Exit West

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/27/kirstjen-nielsen-claims-women-children-were-human-shields-tear-gas-attack-border/?utm_term=.9c9435d29fba 

I recently read the book Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. This clifi novel addresses issues that migrants face and explores a world where borders become superfluous. In the world of Exit West there exists portals that appear in seemingly random doorways all across the world, and people seeking to flee their homes all over the world use these doors to migrate, and escape their situations.

At one point in the book there are many refugees from many different places holding up homes in London and refusing to leave when the police show up. Not surprisingly, the people of London's police force, military, and civilian population form a brigade to rid themselves of the illegal migrants. They began violently fighting with the refugees, and by the end of the fighting a legion of the refugees die; including an estimated 200 who burned to death in a cinema that was lit on fire. 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/26/18112474/tear-gas-border-patrol-caravan-rocks

This violence, to me, reflects the violence faced by refugees today. All around the world including here in the U.S. This past Sunday the Honduran caravan marched on the U.S./Mexican border and groups of the caravan desperately tried to cross the American border in order to seek asylum. These asylum seekers were met by tear gas launched into the crowd by U.S. border agents. Tear gas is considered a chemical weapon and is actually banned on battlefields in almost every country, and yet, it is still being used on civilians. 

In Exit West, after the first major operation to clear the migrant ghetto ended the violence stopped and electricity and water was returned to the areas that were under attack. An excerpt from the book goes as follows: "But a week passed. And then another. And then the natives and their forces stepped back from the brink. Perhaps they decided the did not have it in them to do what would have needed to be done, to corral and bloody and where necessary slaughter the migrants"... "Perhaps they had grasped that the doors could not be closed, and new doors would continue to open, and they understood that he denial of coexistence would have required one party to cease to exist, and the extinguishing party too would have been transformed in the process"..." Or perhaps the sheer number of places where there were now doors had made it useless to fight in any one."

The violence ends, in the novel, when the nativists come to the realization that not only is the fighting useless, but it's also simultaneously hurting those who are exacting the violence. I can only hope that one day people will come to this very same realization...