One of this blog’s readers asked recently in the Comments section what I have in mind by the title “erasing borders”.  I am grateful for the question enabling a written dialog between this writer and the blog readers. 

In responding I begin with the observation that among the tectonic shifts we humans must grapple with today there is one transformation of the global landscape that represents hope for our species as well as unprecedented challenge.  With the evolution of the multiple crises forcing themselves on all human beings we are becoming more and more aware that no single nation state can acting alone remedy any of them.

It is, however, equally evident that the history and global politics of the United States is uniquely unprepared and ill fit for participation much less leadership in shaping such global actions.  As the world’s remaining superpower of the Cold War era, the U.S. policy-making elite are used to preserving our right to go it alone.  When we consider collaboration with nations formerly identified as the communist bloc and with those now stereotyped as Islamic terrorist states heavy lies the crown on the head of the leading “defender of the free world”.  What is required of us now entails the kind of change called for by the idealistic vision of “erasing borders”.

“Erasing borders” is not therefore intended as solely applying to a nation state’s immigration policies and border enforcement.  Its metaphorical content calls for no borders in our compassion; no borders in our respect and appreciation of other cultures; no borders in our relationships; no borders in building trust.  “Erasing borders” was chosen to express with a short phrase the conviction that our “national interest” has now become obsolete in guiding our relationships and agreements.  It is now more and more evident that what is in the interest of all nations is  what promises to be the best for the U.S.

When the largest U.S. corporations now prosper by means of expanding their “global reach” ** we find little to no evidence that the U.S. national interest is a priority of their manufacturing, marketing strategies, corporate tax planning and so on.  All our crises today – whether it be the spiral in the number of refugees and migrants, the threats to species survival dealt us by the production and consumption of fossil fuels, the emergence of global pandemics or the pall cast over our lives by the “strategic deployment” of nuclear weapons – our reliance on national interest and military might as the primary security strategy is as antiquated as relying on an operator to make a long distance call.  When has U.S. led military interventions overseas contributed to long term advances in resolving any of the global crises?

The Christian faith serves my interpretation and response to the message of our troubled times. That message urges us to dream and proclaim the kind of radical change – the kind of change represented by technological change from the horse and buggy to interplanatary travel – and to begin thinking about what will improve the lives of all peoples.  The handwriting on the wall that “erasing borders” interprets  is “work together or perish together”.

All the world’s major religions appeal for unity among all peoples.  In the first pages of the Jewish Christian scriptures, the creation of humankind begins with the creation of one family as our shared ancestors.   Christianity originally grew from the vision of celebrating our common ancestry across the barriers of language, nation and culture in praise and thanksgiving of our one God, creator of all.

While living in France in the summer of 1963, I learned about the proposal to create a common enconomic network, a “Common Market”, on that continent.  The details were still to be worked out and while my informant, a Protestant pastor, referred to serious opposition to the plan he had no doubt such an ambitious change was not only possible but inevitable.  Among the fundamental changes he mentioned were abolition or lowering of tariffs and no control over Europeans’ travel across the continent’s borders.

Although we in the U.S. may not be ready to design abolition of our borders, the sudden behavioral changes demanded by the COVID pandemic indicates our general population may be more prepared than our economic and political elite for radical change. The resolution of the multiple global crises through universal dialog and agreement demands change from our unilateral approach that is at least as radical as the opening of borders by all nations.

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** Global Reach: The Power of the Multinational Corporations is a 1976 book by Richard Barnet and Ronald Miller which forecast the changes brought about by the cross national operations of U.S. based corporations.