Finis and Limes
Contents I Introduction Historical context, a new division of the world
II Finis and Limes
The origin of the words
III Modern boundaries as finis The phenomenon of migration
IV “Europe Around the Borders” Boundaries’ conditions in a reportage
V Binational City A utopian frontier
VI An island surrounded by limes VII Conclusion VIII Bibliography
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1. Europe Aroud The Borders
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I
Intoduction Historical context, a new division of the world
Walls have played a central role in the political issue for the last twenty five years. Building and demolishing walls made the history going on1. The world “West” have been always a reason of confusion in the history. Rudyard Kipling wrote: “ Oh east, is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet” about the contrast between Europe and Asia. During the cold war “the west“ and “the east” were opposite and enemies. When in 1989 Berlin’ s wall was demolished, citizens thought that that moment signed the death of the last wall in the world. A new time began, where the democratic world and the free market were united, ready to become a giant island. After that “the west” became the developed “north Atlantic” formed by Europe and United States. The opposite was made by Africa, Asia and Latin America, which were considered as non-western world. They were going to become the actual south world.
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1. Alessandro Colombo. Professor at Statale University Conference Beyonde Border. Feltrinelli 13 December 2016
2. Berlin’ s Wall Henri Cartier Bresson 1962
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II Finis and Limes
The origin of the words
The history of our civilization is studded by walls, especially the ancient Romans period. They used two different words to define the concept of the limit: finis and limes. Finis stands for digging a furrow in the ground and it is referred to the practice of cutting, while regere fines involves “tracking straight line boundaries”2 . In this way we recognize two features of the boundaries: terrestrial roots and lines. Finis establishes the rules of the community, its rectitude; so everything that is included in it is tidy, sacred and civil. What is excluded, is chaotic and barbarian. Teutonos Cimbrosque intra fines suos ingredi prohibere. To preclude Teutonos and Cimbris access to their territory. De bello Gallico. Ceasare
It’ s clear how the imperial power needs to trespass the boundaries to conquer the chaotic and not ruled lands. The concept of limes is complementary to the finis.
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2. Émile Benveniste’ s analisys. Émile Benveniste (Aleppo, 27 maggio 1902 – Versailles, 3 ottobre 1976) was a French scholar of language.
Limes means transverse, oblique. If the finis is a line, limes is a contact-continuity-zone between inside and outside, order and disorder. The limes is a fortified military road (one of the meanings of limes is precisely “road”), which advances in barbarian world and stops only for strategic purposes and internal organization, but not demarcate the border, that’ s the case of the Hadrian’s Wall. Therefore it would be appropriate to translate limes with “frontier”. All historians described Hadrian’s Wall like a permeable and ephemeral structure. Ab altera limitem agere coepu, tamquam per eum erupturus.
Start pushing against the border, ready for their attack. Annales. Tacito
During the Roman Reign, the finis was used to preserve territories and possessions from the incursion of foreign populations, it was a defensive and tangeble line used to separate two different civilizations and to prevent people of distinct cultures from meeting. With the expansion of the Empire the line became limes, a frontier that was moving as Romans proceded the conquest. The main “flow” was from the intern to the external, because no barbaric population had interest in the conquest of Roman territories during the Empire’s maximum expansion. 6
III Modern boundaries as finis The phenomenon of migration
Nowadays many walls continue to cut our world. We call them boundaries, and they are used to separate the rich and peaceful “north” world from the poor “south”. The most famous walls are: USAMexico, Hungary - Serbia, Spain – Morocco, Ceuta, Jerusalem - Palestine. They are built in different materials, concrete – like a stretch of the Mexico’ s wall or the Palestinian one – or wire mesh – like the Ceuta’ s wall or the Hungarian one – but a common feature is that they have empty spaces on both sides: there is a desert or a field, a void to further distance the two worlds and to increase control on illegal flows. Boundaries have the purpose to contain the main phenomenon of our age: migrations. These walls are not conceived to mark the bound of the West Empire, they are not conceived to be overcome. Modern walls are finis built to preserve the democratic and liberal world from the influence of the misery created by the “north” world. An economic gradient exists on the sides of the bounds; it is an important gradient, created during the Colonialism Age, a gradient that the developed world wants to keep. Despite existing walls, people keep crossing borders in search for better opportunities. The reasons of these journeys can be classified as economical, social, political or environmental: . economic migration: moving to find work or to follow a particular career path . social migration: moving somewhere searcing for a better quality of life or in order to be closer to 7
3. Migrants blocked at Hungary’ s boundaries
family or friends . political migration: moving to escape political persecution or war .environmental migration: moving to escape from natural disasters such as flooding. In 2015, 244 million people, or 3.3 per cent of the world’s population, lived outside their country of origin. It’ s important to remember that our world is a capitalistic and globalized world. In this kind of economy, migrants represent the main work force and, from a utilitarian point of view, they need a safe place to live. If the desert covers the side of the walls, life near boundaries is static and absent, but not if the wall interrupts a migration flow like the Balkan Route. Thousands of people spend long periods of time in camps set against the wire mesh, waiting months, hoping to go on with their journeys. Since mid September, more or less two hundred and fifty thousands refugees crossed Balkans. Most of them are fleeing from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. 8
Migration Reasons Political Revolutions
Epidemics Tsunami
Nuclear
Floodings Dictaturships Civil Wars
Wars
U.S.A.
