Borders Are a Lie
How Capitalism Convinced Us To Fear Our Neighbours
Borders are a lie.
Not because they don’t exist but because we’ve been taught they’re natural. Moral. Necessary.
And they’re not.
They’re invented.
Imposed.
Enforced through violence.
I’ve seen what borders do, not just politically, but personally.
I’ve had to leave places I wasn’t ready to leave because of visa rules.
I’ve sat with Aboriginal Elders still fighting for sovereignty over the land their ancestors cared for.
I’ve wept with Palestinian youth workers who were being locked in an open-air prison, watching their communities brutalised and displaced under occupation, while the world turned away.
I’ve also seen how borders exist in the minds of white professionals I coach.
Psychological borders that say “not my place to speak.”
Emotional borders that protect white fragility.
And more than anything, spiritual borders.
The kind that cut people off from their soul, their capacity to care deeply, their responsibility to humanity.
Because this is what borders do:
They create disconnection.
And disconnection makes it easier to fear, to hoard, to hate.
Under empire, capitalism and white supremacy, borders serve a purpose:
They divide the working class.
They separate the “deserving” from the disposable.
They make suffering feel far away.
But borders never made us safe.
We did.
