They were believed to be on the verge of extinction, they have multiplied: walls and other border fences to prevent human migrations have a deleterious impact on many species by fragmenting their natural habitats. One more reason to oppose it, for this British left-wing columnist.
Humanitarian and environmental disasters converge in the 21st century. Climate collapse has forced millions to flee their homes, and hundreds of millions more face the same fate. The famine currently devastating Madagascar is the first that the United Nations has qualified as a likely consequence of the climate emergency[un lien contesté]; it will not be the last. Large metropolises are dangerously approaching water scarcity as groundwater tables are emptied. Air pollution kills 10 million people a year. Synthetic chemicals found in soils, air and water have untold effects on ecosystems and humans.
But, conversely, humanitarian disasters, or more precisely the cruel and irrational reactions of governments to these crises, can also trigger ecological disasters. The most striking example is the construction of border walls.
Currently, with the help of 140 British military engineers, Poland is starting the construction of a 5.5-meter-high, 180-kilometer steel wall along its border with Belarus. Assistance from the British military will facilitate the signing of a new arms contract between the United Kingdom and Poland, worth approximately £ 3 billion.
The fall of the wall illusion
The wall is presented as a “security” measure. Yet it protects Europe not from a threat but from the absolute destitution of some of the world’s most vulnerable people, especially refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who are fleeing persecution, torture and violence. massacres. They were cruelly exploited by the Belarusian government, which used them as a political weapon. They are now trapped at the border in the dead of winter, frozen and hungry, with nowhere to go.
When the Berlin Wall fell, we were promised a new, freer era. Since then, many more walls have been erected than knocked down. Since 1990, Europe has built border walls six times longer than Berlin’s. Globally, the number of fenced borders has increased from 15 to 70 since the end of the Cold War: there are currently 47,000 kilometers of borders marked by barriers.
For those trapped behind these obstacles, the cruelty of capitalism is hard to distinguish from the cruelty of communism.
The humanitarian repercussions of these
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George Monbiot
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