Once
Upon a Time in Turkey...
A Brief Narrative on Borders along Autobiographical Lines
in Eight Chapters
1.
I guess the first border I ever crossed was the one into Turkey.
Well, I flew there, and passed over a whole bunch of other countries,
so I don’t know if arriving at Yesilkoy can really qualify
as a first border crossing. But, this seems to be a technical
question. I was seven weeks old when that plane carrying me
from Austria touched down on Turkish soil, and so this event
does at least go down as my first step across borders in my
personal history. I should leave Turkey again only a year later,
this time in the backseat of a shabby Cortina GT that my parents
drove all the way back to Austria, earning serious respect of
the owner of the garage they then brought it to first thing.
Even though it should take another 23 years for me to go back
to Turkey, there always remained a sentimental attachment to
the country that, at least so the family tales go, provided
me with words (anne, top, ekmek) before I ever knew any German.
Sarife, my nanny and the person teaching me the above mentioned
words, should always remain a point of reference, the person
I – again, according to the family tales - was more attached
to as an infant than to my own mother. I should see her again
too 23 years later. She was still living in the same house my
parents used to live in. A Turkish friend of my parents’
brought me there, explained who I was, and Sarife cried. I felt
a bit funny, but it was nice. However, I don’t mean to
bore the reader with personal stories. The point I am trying
to make is that I feel lucky enough to have transgressed borders
at an early age, liking to believe that it sharpened my sense
for the dividing aspects borders can and do have, and the harm
they can and do inflict. I was about eight years old when the
first Turkish gastarbeiter (foreign worker, literally: “guest
worker”) family moved into the tiny Austrian village my
parents had later chosen as a place for me to visit elementary
school. Once my parents found out that a Turkish family had
moved into the village, they packed me into the back of the
car (something less shabby by then, even though I don’t
remember what exactly), drove down to the family’s house,
and welcomed them. It didn’t mean much to me at the time,
but looking back at that day now, this simple gesture has taken
on meaning for me. My parents were never particularly politically
concerned, and making some kind of statement against ausländerfeindlichkeit
(“hostility against foreigners”) was probably the
last they had on their mind that night. It was just that my
parents had depended on the hospitality and openness of Turks
when living as Austrians in Turkey, and so they wanted to show
hospitality and openness to these people who had just arrived
to live as Turks in Austria. And that was all this visit was
about. But maybe this is what’s at the core of battling
the harmful effects of relations between people that are defined
on various notions of borders: to overcome those borders through
personal connections. In a way, or so I’d like to think
at least, this should become a guiding feature of how I’ve
been trying to live my life as an adult who wants to see people
of all national, cultural, economic backgrounds come together
rather than stay apart. Evidently, borders get in the way of
any process of coming together. This is why I have no doubt
in my mind that, ultimately, all borders need to go. A dream
perhaps, but what would happen to our lives if we didn’t
keep on dreaming?
Disclaimer: Before raising wrong expectations now I’d
like to make it clear that this little piece is not gonna provide
alternatives to the model of the nation state; it is not about
how to dismantle borders; it is not about explaining how we
can do away with aspects of the international political order
that we seemingly can’t do without; it is not about making
an attempt at some well-founded anarchist argument that borders
are inherently morally and politically evil; it is, in short,
by no means a political manifesto. It is merely a sequence of
observations of issues connected to borders as they were experienced
in the course of the author’s life. Yet, a consequence
of these observations is the deeply rooted conviction in the
author’s heart that borders are “wrong,” that
people need and must not be divided, and that if relations between
people were guided by tolerance, understanding, sympathy, solidarity,
and love, both locally and globally, borders, with the states
they define, and supposedly protect, would inevitably become
an anachronism no one would ever look back to.
2.
