Die Wacht Am Rio

Ah! A letter from my uncle abroad! It’s been longer than I can remember. Whatever would prompt him to write me now? Surely he doesn’t need money. Well, let me see.

“Dearest nephew; Undoubtedly you’ve heard or read of plans by the leadership of this splendidly spacious and un-crowded land to deploy a military presence along the border to the south.”

Hm! Just like my uncle. Avuncular to a fault! A bit terse and to the point, though. But why just the border to the south? Perhaps they face a formidable armed menace.


“This is to supplement the existing force of 10,000 officers whose actual job it is to patrol the border. The multi-million dollar steel fence has proven inadequate to hold back the tide of poor and unemployed seeking to make a better life for themselves and their families, much as the progenitors of those who are already here once did.”

“As the good book says: You feast before the multitude, yet you expect them to only watch? Okay, perhaps it isn’t in the good book. But it might be. It’s a big book, that good book.”

“It seems that technology and the extra-legal zeal of posse and paramilitary militias have proven inadequate to the task. Now the Gang of Four find it necessary to sanction a military presence along the border.”

“You know my feelings regarding borders of any kind. I regard them as the futile, feudal response of fearful societies. The separation of human beings from each other through the expedience of borders is arbitrary, short-lived, and has been the basic source of conflict between people for millennia.”

“And, of course, they never work. From the Great Wall to the Maginot Line to the Atlantic Wall to the Berlin Wall. What remains of them but mere curiosities? Testimonies to quaint and outmoded ideas.”

“I’m certain that in your reading you’ve come across photographs of East German border guards, machine guns at the ready, gazing at the camera from concrete guard towers through binoculars. The photos invariably bear a caption to the effect ‘THEM LOOKING AT US LOOKING AT THEM.’.

Well, now we have become the THEM Just as we had already become the joyous tank crews rolling across the countryside, so reminiscent of archival news footage of the Blitzkrieg.”

“We are no longer the good guys. We are no longer the beleaguered and brave fighters battling overwhelming odds in a conflict we never wanted. That’s the image our leaders try to foster in our minds to support their imperialist agenda. But it’s a lie! And it’s needlessly costing us lives and the trust and esteem of the rest of the world. Furthermore, these policies and the lies used to support them only serve to give credibility to the position of those who would truly wish to do us harm.”

“Anyway, I hope this letter finds you in good health. Write me in care of your aunt Mathilde when you can. I don’t want them to know where I live, you understand.”

“My warmest wishes, your Uncle.”

“P.S.: You know I hold similar views on censorship and any authoritarian attempts to deprive individuals of the freedom to make choices. Laws, when necessary, should enable and not restrict human behavior.”

Well. I’m glad he made that clear. It’s so nice to read that he and Mathilde are still together. Especially after that sorry episode in Marrakech. But as they say, All’s well that ends. Well.