Earthquakes
Fires
France Italy Tunisia Libiia
Mexico
Algeria Nigeria
Colombia Congo
Chile
Bolivia
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Tornados
s
Rainfalls
4. Main reasons of migrations. Built walls in the world. Emergenza Lampedusa thesis
Drought
China
Japan
Indonesia, Sri Lanka
Sudan Somalia Uguanda Bangladesh
Australia Pakistan, India
Chad Egipt
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IV “Europe Around the Borders” Boundaries’ conditions in a reportage
These kinds of information are told in “Europe Around the Borders”, a photographic and narrative project, developed between 2014 and 2016 and created by the photographer Ivano Di Maria and the journalist Marco Tuzzi. Taking a cue from the imminent anniversary of the First World War, the initial idea was to visit and document the old boundaries into European countries. Things have changed: several of those places that for so long had divided the European folks, are now showing a desperate humanity coming from distant lands in search of a better future. Di Maria and Tuzzi started their journey to describe the slow dissolution of boundaries, but along the way they found and documented the suffering presence of unwanted human beings, pushed away from an artificial Europe, planned by the great economic agencies and then dropped from the top on citizens treated as subjects.
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5. Idomeni.Greece Border Greece/Macedonia Ivano Di Maria
Many of those border zones, that seemed to be canceled by the domino effect of the downfall of the Berlin wall, are now places of imprisonment for all the migrants in desperate search of a brighter future. The routes of the migrants have suddenly revived boundaries or have produced new ones and now, when it comes to borders, we refer not only to physical lines of demarcation but also, and mostly, to cultural, political and economic devices of exclusion. The long journey of Di Maria and Truzzi documents many different situations while looking at the old borders within Europe. In places like Basel, Copenhagen and even more so in the Swedish and Norwegian territories the old borders come in the form of silent nature: here it is difficult to perceive what is happening in other European borders, such as Melilla, in a Europe that is already Africa, the Barrio Chino checkpoint controlled by the Spanish government, a human tide carries huge bundles of goods under the Moroccan notables service in a form of constant and tolerated migration. In Ventimiglia, few dozens of Africans find themselves living on the cliffs by the sea. In Calais an actual human tide is forced to survive in the limbo of the “jungle” while every day, there are people who die trying to cross the English Channel clinging to the belly of the trucks. In Röszke, Hungary, soldiers guard a wire wall to block Syrian refugees. In Szeged, in Krakow, in Belgrade, we live a threatening atmosphere of expectation. In Idomeni, between Greece and Macedonia, there is Europe’s largest refugee camp. Encountering all of this, what should have been the story of abandoned boundaries became tale of despair of human beings. 12
V Binational City An utopian frontier
Architect Fernando Romero brought an example of a new approach to the project of walls in London Design Biennale 2016: a plan for a binational city spanning the US-Mexico border, a utopian vision for a city with dual nationality, where people and goods could move more freely across the US-Mexico border. “With technology, those borders are just becoming symbolic limits,” he said. “The reality is that there exists a very strong mutual dependency of economies and trades.” The city would be built around an existing border crossing, giving citizens the opportunity to work both in Mexico and America. The masterplan features zones laid out in a hexagonal plan, each with an epicenter containing medical, cultural or industrial services. Avenues radiating from their centers would link with neighboring zones. The site would connect to the major existing transportation lines. It represents the first binational city, and the most active border in the world in terms of commerce, traffic of goods, in terms of human activity and employment.
