotics trafficker like Pablo Acosta is captured creates a martyr to whom corridos are dedicated, encouraging others to take this road. The response is often unavoidable, since the problem appears suddenly and the only option is to contain it. This happened on the borders between Spain and Morocco in the autumn of 2005, when a dozen migrants were shot by the security forces and died. Five of them died in Ceuta on September 29, 2005, when three hundred emigrants stormed the border. Another six died at the base of the fence in Melilla at dawn on October 6, 2005, when there were three simultaneous assaults at different points on the border. The Moroccan security forces detained 265 emigrants and deported them in buses to the desert down south. Perhaps the policeman who fired his gun had no other option when he faced hundreds of desperate people coming toward him. But the remedy afterward was as useless as it was...

Share