This month, Britain and France will work together to build a proposed 13-foot wall in France on the road approaching Calais, a crucial French port. According to a Sept. 7 New York Times article, officials seek to address security concerns with this by preventing migrants — particularly those crowded in a camp just outside Calais — from reaching Britain, but critics like François Guennoc of L’Auberge des Migrants, an organization that helps migrants in the region, have called it a “bad way of wasting money.” What do you think of the proposed wall, and do you think physical barriers are suitable ways to address national security concerns?


Prof. Sam Diener (PCAX)

Reading about the British plan to spend over $22 million on parallel one-kilometer walls in Calais in a futile attempt to keep migrants out evokes sorrow and pity. On the merely practical level, the obvious question is, “What’s to stop refugees from walking one kilometer down the road?” But I teach in the “Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence” program, and from the perspective of peace studies, the goal is not just to critique foolish policies but to engage in struggles to transform conflict. It’s encouraging that even many of the truck drivers demonstrating against the situation in Calais are quoted as saying they aren’t anti-migrant, they’re quite reasonably opposed to getting attacked by desperate migrants. Clearly, these truck drivers have much more insight than the current French and British governments, who are failing to build bridges to the refugees. Yet even these governments, I’m sad to say, have so far built far more bridges, and admitted many more refugees from the war in Syria, for example, than the U.S. government has.

Prof. Sam Diener (PCAX) is a lecturer in the Peace, Conflict and Coexistence Studies Program.

Prof. Lucy Goodhart (IGS)

Whether it’s in the U.S. or Europe, walls are in the news. So, are they a stupid waste of money as the French commentator implies? The opposition to walls can seem so easy. Physical barriers to entry create fortresses when we should be open to the world. But maybe we should remember that voters care about walls now because we used to be protected by distance. When states like Syria function, and where travel is costly, then the “problem” of migrants is a smaller problem because the flow of people is a trickle. The emphasis on walls has grown because the role of geographic distance has shrunk. In 2015, Germany’s statistics office has recorded the highest number of immigrants in post war history. So, in Europe, more “guests” are arriving and some of the “hosts” are getting agitated. Walls will remain on the agenda.

Prof. Lucy Goodhart (IGS) is a lecturer in International and Global Studies and Politics.

Bryan McNamara ’19
Britain and France’s joint plan to construct a wall in Calais to prevent migrant access to trucks moving across the English Channel creates a façade of efficacy. The £2.3 million project wastes funds and attempts to deflect from the issue at hand, that being the continued flow of migrants caused by the Syrian civil war. The wall will serve no purpose, as migrants may still gain access to trucks moving across the English Channel further inland and down the shore, the increased distance not being a meaningful obstacle to those who have already traveled so far and lost so much. The wall, much like that proposed by the vulgarian Cheeto running on the Republican ticket, serves only as an ode to false nationalism, proving that Britain continues to follow the same ignorant rhetoric that led to Brexit. If Britain’s goal is to solve the migrant crisis, they ought to look to Syria, not France.
Bryan McNamara ’19 is an intended politics and history major. He is also a member of Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society.

Ravi Simon ’19

Walls are traditionally built to keep invaders and barbarians from ravaging lands. The proposal for a wall in Calais suggests how the United Kingdom views the refugees living in the squalid shanty town, called the “Calais Jungle,” outside the port. The politics of the United Kingdom often mirror those across the pond. Brexit and the wall in Calais are the latest examples of nationalist, anti-globalization sentiment seizing western Europe and the United States. It’s a reversal of the politics of open borders and tolerance that swept Europe in 1989 and brought down the Berlin Wall. The United Kingdom should be wary of terrorism, but trapping desperate migrants in refugee camps could be counterproductive. Homegrown terrorism is caused by the sort of mentality which says Muslims and non-whites cannot be citizens of Europe. This is the narrative that the Calais wall furthers.

Ravi Simon ’19 is the Europe section editor for the Brandeis International Journal and a member of the Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society. He is also a staff writer for the Justice.