Did you know that history shows that walls ultimately are
ineffective in keeping armed invaders out of nations? HOWEVER, history also
shows that walls are very EFFECTIVE in keeping unwanted – as in alien –
migrants out of nations. Historian Tim Newark (at time
of post website down used cache link) lays out the details.
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History shows Trump
is right to build a border wall, says historian Tim Newark
OF ALL presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plans for reviving the
fortunes of the USA, the one that has attracted the most scorn and criticism is
building a wall between the US and Mexico.
PUBLISHED: 08:29,
Fri, May 27, 2016 | UPDATED: 09:09, Fri, May 27, 2016
But is he crazy or do walls serve a useful purpose in an age
of failing states and mass migration? And if walls work then shouldn’t we have
some in Europe? As we hear that net migration into the UK is back to record
figures maybe it’s time to start getting those brickies busy.
I’ve just come back from China and walked a section of its
famous Great Wall.
Snaking over mountains for hundreds of miles, it is an
impressive building achievement as everyone knows but what is a little
surprising is that sections of it are short, sometimes just 15ft tall.
An angry warrior with a ladder could easily climb over it.
The same is true if you visit sections of Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland. But
that’s not the point.
These ancient walls weren’t built to stop a few fearless
tribesmen but to halt a problem all too familiar to us today: mass migration.
Chinese and Roman emperors invested vast fortunes in
creating an obstacle to halt huge crowds of economic migrants travelling in
wagons and on horseback and funnel them through fortified checkpoints.
You definitely can’t heave a wagon over the Great Wall of
China. But is there a place for old-fashioned walls in a high-tech age? The
Israelis certainly think so. Their Green Line Wall runs for 430 miles in the
West Bank and has dramatically cut the number of suicide bombings and assaults
by Palestinian terrorists.
In Northern Ireland Peace Walls have successfully countered
inter-communal violence between Protestants and Catholics.
In Europe it is true that since the collapse of the Berlin
Wall Europeans have been busy dismantling barriers and until recently you could
travel for hundreds of miles across eastern and central Europe without
encountering any barbed wire or checkpoints. Such were the joys of the
passport-free Schengen Area, claimed the EU, but that has all changed with the
eruption of mass migration from the Middle East and North Africa.
When German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited hundreds of
thousands of migrants to her country she forgot to ask the permission of the
smaller countries they had to march through to reach Germany. She assumed they
could be forced to agree after the fact.
But the Austrians said “No!” They ignored the diktats of the
EU and erected their own secure fences to stop the flow of immigrants as did
other neighbouring countries, including Hungary, Serbia and most importantly
Macedonia.
These physical obstacles backed up by security forces
stopped the flow dead – so much so that Greece complained of having to host
thousands of migrants stuck on their territory.
Such has been the destabilising effect of hundreds of
thousands of Muslim immigrants entering strongly Christian countries that
Austria this week just narrowly avoided voting in the first far-Right head of
state in Europe since 1945.
Unless the EU gets a grip of the situation and starts
erecting more effective barriers along the southern borders of Europe then
European populations will start voting for ever more extreme leaders. That firm
barrier should also mean naval vessels in the Mediterranean that return
migrants to their points of departure, not just rescue and help them claim
asylum in Europe.
Spain already has an autonomous enclave in Morocco at Ceuta
and the EU could fund more such walled secure areas along the North African
coast where intercepted migrants could be housed and ultimately returned to
their own countries or safer neighbouring states.
The flow needs to be reversed for the good of their own
countries otherwise the drain of minds and talents will leave homelands the
poorer for it.
Anyone who has recently travelled to France by ferry or
train will have noticed the increasingly fortified character of Calais where
fences have helped reduce the flow of illegal immigrants into Britain. This is
our Great Wall and – with or without Brexit – we need it to remain tall and
strong and if necessary extend it.
Immigration has made Britain, the USA and Europe rich and
dynamic but it needs to be managed and controlled. Americans know that and many
Latinos, who have lived and worked legally for years in the US, agree with Mr
Trump and his determination to build a wall along its Mexican border.
There already are short sections of fences and walls along
the border and Trump simply proposes to link them all up. He says he will get
Mexicans to pay for it by increasing fees on visas and border crossing cards. A
tax on wire money transfers by Mexican immigrant workers via companies such as
Western Union might also raise funds.
Trump is hitching his political future to this grand project
because walls send out a powerful international message.
They say we value the peace and security of our citizens
and, though guests are welcome, they must enter legally and abide by our rules.
That’s why the Chinese and Roman emperors built theirs and
Trump wants to build his.
Europe needs to learn the lessons of history and start
constructing our own Great Wall.
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