When I was six years old, and after crossing many more borders
with my parents, my mom and dad decided that it’d be better
for me to have a steady school education than having to change
classrooms every few months. They built a house in a small Austrian
village that was not only conveniently located halfway in between
their respective hometowns, but was also a border village. Germany
was on the other side of the river. Luckily, as I see it today,
the economic differences between the two countries were negligable
at the time, so the consequences of living in a border town
were mainly positive for us villagers: we had easy access to
another country, its jobs, goods, services, media, cities, and
never felt like going to Germany was going to a “foreign”
land. But, like I said, we were fortunate that we were at a
border of relatively little economic significance. It meant
that we didn’t have to deal with many of the problems
connected with border towns where the meaning of a political
border actually becomes manifest, since the people of a rich
nation have to “protect” themselves against the
people of a poor nation, while the people of the poor nation
have to risk their lives (in various ways) near, around, and
across, the border as an economic necessity. Unsurprisingly,
such border towns usually become hazardous locations: places
of organized crime, human trafficking, para-militaristic border
control, corrupt government officials, cheap bars, brothels,
and junk shops, reckless entrepreneurs of all sorts attracted
by the supposed possibility of making a quick buck. Border towns
between uneven economies are mostly ugly, sketchy places. If
they have any charm at all, it doesn’t refer to their
status as a border town, but because any border town still holds
remnants of the old frontier town, that is, in fact, something
very different: A frontier town is a place for people from different
cultures to meet, share, trade. Frontier towns are usually fascinating
and rewarding places. There is no need for people to control,
exploit, extort, bribe. Frontier towns are exciting places,
from Gorom-Gorom to Tennant Creek. It’s only when frontier
towns turn into border towns that they are ruined by the ugly
implications borders have. Border towns illustrate what political
claims to territorial power can do. Amazing what difference
barriers, gates, barb wire, immigration officers, and border
police can make. Go to Nogales and see for yourself.
3.
When I became politically aware in my late high school years,
I very much embraced all causes the left usually embraces. So
this included anti-colonial struggles in so-called Third World
countries, the separatist struggles of the Irish, the Basque,
the Quebecois, or the militant defence of “autonomous
spaces” in the urban hearts of the developed world. Ironically,
in these contexts, borders of sorts could turn into revolutionary
symbols. I mean, every good leftist revolutionary loves a strong
barricade. Now, does this make us hypocrites in our stance against
borders? I don’t necessarily think so. I think it is rather
one of those ironies of history that sometimes we have to employ
means to achieve certain principles that violate others. Maybe
it really is one of the most cunning mechanisms of the rule
of the capitalist nation state that it constantly throws its
enemies into moral dilemmas. But, what else is there to do than
face them? Many socialist liberation movements had to employ
a form of nationalism in their struggles. So what? If people
know that it is a tool in a struggle it will remain a tool,
and will be discharged of once it will have fulfilled its purpose.
Of course there lies exclusivist, xenophobic danger in any nationalism.
But there lie many dangers in any struggle. No other protective
strategy than awareness. And this is what we have to maintain
every time we defend a freed zone by creating protective “borders”
of sorts around it. The main joy in creating them must lie in
the knowledge that one day they will come down. With a blast.
4.
One could probably say that after finishing my formal education
I went back to moving around. I gave up my apartment, handed
most of my belongings to friends, and began roaming. This was
now over eight years ago, and I still haven’t moved back
into any apartment of my own. My travels in themselves aren’t
very important here, but the fact that they made me cross many,
many borders is. One of the most noticeable features of border
crossings is that they will always remind you of how utterly
false in the wider scheme of human relations the concept of
borders are. First of all, the oppressive nature of borders
becomes obvious every time you approach them. With all those
borders I crossed, I’m still nervous every time. A border
post is one of the places you are the most helpless at you might
ever be. And it is one of the places you might encounter one
of the most disturbing forms of humiliation you might ever encounter.
At least this is true for me personally. The worst kind of discrimination
I’ve ever encountered, I most definitely encountered at
borders at the hands of quasi-fascist immigration authorities.
Now the fact that these were my worst experiences of discrimination
very probably have to do with the fact that I am a white male,
since white males hardly ever encounter any discrimination anywhere
else. (In this sense sending white males in stereotypical hobo-outfits
to the U.S.-Canadian border – from either side –
might actually qualify as one of the possibly most effective
means to make them more aware of and sympathetic to the lives
of those who live under constant daily discrimination in our
societies. It’d be at least worth a try.) But I am sure
many individuals from disprivileged communities would see their
discrimination multiplied at borders as well. It is there where
the force of the state comes crashing down on you with full
force. While, if you’re apt and a little lucky, you can
often avoid the state powers on your own hometurf inside a nation
state, there is no escape at the borders themselves. As they
are main means – symbolic and material – to uphold
the power of the state, they will have to be amongst the first
entities to be dismantled in the fight against this power.
