By Rick Schwertfeger, Captain, Frontier Partisans Southern Command, Austin, Texas
Pancho Villa crossed the border in the year of Ought Sixteen
The people of Columbus still hear him riding through their dreams— Tom Russell, “Tonight We Ride”
This Bulgarian beach was on the border with Turkey. East German summer vacationers were called “the sandals,” because in their sandals and beach clothes they would sneak into the forest at night, aiming to escape into Turkey. “ACHTUNG GRENZZONE!” Many tried anyway to cross the wall of electrified barbed wire. With predictable results.
— Kapka Kassabova (KK): “BORDER: A Journey to the Edge of Europe” (2017)
Much of the Frontier Partisan world involves borders. Armies invade across borders. Opposing armies defend their borders; or may not. Partisan fighters raid across borders. Or try to escape across a border. Winston Churchill escaped from a Boer prison across a border to safety in Portuguese East Africa. Even official armies may raid across borders. During the Apache Wars the U.S. Calvary sometimes chased warriors into Mexico, avoiding Mexican troops unhappy with the incursions. And General Black Jack Pershing led a U.S. Army detachment into Mexico on a futile pursuit of Pancho Villa.
U.S. Cavalry troopers and Apache scouts pursued renegades across the border.
Borders have consequences.
Life inside a country can become such a living hell that desperate people try to escape across the borders. Risky. You can get stopped by guards on your side who prevent people from leaving — sometimes with consequences worse than the hell you were living: death; brutal beatings; rotting in a fetid prison. One’s “life becomes less valuable the closer you get to the border.” (KK)
Or, get across somehow, only to get captured by border guards on the other side. Internment in a prison, eventual deportation likely results. Deportation can have dire consequences. Get sent from the U.S. back to a Central American nation run roughshod by drug cartels, and your life may not be worth much. U.S. Border Patrol agent Francisco Cantu found “a young man wailing in the desert, abandoned with a half-liter of water. He recovered the body of a man dead from exposure in the August heat. He received emails daily with photos of dismembered corpses, men skinned alive, a decapitated head–the handiwork of Mexican cartels.” (J.R. Sullivan, “Boundary Issues,” Men’s Journal, February 2018, p. 38.)
Borders can have powers beyond being official limits.
To indigenous peoples of North America, borders were curiosities. Indians called the Canadian-U.S. border The Medicine Line because, while it meant nothing to them, they understood that it was “strong medicine” for Whites. On the Rio Grande in El Paso, Texas, gaze across to Juarez, Mexico, so close you almost could reach across and touch it. Grab your passport and you could walk across the bridge. But would you? A lifelong resident of El Paso who went to Juarez frequently in his youth told me he hadn’t been across in 30 years. So dangerous today, Juarez just isn’t worth it!
Borders can be stressful.
The Greek-Turkish border:
“The Greek officials waved me through. The Turks greeted me with camouflaged soldiers. Customs officers dismantled my car. They even unscrewed a small whirling dervish souvenir I’d bought. ‘Hashish? Cocaine?’ he said almost hopefully. I thought of Midnight Express and tried not to sweat. Studying my passport he said, ‘You entered Turkey from Bulgaria last month. Why?’ ‘I’m writing a book.’ He said he’d let me off the hook, just this once, and slammed the door. Even with the right passport, in plain daylight, with nothing to declare, the stress of border crossings like this is hard to convey; it is on a cellular level.” (KK)
The Greco-Turkish Border.
Borders change.
A favorite pastime of the victors of a conflict is redrawing borders to ones that suit their interests. BUT, frequently they are myopic. The new borders don’t make sense to the people living there. To wit: The Middle East since World Wars I and II. We live and fight today with how European powers screwed that up. Or, someone decides to make up nations — e.g. Yugoslavia. How’d that work out?
Borders can separate people by the ideologies of the powers that be.
During the Cold War armed, alarmed, electric barbed wire, vicious dogs borders separated the glorious workers’ paradises of the Warsaw Pact from the evil, imperialist capitalist nations of NATO. Of course, no one was trying to cross the borders illegally to get into the workers’ paradises.
“If you look at the top of the wire, parts of which still stand, you see that it points to the real enemy: inwards.” (KK)
Borderlands can have characters of their own.
The U.S. Mexico Border divides two nations — and is a world of its own.
Frequently they are “different places” than the central regions of the countries they divide. Mixtures of peoples from both sides, with various degrees of integration, peaceful coexistence – or continual enmity and tensions. Yet, a borderland can have more of the flavor of one of the nations than the other. Slowly drive down the main street of McAllen, Texas. You’re in the United States. But it sure looks and feels as if you’re in Mexico.
What prompted these observations? Kapka Kassabova’s “BORDER: A Journey to the Edge of Europe” (2017). Kassabova grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, while it was a Soviet client state. Once the Cold War ended, her scientist parents moved the family to New Zealand, where dad taught at a university. Kassabova now lives in the Scottish Highlands with her Scottish husband.
