Fences and Neighbours

Drawing lines around the perimeter of one’s property, or one’s country’s territory, has always been a parlous process. Indeed, the earliest written treaties we possess, some from more than 4,000 years ago, were often about settling border disputes between ancient eastern empires. Plus, as a former practising lawyer, I know that some of the bitterest battles in contemporary society have been waged between neighbours fighting over small slivers of property on the edges of adjacent parcels of land. Humans are territorial and have therefore always struggled to define—precisely—the limits and attributes of their borders. Consequently, borders are, and always have been, fraught and emotional places.

Historians have long been fascinated by “frontiers,” “borderlands” and contested terrains of all kinds, but recent debates among historians have tended to blur whatever analytical significance terms such as “frontiers” and “borderlands” once had. Part of the problem is that, in our post-post- Westphalian world, “frontiers”—in the sense that the 19th-century American historian Frederick Jackson Turner defined them—have largely disappeared. Turner’s “frontier”—“the hither edge of free land”—fell victim to the inexorable filling in of the planet’s once empty spaces, from western North America to eastern Siberia. What remain today are “borderlands,” ill-defined geographic, economic and cultural entities that are becoming increasingly subject to the security needs of fearful states in our post-9/11 polity.

Prior to 9/11, and the start of the so-called “war on terror,” borders between countries, particularly in the developed world, were becoming increasingly open, and therefore less relevant. The inexorable march of globalization seemed to be on its way to erasing borders everywhere as effectively as western Europe had succeeded in eliminating them in the latter part of the 20th century. As the authors in Borderlands: Comparing Border Security in North America and Europe, a collection of essays on borderlands edited by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, argue, the nature of modern borders was, and is, to be porous. But that characteristic is creating major challenges for security policy makers in a post-9/11 world where countries want not only to harden their borders but to push them as far away as possible.

Brunet-Jailly says there are four strands to be found in the current literature of scholarly analysis of borderlands, namely, “the multiple activities of governments, the role of borderland cultures, the political clout of borderland communities, and the impact of market forces.” Thus, for example, with regard to the Mexican-American border, at centre stage is the issue of which people get included or excluded by government policies, as are growing security concerns. In contrast, on the Canadian-American border, the issues are largely trade-oriented, with some post-9/11 security add-ons. Several authors in this volume claim, despite attempts by Washington to shift its policy direction, that market forces are still trumping the border-security policies of both the United States and Mexico. That conclusion will not please nativists such as CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who regularly attracts large audiences in America with rants against the millions of “illegal aliens” who, outrageously, seek “amnesty” and the right to remain.

Central governments face great difficulty when formulating and enforcing border policies because they legislate far from borderlands and are often poorly informed and unready to admit that their policy goals are at odds with the needs or objectives of those who live alongside borders. Centralized policy making becomes even more difficult when it must deal with vibrant communities straddling borders, e.g., Laredo–Nuevo Laredo. And when a newly created Department of Homeland Security tries to force its way into the border control game, the results are highly ineffective and extremely costly. That is the conclusion of an essay by Tony Payan and Amanda Vasquez, who say that “the borderland ‘Chicano’ culture and political clout, as well as market forces, are structuring the [U.S.-Mexico] borderland, which remains unchallenged by centrally designed US security policies.”

For Canadians, particularly because of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s growing interest in Canada’s Arctic, one of the most interesting chapters is “A New Northern Security Agenda” by Lassi Heininen and Heather N. Nicol. They examine the shift from Cold War security concerns to “the broader challenges of achieving ‘human security,’ countering the risks imposed by global warming, and addressing the impact of new and pressing environmental threats on circumpolar environments.” If the United States finally ratifies the Third United Nations Law of the Sea treaty, as appears likely, drawing the borders among the Canadian, Russian, Danish and American sectors in the Arctic will begin in earnest. It will not be easy. As this happens, the melting of long-frozen parts of the Arctic Ocean will open the Northwest Passage to transits by commercial and military surface ships. When this begins, Canada’s longstanding claims to complete sovereignty over the pie-shaped territory between “60” and the North Pole will look less solid. Logically, international environmental policy should drive the four circumpolar states toward creating true transnational institutions in the North, rather than just drawing lines on a map. The successful creation of those kinds of institutions will depend upon the extent to which civil or indigenous society is incorporated into them. Harper’s government, and future Canadian governments, will have to demonstrate more imagination than they have to date before reaching this policy Valhalla.

Balancing civil rights with the need to counter the new violent extremist threat to North America has been an ongoing tug-of-war between Canada and the United States since 9/11. The palpable fear that still permeates Washington is considerably different from the cautious atmosphere that envelops Ottawa. Canada chose not to create an equivalent to the Department of Homeland Security, a bloated bureaucratic beast with about 175,000 employees. Instead, Canada moved forward incrementally on several fronts, trying to balance the higher level of U.S. security concerns with traditional Canadian values regarding citizens’ rights. So fearful were Homeland Security officials following 9/11 that most refused to accept that Canada was as well equipped as they were to “roll out” a world-class air transport security system. The chapter entitled “Canada, the U.S. and Anti-Terrorism” by Patrick J. Smith is an excellent introduction to how our post-9/11 government policies on combating violent extremism have both converged and diverged on either side of the border.

There is no question the contributors to this valuable volume have tried hard, and mostly successfully, to plug the many policy “holes” that exist concerning the porousness of borders and borderlands. The competing policies of freer trade versus more security in the world’s borderlands will, for better or worse, be with us for some time to come. This book will therefore be invaluable for those inside and outside government who need to know how complex the world’s “borderlands” are again becoming.