Fenced Borders and Unity

Europe shows it takes more than tearing down fences to be united.

In 1986, I lived for a time on the U.S-Mexico border in Mexico. It was unbearably hot so we would drag our mattresses onto the roof and sleep under the Sonoran desert sky. I’d gaze at the distant lights of Yuma, Arizona and contemplate life in a land where the stop signs read “STOP” instead of “ALTO”.

At dusk, it was easy to spot the Mexicans who were going to sneak across the border to find work. They always carried jugs of water. Often, they would knock on our door and ask for refills.

It was not difficult to cross then. There were only fences in larger towns like Tijuana and Mexicali. There wasn’t a fence by our house on the outskirts of San Luis Rio Colorado. Just a line in the sand. Not even a line, really. Just sand and cacti.

I returned to San Luis Rio Colorado a few years ago. You can no longer see Yuma as there is a 12-foot metal barrier separating the two cities. It now takes more than a jug of water to cross safely from Mexico into the U.S. to find work.

Driving Through Europe

Earlier this year, my family and I spent two months driving across Europe. What I found remarkable was the lack of fences separating the countries. Often there wasn’t even a welcome sign.

The only way I could tell we had crossed the border into the Netherlands from Germany were the posted speed limit signs. That and Audis weren’t blowing by us going triple digits.

While in the Netherlands, we ate dinner with Gerrit, a distant relative, and his family. My great grandfather left Holland for the U.S. while his brother, Gerrit’s great grandfather, had stayed.

Gerrit is a plumber. He loses his job this month, a victim of the “crisis”, the short-hand name Gerrit’s family used for the ongoing European economic downturn.

After five weeks in Europe, our dinner with Gerrit was the first time we had come face-to-face with the economic turmoil in the Eurozone.

The Suffering is Hidden

There is a peculiar aspect to an economic crisis when it hits a developed country. You can’t see the suffering by driving around. Everything looks the same as it did before the crisis. There is still plenty of shopping, dining and luxury cars speeding by on the Autobahn.

No one carries a jug of water, waiting for dusk in order to escape the misery.

I spent weeks in 2008 traveling the U.S. looking for evidence of the Great Recession. Other than a few more For Rent signs in store windows, it was unnoticeable.

Until I came to a Home Depot parking lot in Santa Barbara. There I found over a hundred Mexicans waiting around for someone to drive up and offer work as day-laborers. No one came.

The Root Cause

The irony of the economic crisis in Europe is its root cause is the member countries tore down their border fences and joined their currencies, but kept everything else the same.

Without a true political and fiscal union, the differences in economic growth ultimately lead to fractures in the monetary union.

This is a crisis that has only two possible endings. Complete fiscal and political unity or a break-up of the Euro and a return to fenced borders.

There is no such thing as partial unity. That is something countries will need to learn just like successful couples eventually do.

It’s not enough to tear down walls and fences and pretend to be united. We have to become one, which means creating something completely new.