Seeking to understand her native land she’d left 25 years before — and the bordering lands in Greece and Turkey — Kassabova returned and explored that triple border region. Reviewers describe the resulting book as “dazzling,” “remarkable,” “marvelous,” “lyrical, disturbing.”
I concur.
Through the lens of an American who has experienced little genuine hardship, Kassabova had me disturbed, thinking deeply, pondering evil and hard lives. She artfully weaves in the waves of history that have swept over the region. The results: Many residents she met endure various degrees of desperation resulting from painful histories of being conquered, relocated, dislocated, even renamed. Much of their pasts get hidden, unspoken; but certainly not forgotten. Many get ground down spiritually. Some carry on in refugee camps with little hope of salvation.
But Kassabova also shows that on the borders, against significant odds, many people make happy, vital lives. And she lyrically links the current lives of village folks to pagan spirits and practices still alive in daily life. “Borders” is a tour de force. Highly recommended.
© Rick Schwertfeger, 2018. Used by permission.
Paul McNamee says
Great post, Rick!
Rick Schwertfeger says
Many thanks, Paul. Kassabova’s book really got me thinking about borders. One of the best books I’ve read in years!
Wayne says
A fascinating post. I once spent over 2 hours in a school bus on the Czech/Polish border. It was the 1990’s and the soviet system had recently collapsed. The soviet era border guards who entered our bus with automatic weapons hadn’t adjusted to the change yet. The problem was that one of 20 American college students aboard had a visa in addition to her passport. She was staying in Poland at the trip’s end for a 3 month internship. Sometimes borders don’t allow for the slightest discrepancies.
On another trip, our bus was held for examination at the border between Costa Rica and Panama, two relatively stable countries. The CR cops in army uniforms were watching for illegal immigrants from Panama. That didn’t stop the guy sitting next to me from sweating bullets during the stop. He’s bought a small amount of marijuana the night before and was carrying. A quick high never seemed worth time in a Central American prison to me.
Borders always strike me as places with the potential to slip from comfortable normalcy to daytime nightmare in the blink of an eye.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Two great stories, Wayne. When we enter a border zone, and especially when we try to cross, we enter the place where others have all the power. Your examples and Kassabova’s one of her crossing into Turkey from Greece show how tremendously stressful it can be.
And, yet, they draw me. There’s something about wanting to cross. It’s kind of a “It’s right over there. I can see it. I want to go there.” Living in Texas, I feel that at the Mexican border. I just want to go over there, kind of because it’s there. YET, I am very cautious about whether or not I go. I walked across from Columbus, New Mexico, into Palomas, Chihuahua, only after talking to folks walking back into the U.S. who said it was okay in Palomas if you stayed within about a third of a mile of the crossing. There were restaurants, a tourist store, and a couple of fine town squares with statues in them. But I certainly didn’t venture further into town. Regardless, the soldiers and border guards with machine guns left no doubt that I was on someone else’s turf.
JimC says
You and Billy Joe Shaver.
“Ain’t no way to understand
How that border-crossing feeling
Makes a fool out of a man…”
“Ain’t No God In Mexico”
Thom Eley says
Nice article, Rick. The more and more that I read about the border, the more interesting yet scary it becomes.
Rick Schwertfeger says
Many thanks, Thom. They’re both, aren’t they? Thanks again; glad you enjoyed it!
Breaker Morant says
Thinking about borders got me thinking about my South Africa trip. We “Officially” entered 3 countries.
1)South Africa through Smuts Airport, both in and out.
2)Zimbabwe-in and out of Vic Falls airport and in and out at the Botswana border.
3) Botswana-in and out at Kasane Border Post.
Unofficially, we entered 2 other countries-but those trips are a little more of the “I guess you had to be there” variety.
JimC says
Heh, heh, heh!
Breaker Morant says
This topic might better fit at Running Iron Report, but since we are doing “Borders” here, we do have to remember how small and inter-connected the world has become.
Whether that is a good thing or not -etc etc-might be a good topic for Running Iron Report.
JimC says
Yep.
Breaker Morant says
Forgive my rambling, but the topic of Borders brought back the time that I call “Spock College V.2.0.” Borders calling to mind the Yemen/Oman/Saudi border areas.
I don’t remember if I ever mentioned here that I worked on remote sensing projects at the SCSU Spatial Analysis Research Center (SARC). I think I mentioned something here about the relatively simple work regarding Belize. However, the Middle East project was more challenging and rewarding.
JimC says
That sounds mighty interesting.
E.K. Hermann says
……as all-ways, what I read here, {F.P.} reaches an un-known ,a scary sadness, deep with-in. A frustation at mans stupidity. …..the result, an awakening. Thank You, truly, I thank you. Some energy of mine, I give, continue informing.