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This utopic project can be considered as a modern limes, a zone of meeting, exchange and cooperation, where the “barbaric world” gets in touch with the “Roman Empire”. Here the boundaries aren’ t defined and fixed as they are fleeting and shifting, like in the Mediterrean sea. In the sea between Italian waters and Libyan waters, there is a bond that every refugees’ ship has to cross. The Italian Coast Guard must recover the boats in the sea and the closer to Libya you are in retrieving them, the higher number of people you have the chance to save. It often crosses into Libyan waters even if it is not allowed. So for the Coast Guard the frontier moves in times of emergency. 6. Rendering showing Border City. Fernando Romero. 2016
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VI An island surrounded by limes In different countries of the “south” world, Doctors Without Borders compounds are often surrounded by a wall which defines their perimeter. It’s the same perimeter of Isola Bella in the Lago Maggiore area. For Kersten Geers, who visited the island, this piece of land is different from the others because it has a designed wall along all the rivers. The stone wall separates the ground from the water, and distinguishes the land and the water: it is a property line. The whole island is designed in this way and all of its edges are defined. In the same way DWB compounds have a designed perimeter that close themselves from the rest of the contest. The interior is the “north” world which is surronded by the “south” world. It’s a little island in the desert. This plan shows the purpose and the soul of the architecture. Up to John Hejduk: “I think they are architecture in a state of sleep. Plans are sleeping architecture that, in the extreme, are architecture in death. We tend not to want to disturb architectural plans, for they are so still and so quiet, abstract and awesome. The plan shows the death of the soul of architecture.”3
Generally a DWB compound is a district confined by a frontier, where expatriated doctors, nurseries and midwives live together during the mission. Impatriate staff lives in another area, in order to allow both cultures to work together and to respect each others. They live separately from the rest of the village but these frontiers are permeable
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3. Plan of Victims Berlin John Hejduk. 1986
bounds which allow the communication and the collaboration to keep a high level of freedom and respect in the everyday life. The hospital, which is the place of real dialogue during the mission, is out of the compound; it is only reachable by car. Most of the times the hospital serves a refugees camp, which is near to a boundary between a foreign country in critic conditions, because of civil war, famine, dearth,natural disasters and violation of the human rights. Limes of DWB compounds allows staff to work in harmony without any of the Western medical methods, trying to adjust the developed world.
7. DWB’ s compound. Dolo Ethiopia
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VII Conclusion Our world is divided between the north and the south by many kinds of boundaries. Some of them have the finis features, while the other ones have the limes characteristics. It’ s fundamental to undestand what a confine zone needs in order to develop a type of bound which is able to embrace and to communicate. Nowadays architects are designing utopian projects related to the themes of boundaries and migrations; devices like the Border City can represent the starting point to gain another view of our breakin-two world. It’s important to keep questioning if the right approach to this topic can be influenced by the contribution of different disciplines or from little realities isolated in the desert.
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VIII Bibliography Publications Dogma, Aureli P. V., Tattara M., 2007-2008, Stop City, Architectural Association Publications. Geers K., 2011, Drawing the perimeter, San Rocco, Island #1, Milan Gentili D., 2008, Confini, frontiere, muri, Lettera Internazionale, IV quarter, Rome Cesare G., 1984, De Bello Gallicum, Bompiani Tacito P. C., 1981, Annali, BUR Biblioteca Univ. Rizzoli Websites Appiah, K.A. (2016) There is no such thing as western civilisation | Kwame Anthony Appiah. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/09/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture. BBC (2006) GCSE Bitesize: Patterns of migration. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/migration/migration_ trends_rev3.shtml Jacques, M. (2003) The end of the west. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/04/eu.china LIMES in ‘Enciclopedia Italiana’ (no date) Available at: http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/limes_(Enciclopedia-Italiana) Mairs, J. (2016) Borders are ‘primitive’ limits says designer of US-Mexico binational city. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2016/09/09/border-city-binational-conceptual-masterplan-mexico-usa-fernando-romero-london-design-biennale Migration (2014) Available at: http://www.unfpa.org/migration Milani, G. (2015) Cosa prevede il piano approvato dall’Unione europea per i profughi nei Balcani. Available at: http://www.internazionale.it/notizie/2015/10/26/balcani-migranti-piano Documentary Europe Around the Borders, Ivano Di Maria and Marco Tuzzi, Italy, 2014-2016
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