Footnotes: 1. I’ve always said that possibly the single
biggest problem with the traveling life are the most ridiculous
regulations of immigration. Arranging visas, extending visas,
paying fees, bribing officials, securing “letters of recommendation”
from your embassy, producing “letters of invitation”
from friends, companies, or hotels that everyone knows are being
done by imposters, producing proofs of income or savings that
everyone knows are fake, producing travel tickets that everyone
knows might never be used. It is, truly, a circus. Talk of hassling
subordinates for no other reason than keeping them subordinate.
2. Besides the hassles, immigration policies reflect the abhorrent
global injustice between those who have and those who have not:
while you can eventually, after you’ve been through all
the hassles sketched above, pretty much go anywhere as, say,
a citizen of a European Union member state, you have to be very
fortunate as a citizen of, say, an African or Arab state to
receive visas to leave your continent, sometimes even just your
very own country itself. Along the same lines, how many Westerners
have ever been deported from anywhere, and how many non-Westerners
have? We might very well look at a ratio of 1:100, maybe even
worse. (Like, tens of thousands of Europeans are staying illegally
in North America. Hardly any of them ever gets tracked down
and deported, and, of course, they are never refered to, or
thought of, when people address “the problem” of
illegal immigration on the continent. It is only those with
brown or black skin who pose the supposed “threat”
to U.S.-American and Canadian society and who have to live in
daily fear of the immigration authorities. Give me a break.)
One can read the implications and effects of colonial and neo-colonial
injustice along the lines separating nation states. It is both
a revealing, and infuriating exercise. 3. Speaking of colonial
and neo-colonial injustice: Colonial borders are the saddest
and most obvious exemplification of the cruelty of borders.
Drawn by white men on big tables as a game (the famous “scramble”)
over influence, power, domination, with no regard for anything
else, especially not the African subjects of the colonies, and
later independent African nation states. Yet, until today these
European agreements rule and divide whole non-European continents.
Who would have thought mere lines on a piece of paper could
prove so cruel? 4. The currently most vivid and tangible exemplification
of the utter falseness of borders, however, are the “militarized”
borders, those that politically aware and active Arizonians
are unfortunately so familiar with. The apex of cruelty in the
name of international political order. Where can the virtues
of an order lie that relies on fences, weapons, and search helicopters?
Can the ugliness of borders become more obvious? I don’t
think so.
5.
I’ve spent a fair amount of my time traveling around oceans
and mountain regions. What both geographic features have in
common, despite of their obvious natural disparities are that
they’ve historically kept their people rather isolated:
while the sea forms a natural barrier between the islands and
their people, mountain ranges provide a similar barrier between
valleys and their people. Of course, both barriers can be overcome,
and have been since centuries. However, in many regions this
proved difficult for a long time, and contact between people
remained limited. Often, despite of a common heritage, many
micro-cultures developed in such areas, complete with their
own language, customs, economies. If one wanted, one could perhaps
make the argument that both the sea, and the mountains, and,
in fact, the desert, the tundra, swamp areas, or thick bush
or forest, constitute “natural borders” by which
people are separated. Perhaps this is true. However, this separation
is purely physical, and its cultural implications are nothing
but the result of this physical separation. Natural borders
don’t demand political separation between people, don’t
implement systems of control, hierarchy, privilege. Once they
are overcome, people can meet, trade, exchange, share freely.
Their cultures will meet, learn from each other, influence each
other. New hybrid cultures will emerge. And as long as these
natural borders aren’t overcome, no political harm is
done. People simply live in separate spaces, with no hierarchical
implications of power. Political borders are not, as sometimes
deceivingly and apparently innocently suggested, natural “extensions”
or “successors” of natural borders. Natural borders
simply keep people apart. Political borders force them apart.
While the former simply define a status quo that can easily
be overcome once the natural borders are physically overcome,
the latter keep people both in distinct spaces and distinct
identities, with all the manifestations of division, hierarchy,
oppression, and conflict, this implies. The cunning attempts
to show both as the essentially same are part of the ideological
attempts of the powers in force to legitimize the political
status quo they uphold. But we won’t be fooled.
6.
