U.S. border wall – a looming crime against wildlife
Before getting to the matter of barbed wire fences in Europe, let’s address the never=ending saga of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico—which the Trump administration keeps alive despite budget-busting increases in defense spending and, not coincidentally, the cost of beefing up border security with police and ICE agents.
A wall substantial enough to keep out immigrants would also stop the comings-and-goings of animals across the U.S.-Mexico border: more environmental havoc by the Trump administration. Scientists have risen up in opposition, now having accumulated more than 2,500 signatures in support of a paper describing the damage to wildlife that the wall would entail. Read about it at: Wildlife-hostile border wall
Cruelty doubled – barbed wire and razor wire in Europe
In Europe, countries such as Hungary and Croatia have been erecting barbed wire and razor wire fences to keep refugees from their borders since 2016. This not only barricades people, of course. Non-human animals, to whom the concept of political boundaries is utterly foreign, are being barricaded—and worse, getting trapped in barbed wire, often to die of starvation or blood loss while wrapped in flesh-tearing metal. Prepare to be disheartened at: Animals barricaded and killed by fences in Europe
“Good fences make good neighbors” wrote Robert Frost in the poem “Mending Fences”—ironically intended, since Frost was no fan of barriers between people—quite the opposite (despite having a prickly personality). . In the poem, it was the fictional neighbor that quoted the proverb, and the tone and point of view of the writer undercut the banal sentiment. The poem begins with the line “Something there is that does not love a wall,” and it’s clear that the “something” is the processes of nature—freezing and thawing in the case of stone fences, helped along by gravity.
Frost’s fictional neighbor is described in grim terms:
To the extent that the proverb holds some truth, the situation with barbed wire fences in Europe runs contrary to it, even in principle. First of all, visually bristling with hostility and meant to injure whoever attempts to breach it, these are hardly “good” fences. Secondly, unlike the situation in Frost’s poem, with both parties owning property on either side of the fence, there is no symmetry—one side, the refugees, have left their property far behind in a quest to escape violence and deprivation in their homelands. They have no remaining property save the clothes on their backs and whatever personal belongings they can carry in a sack or backpack.
It’s true that small countries in Europe are being overwhelmed by refugees, mainly those fleeing the war in Syria. The only remedy is for other, larger countries to take the refugees in. More wealthy countries are taking them in, but it is a stopgap measure—there are only so many jobs available, even in Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany. A groundswell of anti-immigrant nativism is threatening the leadership even of the highly capable Angela Merkel. Compounding this heartrending situation is the refusal of United States to up our measly quota of refugees—fat chance, with Republicans in charge of three branches of government.
Wild animals are being caught in the crossfire of geopolitical instability, war, terrorism, gang violence, and, in general, many of the worst aspects of human nature. Hardheartedness has been gaining currency in the West—and not likely to abate anytime soon.* And innocent animals bear part of the ruin without even knowing why.
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*In this month’s Harper’s Index was a statistic I found shocking. I’m not sure what their source was for their numbers, but if it got printed in Harper’s, it’s likely to be not too far off the mark:
The stat: percentage of white Evangelical Christians who think that the U.S. has a responsibility to accept refugees: 25%. Percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans: 65%.
I’m glad the Evangelicals I know belong in the 25%. I’m not sure if the other 75% should be described as entirely “Christian.”
The 65% is also discouraging. Mix these two stats together and you have the fact that more than 35% of Americans believe the U.S. does not have a responsibility to accept refugees. This in the world’s richest country. Considering that tiny Jordan (population 10 million vs the U.S.’s 300 million, and their GDP is even more disproportionate) has taken in 657,000 refugees makes us look pretty shabby.
FOOTNOTE UPON A DISCOURAGING FOOTNOTE: For 180,000 of the Syrian refugees in Jordan, U.N. refugee funding is running out.
Desperate situation for Syrian refugees in Jordan