Lord Mountbatten: Hero or Villain? TV - W H Auden - Sacha Baron Cohen: Who is America? TV - Noam Chomsky - Stacey Dooley TV - Ronald Reagan - John McCain - Donald Trump - Which Way Home 2009 - Underworld Inc TV - How Corporations Profit From Border Militarization 2015 - Christopher Hitchens - Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan TV - Trump’s War on the Border TV - Reginald D Hunter TV - Jason Fox: Meet the Drug Lords TV - Walls of Shame 2016 - US & the Wall TV - Tonight TV - Dark Tourist 2018 - Simon Reeve TV - A Man Apart 2003 - The Border 1980 - Secret Wars Uncovered TV - The Trade TV - Dan Jones TV - Panorama TV - The Road to Partition TV - House of Cards TV - Drugs Inc TV - Glut: The Untold Story of Punjab TV - India 1947: Partition in Colour TV - My Family, Partition & Me TV - The Edge of War: Saddam & the Ayatollah TV - This World: The Balfour Declaration TV - Storyville: North Korean Kidnap TV - Secrets of War TV - Storyville: North Korean Kidnap TV - The Kim Dynasty 2018 - Korea: The Never Ending War TV - Secret History TV - The Corbett Report 2023 -
Far from covering himself in glory, Mountbatten’s actions in extracting Britain from India were to leave a devastating legacy. Lord Mountbatten: Hero or Villain? Channel 5 2020
Partition: two days later when the borders were revealed, panic set in. And the full horror of partition was unleashed. In the ensuing weeks, one million people lost their lives, and fifteen million were displaced as people fled across the borders. ibid.
This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient’s against her but she’s on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland border,
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder. W H Auden, Night Mail, 1936
Bad hombres pouring in from Mexico with gangs, guns and violence. How we gonna stop this? Easy. We’re gonna form a gang and use guns and violence. Baron Cohen, Who is America? III, Channel 4 2018
They’re [immigrants] crossing a border – the Mexico/US border which like state borders generally was established by brutal violence and aggression. The US conquered half of Mexico. President Grant described it as, who fought in it, described it as the most wicked war in history. Noam Chomsky, Talks at Google 4th April 2014, Youtube 1.02.41
This is the heart of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. There are no towns or villages here. Hundreds of miles of 70 degree heat and rattlesnakes. But this is a pathway to the American Dream. And it’s a dangerous one. In the last five years more than 1,000 people have died trying to walk across this patch of desert. Stacey Dooley in the USA: Border Wars, BBC 2017
They prepare for their journey in a small town close to the border – it’s called Altar. ibid.
Charging up to $7,000 dollars for the trip. ibid.
The US border agency was out on patrol. ibid.
Maria is now one of six million Mexicans living illegally in America. They mostly work in low-paid farming, cleaning or construction jobs. Maria’s found herself a job picking fruit. ibid.
A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation. Ronald Reagan
‘I will secure our borders.’ John McCain, cited The American Future A History by Simon Schama 4/4
We will build a great wall along the southern border. Donald J Trump
SECURE THE BORDER! BUILD A WALL! Trump: Tweets from the White House, Tweet 15,833 5th August 2014, Channel 4 2020
The American side retrieved the body. Yes, frequently the people trying to get to the United States. Unfortunately, recently there were some children who drowned who tried to cross and drowned. Which Way Home, 2009
Mexican freight trains are used by migrants trying to reach the United States. Among the thousands that ride the trains, roughly 5% are children travelling alone. ibid.
Child migrants who are detained in Mexico are taken to the Tapachula Detention Center. ibid.
Each year the border patrol apprehends 100,000 children trying to enter the US. ibid.
‘I have lived fifteen years on the streets. I was a drug addict … I’d like to have a family where I can get the love I never had.’ ibid. boy
Nogales, Mexico: Right on the US border and a port for black-market franchises. Underworld Inc s2eS: Tricks of the Trade, 2015
To get there [US] without capture Francisco teaches them some of the tricks of the trade. ibid.
That journey means five days on foot in the Sonoran desert. ibid.
1993 Operation: Hold the Line. How Corporations Profit from Border Militarization, caption, Brave New Films short 2015
In the 1990s we start seeing this aggressive new version of border militarization. ibid. Roberto Lovato
It has nothing to do with immigration and everything to do with security of elite interests. ibid.
An island smaller than Sicily or Sardinia has been utterly divided. Christopher Hitchens, Cyprus: Stranded in Time, BBC Frontiers 1989
Turkey’s invasion, a catastrophe on an epic scale for the Greek-Cypriot majority, was greeted by many of the Turkish minority as a deliverance. An extremist coup sponsored by the then military dictatorship in Greece had given Turkey a long-awaited pretext for intervention. The Turkish action led to the occupation of one third of the territory of Cyprus, a proclamation of a separate Turkish/Cypriot state and the displacement of nearly 200,000 Greek refugees. ibid.
The dead zone is patrolled only by the United Nations. ibid.
A loss that is emotional as well as material. ibid.
The Wall is inescapable. On both sides of the Wall soldiers keep watch on each other as they have hour by hour for fifteen years. ibid.
This is one of the world’s most dangerous borders holding neighbours India and Pakistan apart. 2,000 miles long it slices through extraordinary landscapes and divides millions of people who once lived alongside each other. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan I, BBC 2017
Karachi: a vibrant metropolis of over 20,000,000 people. ibid.
These African Pakistanis have been on the Indian subcontinent for hundreds of years. ibid.
There’s only three places on the entire border between India and Pakistan where you can cross. ibid.
There has been frequent conflict along this border. To this day very few can cross. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan II
This [solar park] is just one part of a huge collaboration between Pakistan and China. ibid.
We’re in the beating heart of the Punjab: Lahore. ibid.
It’s estimated that up to two million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus died, and over fourteen million people were forced to move during partition. ibid.
70% of Pakistanis are under the age of 20. ibid.
I plan to explore Pakistan’s remote north heading to the city of Gilgit, passing through the Hunza valley and ending my journey in Thalay, just twenty-five miles from the disputed border with India where troops face each other in a bitter stand-off. The two countries have fought four wars since partition: In 1947, ’65, ’71 & ’99. Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India and Pakistan III
Jammu & Kashmir: I’m three hundred miles away … Here they are just as battle ready. ibid.
28 people were killed last year by cross-border shooting and shelling. ibid.
Last year during four months of mass protest against the India army more than 100 Kashmiri civilians were killed and 17,000 were injured. ibid.
In 2016 Donald Trump pledged to build a wall between the US and Mexico. The issue has divided America and deeply offended its southern neighbour. Trump’s War on the Border, Channel 4 2017
The US/Mexican border spans 2,000 miles of rivers, mountains and inhospitable desert. Half a million illegal immigrants cross into the US every year. 46,000 border agents have the job of trying to stop them. ibid.
There are currently over 600 miles of fence, much of it running through border towns leaving families divided either side. ibid.
Arizona Border Recon – a group of vigilantes who defend the border. ibid.
Since 2001 over 2,500 human remains have been recovered from the desert. ibid.