In May 2001 I arrived in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s sandy
capital city, at the beginning of what would in the end amount
to a journey around West Africa of half a year. I couldn’t
believe how many people from various West African countries
I met in Nouakchott who had got stuck there on their odyssey
to reach the southern shores of Europe. Making it to Nouakchott
is fairly easy for most West Africans, but then the Sahara needs
to be crossed, roads disappear, traffic becomes scarce, and
the transfer costs more money than what most West Africans are
able to afford. So they stay in Nouakchott, hoping they will
eventually be able to save up enough money to continue north,
making it to Morocco, and then somehow across the Gibraltar
Strait to find themselves in Spain, and hence in glorious Europe.
In reality, these Africans mostly end up doing dirty work for
the Moors and expats, earn barely enough to make ends meet in
Nouakchott itself, and delay their dream of going further north
first by weeks, then by months, then by years. It was not uncommon
to meet, let’s say, a Guinean taxi driver in Nouakchott
who would tell you that he was just passing through on his way
to Europe; and then answer the question of how long he had been
in Nouakchott for with “seven years”. And while
the situation in Nouakchott might have been extreme, this feature
should follow me around West Africa for the entire six months
I was there: people were constantly talking about going to Europe,
about making contacts there, about some relative there they’d
wish would help. And aside from the many Africans I met who
were eager to go, I also met some who had made it, but who had
been sent back. Due to illegal papers, conflicts with the law,
personal fuck-ups. In any case, meeting all these people made
all the numbers we hear more concrete: the numbers of “illegal
immigrants” in Europe, the number of Africans deported,
the number of Africans dying in the waters separating their
continent from the European. One day, the Guinean taxi driver
I mentioned might be one of them. And as bad as bad numbers
are, they become even worse once you have faces to substitute
them with. I was always mad at the so false and hypocritical
rhetoric of Europen Union advocates who love to praise the Union’s
supposed unifying purpose and its dedication to soften, even
eradicate borders. But being amongst those who are excluded
from any union, because the exact borders that the Union is
supposedly dedicated to soften, even eradicate, are not only
upheld, but even dramatically reinforced along its outer limits,
made me even madder. I mean, the claim that the European Union
makes borders diappear is a mere farce. All the Union does,
is shift its focus from the borders between its member states
to those around them, and in the process even widely intensifying
their control and defense. It’s like saying you’re
giving up firearms by trading the 9mm in your bedside table
drawer for an MG-34 in your garden shed. What a joke. What an
insulting, cruel, ludicrous joke. What it all comes down to
is that, instead of eradicating borders, the European Union
merely redefines them, in order to protect and increase the
riches of the rich. By no means does it challenge the model
of the nation state, and the implicit notions of its borders.
This model remains the backbone of international politics, and
thereby upholds the harmful nature of political borders. Even
if both conservative and liberal defendants of the Union already
roll their eyes at the inflated use of the “Fortress Europe”
to point to the Union’s true intentions, Fortress Europe
is an apt term. Emperors and rulers build fortresses when they
are afraid and feel the need to protect and defend something.
It is a means to stay in control, hold on to power, and keep
those perceived as dangerous and/or unworthy outside. And those
who try to defy the emperors and rulers, and try to make it
in nonetheless, do so by risking their lives. Like the thousands
drowning in the Mediterranean Sea each year. And then they tell
us about dismantling borders. Shame on them.
7.
I assume I will visit Turkey again. At this point, my relationship
with the country is mainly sentimental. Stories, photos, memorabilia
from a time I was too little to remember, and one visit of not
even two months as an adult. However, I don’t think the
quality of my relationship with the country at this point matters
much. Regardless, Turkey will in a sense always be the place
where my journey started. And, luckily, this journey has many
facets: It is not just about me going from place to place, crossing
many borders, visiting many places. It is also about everyone
crossing my path, about their identities, their places to call
home, their journeys. Meeting Turks abroad always reminds me
of this. And, in a sense, it is the best reconnection to the
country I can have. Place is important. But, like everything,
it is open, and one can carry it with her. And one ought to.
This way people exchange, share, inspire each other, and make
everyone’s lives richer lives. Borders only inhibit. The
more freedom to move, the better.
8.
I know that they say the dream of a world without borders is
a naïve, utopian dream, not worth, no, even dangerous,
to pursue. But who are they to tell us what to pursue? And,
as already suggested earlier, what would be worth more pursuing
than our dreams? NO BORDERS!!

Gabriel
Kuhn