On Berlin Wall Anniversary, a reminder for the 20th century immigration issues
Sixty years ago, on August 12, 1961 night, Soviet Union authorities built something that would become the symbol of the Cold War, but also of the separation between populations and individuals. An event related to today’s immigration crisis with new highly secure borders.
“The Berlin Wall was designed to prevent exit. Today, walls are meant to prevent entry into a territory” claimed the historian Claude Quétel. During the 2010s, all around the world and especially in Europe, walls emerged or were strengthen to avoid illegal immigrations. Up to 17 000 people lost their lives throughout their journeys to cross borders, illustrating the disastrous consequences entailed by barriers and walls. The Sixties and especially the year 1961 in Germany demonstrated the first massive separations between individuals showing the detrimental outcomes that walls create.
At the beginning of the 1960s, tensions between the Western world and the Soviet Union were probably at the highest. After the end of the WWII, with the defeat of Nazi Germany, victorious nations occupied the country with the creation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West in 1949.
Berlin became the symbol of the opposition between both blocs as it represents an enclave for the Western world within the German Democratic Republic. In fact, the town was located in the East but in the meantime occupied by four different military powers (France, UK, US and the Soviet Union).
The issues with this situation were that the Soviet Union implemented their communist and authoritarian ways of ruling within the German territory. Thus, the inhabitants of the GDR realized that they were deprived of their freedom whereas the situation in the West represented liberal ideals. Therefore, a certain number of Eastern Germans decided to immigrate on the other side of the bridge and Berlin was the easiest way to pass the two frontiers. Around 3 million Germans flew the GDR to arrive in West Berlin between 1949 and 1961, reflecting the attractiveness of this place.
On this day of August 12, 1961, barbed wires were installed over 155 km under high protection that blocked all immigrations towards the city. It was followed by the construction, few weeks later, of an impassable wall. Therefore, it triggered separations of families, cultures, and of civilian populations in general. This construction has been tough to experience with the idea that many Berliners would not see again some of their friends and family members due to the impossible barrier to cross. Nevertheless, a variety of individuals tried to flee to the East by crossing the wall: unfortunately, they were usually killed by the Soviet authorities. Moreover, the German’s identity and especially the Berliner’s ones vanished. That event appeared at the beginning of the Sixties and would mark not only this decade but also the whole century, for the entire world.
This year, the 60 years Berlin Wall construction’s anniversary is about to occur and, hopefully, will make a recall for sovereigntist countries that are killing and separating many families just to preserve their national borders. France, United States with the Mexican Borders, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, India, Ireland, all those nations take the decisions to divide people, territories and to refuse other Human sufferings. Those recent walls’ creations were justified to limit the migratory flows but also to protect the civilian populations within the national borders from terrorism.
“Those walls became both symbols of the power and the powerlessness of the State, deprived in the face of immigration and terrorism” said Alexandra Novosselof showing the inefficiency of those policies.
With the rise of the globalization in the 21th century, the flows of materials as well as populations became increasingly important all around the world. Nevertheless, inhabitants of many countries saw those new migrations as invasion and walls were built as “anti-migrant protection walls”. The goals behind those creations were to reassure people within the countries, like a comforting image that will stop the invasion. Those walls represent a call for secure areas. 1300 km between the United States and Mexico, 3200 km between India and Bangladesh or one km within the city of Calais in France to avoid population displacement. It illustrates what the walls represent: the separation of all entities throughout the world, materials, territories, humans.
Those two generations of walls were not built with the same objectives but actually had the same impacts and consequences over the populations. Individuals were separated and even died, thus destroying unity among individuals of a same country or not. The construction of the Berlin wall has not served as an example, considering that today between 20 and 71 walls stand up to separate humans all around the globe.
