2/21/21

By Josh Rubin

The history of humans is the history of migration.

From a place in Southern Africa, where one group of great apes we call hominids turned a particular evolutionary corner and became a resourceful wanderer, the modern human, Homo sapiens, we have invaded every corner of the planet.

There are a lot of us. And there is scarcity. And there is violence among us, responding to scarcity. It is only one possible response. One form of that violence is the establishment of national boundaries to protect what one group has from another that wants some of it.

Some of us do similar things within our borders. By amplifying the sense of a threat to what we have, others are convinced they must agree to depriving themselves, paying tribute to those who claim they are protecting us against the hungry hordes, barbarians at our gates. Or walls.

So, some fill their pockets while emptying other pockets. They make the case that it is a crime to do what humans do. Which is migrate. Humans leave places behind, when there is no longer enough. Not enough food. Not enough safety. They may band together. They may come to the walls like that band that left slavery and surrounded the city of Jericho.

In our Jericho, we have more than walls. We have prisons. Prisons to punish migrants for being migrants. Humans for being humans. We create industries, and enterprising folks get rich from them. Industries like the human traffickers that extort the desperate. Industries like the airlines that shackle and fly their cargo to where they must start again on that long journey to survive. Industries like the prison keepers who use their wealth to cement their protection racket. Sure would be a shame if some migrant picked your empty pocket....

Is there another way?

Yes. And we all know what it is. We take the resources we spend to protect wealth. Enormous resources that benefit only a very few of us. We take them and stop using them to deny life to the desperate. And we use them to conquer need.

There are no barbarians at the gate. Only gates.