JimC says
Thanks for being here E.K.
felonious monk says
Vale Harry Dean Stanton
“he was a friend of mine”
When you reach the broken promised land
Every dream slips through your hands
And you’ll know it’s too late to change your mind
Cause you pay the price to come so far
Just to wind up where you are
And you’re still just across the borderline
New York Times, Feb.27, 2018: A Different Perspective On The Border_Lawrence Downes
JimC says
Great song.
Thomas J. Eley, Jr. says
A couple of years ago Chere and I went to Vietnam and traveled Route 9 to the Laotian Border. After visiting the Borderourbustook us on backroads deep into Laos to a school. We dropped all sorts of school stuff along with giant bags of candy. The kids and the teachers were in tears. The feeling was so great although knowing we could.be taken asprisoners at any second. We’d do it again in a second.
Semper Fi.
lane batot says
Now THAT’S how to counteract some of the anti-American sentiment created by the rude, spoiled, demanding American travelers that skew the view of Americans worldwide! Any of us “Mare-kinz” abroad should keep that in mind……..
lane batot says
Indeed an interesting article, and concept to contemplate. Artificial and seemingly arbitrary as our human political borders may seem, it is still derived from that very natural, innate “territorial imperative” that is part and parcel of virtually every critter’s life. Other animals are very much involved in border making, and often as violent and merciless in defending them–or expanding them, as the case may be. Another interesting border concept is less blatant, but still very much a phenomenon, here in the U. S. A., is that between states–and in some spots it is more a “thing” than others. I lived in a very definite “border” area in the Southern Appalachians between N. C. and Tennessee. Various differences in state taxing had us “border ruffians” going back and forth between these manmade lines to do our shopping, etc. Cigarettes, for example were far cheaper in N. C., and some enterprising individuals would buy truckloads in N. C. to carry over the line to Tennessee to sell cheaper(but still make a profit) to the lazier, less travel inclined folks addicted to tobacco. This particular border, because of it’s remoteness(for Eastern North America, at least), also attracted more than it’s share of criminals on the lam–one had to be very suspicious of strangers, for good reason! Of course the moonshine runnin’, and marijuana growing by the generations established locals on both sides only complicated that matter! I adapted to the area rather well, however, by keeping to myself with my large formidable pack of canines, that were a definete deterant to any strangers up to no good, and I minded my own business and did not interfere in the affairs of my neighbors, preferring to roam the most isolated spots where humans did not go,or were easily avoided. But it was interesting and odd how a human-established border could determine the very social fabric of a place……
JimC says
And then there are places like the Af/Pak border where the social fabric that bestrides the line defies alteration by arbitrary political boundaries.
It really is a fascinating subject and if I were to have another shot at academic life, “borderlands history” would have been my focus.
felonious monk says
Getting to the crux of it here gentlemen! Just look at WWll for instance and the amount of
staged/forced border issues that triggered conflict. Endlessly fascinating, Orson Wells, Peckinpah,
Cormac the list goes on forever, I live on a steady diet of “Border Noir”. There is great writing coming
from south of the border currently. Think of the Comanche Empire throwing up a “border” halting the
Spanish and everything that flowed from that. Would there have been a civil war had Napoleon not
sold Louisiana ? Thousands of posts to be written yet!
lane batot says
No doubt! But then, any “frontier” IS a border of sorts, so fits right in with the “Frontier Partisans” blog theme! But all you guys already knew that……
Rick Schwertfeger says
So here’s a report from the Greek-Turkish border from just March 10, 2018 – like yesterday!
http://www.dw.com/en/greece-frees-german-journalists-arrested-near-turkish-border/a-42922204?maca=en-newsletter_en_bulletin-2097-html-newsletter
JimC says
Oops.
felonious monk says
Oh boy don’t get me started on Erdowank, that man is gunning for the Ottoman Empire mark 2.
And now we have Steve Bannon doing the rounds in Europe as the traveling salesman of Fascism.
But in response to Lane: o is not zero, border does not always equate frontier, I know I am being
a bit flippant but it is important my fine feathered friend. When Robert Johnson left the delta to
go to New York and Canada he crossed many borders and left the(a)frontier behind, n’est ce pas?
We know nothing.
felonious monk says
So Rick I put it together, your last name and DW and your focus on Europe
and “borders”. Stick with it and write another post on unification, Schengen
and the Franco/German history in relation to this all.
I have DW beaming into my lounge room in the early hours of the morning
and I am glad for it, just today there was an interesting little feature on a
new German film called “The Captain” boy oh boy, Captain Jim needs to hear
about this one, I thought I’d seen it all, nope!
Dave Allen says
I live near the California/Nevada border and cross it regularly to visit family and friends or go camping in Nevada. Even though we are on the east side of the Sierras ( a very real physical border) and removed by many miles from Sacramento, I always feel a sense of relief and increased freedom from overbearing taxation and unconstitutional laws when I see that “Welcome to Nevada” sign. No comparison to be sure to the dangerous and restrictive borders described in this thought provoking article but a tangible border none the less!
JimC says
Yes, it is!