Are borders really the normal state of affairs? A critical and historical approach suggests this is in fact a very recent development. By recognising this, we can start to open our minds to imagine new ways of including ‘Others’ within our own borders. A radical futuristic plan for a borderless Europe.
"In political psychology, even schizophrenia is normal. When citizens of any state are at home, they want to know that their state borders are defended and policed as rigorously as possible. But when they travel abroad, they want borders to be as porous as possible, and ideally invisible. They don’t want to be held up at borders, but they want others entering their country to be stopped at the border and prevented from entering. At their destination, they want to experience the ‘Other’ as ‘an interesting different culture’, but at home they perceive the ‘Other’ as a threat to ‘our culture’. The sudden disappearance of borders can spark euphoria, as we saw with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and indeed of the rest of the Iron Curtain, but citizens want the borders back again when it appears that the people from ‘over there’ want to come over here looking for work..."
Robert Menasse, who was born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1954, speaks with the voice of the generation known as Nachgeborene (“those born after”). Although fortunate to have escaped the persecution and exile his parents endured, Menasse’s stories constantly refract the suffering of the past through the ironic distance of a feeling observer. His critically humorous voice uncovers surprising truths about himself and the past. As the author of over twenty books, which include critical essays on contemporary cultural topics as well as novels and short stories, Menasse’s fame as a major figure in contemporary Austrian literature is firmly established. He has received many prestigious literary prizes and divides his time between Vienna and Amsterdam. Source: ariadnebooks.com
