“At a time when frontiers have no more than an archaic existence, where communications and exchanges become planetary, where the major problems in the world (war, peace, work, famine) can only be resolved at an international level, barricading oneself in a chauvinistic space erected as a fortress is not only ridiculous, it is also a way of refusing the 21st century.”
Frontiers define territories, they define what is “in” or “out” of bounds. They inexorably embody notions of security, of a country-fortress, of “protection”. They represent introversion, closing in on oneself; fear and fragility. Frontiers enclose, exclude and determine identities or non-identities. Arbitrary limits bully and break the lives of all those who move in the shadows.
The dictionary tells me that there are even “natural” frontiers: but I don’t believe it.
