Just like other privileged kids, I grew up assuming my life will follow a linear trajectory marked by milestones such as getting a bike, having a girlfriend, getting a car, finish high school, travel the world, etc.
I believed things that happened did so for a reason. Born in West Germany, the Berlin Wall had to fall, so I could meet my girlfriend in 2001, eleven years after German’s Reunification. She became my wife not long after. I liked to travel, and so it seemed quite logical that the EU would strengthen, get rid of borders and agree on a common currency. The world seemed to align with my goals and views.
In a world at peace, there is no need for walls and borders.
But suddenly I find myself in 2017, and it seems this run of ever-increasing openness and optimism has come to a screeching halt.
In the last years, we’ve seen the growth of ISIS in the middle-east, we had the Greece financial crisis and Brexit, the Turkey coup and of course the big political divide in the US. Not to equate one with the other, but none of these follow the course I imagined for the world.
Many people are worried, frustrated or angry for a lot of reasons. For a lot of people, the remedy to such feelings is simple. It’s the others. It’s their fault. And so they call to close borders, may those be real or imagined, to prevent anyone or anything unwanted from entering our sacred space.
I get it; sometimes I want to be alone, too.
I, however, won’t stay happy forever all by myself. And I think the same can be said for the countries of the world. Trade between countries has occurred for millennia after all.
So, who are we trying to keep out?
I don’t think one fact of humankind has ever changed. The vast majority of people are good people.
I am sure that almost all (99.99%) people in the world just want to live their lives and not cause any harm to anyone if they are left alone. That leaves 0.01% of true idiots (I don’t swear, so please accept this euphemism).
The question remains if we want to have those 0.01% worth of idiots determine how we think?