Claudio Magris on Europe's dangerous internal borders

Italian writer and essayist Claudio Magris reflects in literary magazine Nagyvilág on Europe's new barriers as a latent source of war: "Yet another threat to real peace lurks in the commonly held belief ... that civilization has defeated barbarism and that war - at least in our world - has been done away with. ... We take comfort in the illusion that we live without war simply because hundreds of thousands of soldiers are not contesting the Rhine River or because that border on the Kras Plateau behind Trieste - which was once an insurmountable iron curtain and a powder keg - no longer exists. ... Even today, this border has not been lifted. Instead, it has only been shifted to shut out yet another, more eastern East. Any border that we look upon not as a passageway, but as a wall - as a bulwark against the barbarians - creates a latent potential for war. Today, there are other borders that threaten peace. And, sometimes, they are invisible borders found within our own cities. They are between us and the newcomers from all over the world. ... Europe will soon face the huge and difficult task of opening up to the new cultures brought in by new Europeans from all over the world, who enrich Europe with their diversity. It will involve questioning ourselves and being open to the greatest possible dialogue with other value systems."

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