1 10 2 http://repositorio.historiarecienteenlaeducacion.com/files/original/6c96516b1b6436a496a67e74540c9eeb.jpg 85dbdf9e87e68ba3cb15b09cfed14678 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Recursos textuales sobre la quiebra y fractura de la URSS. Art�culo de prensa Textos publicados en peri�dicos y revistas. Texto original In order to understand previous and contemporary political conflicts about borders and walls through history education in both formal and informal environments, it is imperative to comprehend what has happened. For example, the role of both individual and collective aspects should be taken into account. However, it is equally essential to consider where a certain event has happened. <h2>Territories in Historical Conflicts</h2> This is due to the fact that this “where” usually refers to a specific territory which is under dispute. Naturally, when the term “territory” is used, one does not simply mean a specific part of the world with certain features. Rather, the term denotes something much more complex. For example, “territory” may signify how that territory was politically organized and how political and military battles were carried out for that particular territory. In other words, the focus on territories should also highlight historical developments which are related to the disputes of different social groups around different parts of the world. This focus is of interest because if history education were to neglect the diverse connotations of the term “territory”, students and citizens might gain the wrongful impression that present territories and their political units have not changed across time. Such changes are usually pointed out by historical maps. Unfortunately however, such maps have failed to attract much attention from researchers in history education, albeit certain textbooks have provided a few exceptions. For example, <a href="https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/5-2017-15/history-education-trump/">Sebastián Pla</a> has considered in this blog journal how the United States invaded Mexico and conquered a substantial part of its territory by the middle of the nineteenth century, thereby influencing the history of the two countries since then.[1] <h2>Trump’s Wall: A Territorial Conflict</h2> It is well known that President Donald Trump is trying to accomplish one of the most controversial goals announced in his presidential campaign, namely the construction of a wall measuring five thousand kilometers in length which would cover the entire border with Mexico. This decision also includes the intention to make Mexico pay for the costs of constructing the wall. The motivation for such a goal is to defend the North American territory from illegal Mexican immigrants by preventing them from entering the United States. The announcement of this project was accompanied not only by decidedly negative and xenophobic depictions of Mexican citizens as dangerous and violent criminals, but also by the highly controversial decision to prevent refugees from several countries to arrive in the United States. Most of these actions have been rejected by a considerable section of the public such as the academic community, non-governmental organizations, and politicians from around the world. Nonetheless, the truth is that Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States by approximately fifty million people. Therefore, it could be concluded that the majority of people who voted for Trump regarded these ideas and decisions to be not only feasible, but even desirable. Personally, I believe that we are dealing in this case with a representational entity which contains both social and historical dimensions of an undeniably historical origin. By this term, we mean both its historical origin as such as well as its historical origin as imagined by a section of the public. This is to say that this wall is attempting to become a physical border (a wall itself) replacing the symbolic and imaginary one. In other words, national borders are not merely physical barriers between countries. Usually, there is an agreement in place among nations which recognizes the existence of an imaginary line separating two or more countries, without this line necessarily being physical. In most cases, the line has no real existence. For example, there is a city in North America where the border constitutes a section of a library which includes both an American part and a Canadian part.[2] In fact, there are no walls which separate nations from around the world, except for some specific and also highly controversial cases such as in Israel. Whilst border checkpoints, where passports and other documents are checked, represent a physical entity, most of the countries employing them do not attempt to carry out such checks alongside the entire border. Here lies, therefore, one of the possible areas of confusion amongst those who voted for Donald Trump with regards to their expectations. I believe that this is underlined by the inability to separate the physical and symbolic dimensions of the border. <h2>Lack of Historical Literacy</h2> It is also important to note that previous initiatives of building walls along borders have been strongly criticized by American politicians as well as by democratic world leaders. The most famous case is probably that of the Berlin Wall, which was a symbol not only of the division of Germany but also the division of the world in two blocks—the communist sector and the capitalist sector. As the wall was built by the communists, this was regarded as a dictatorial act which implemented a literal conception of a political border. It is extremely paradoxical that President Trump is now championing a similar proposal. What do Trump’s motives have in common with those of the former East German and Soviet authorities? Whilst it is difficult to answer such a question, it would be reasonable to apply a tentative approach. The Berlin Wall was built to prevent German citizens from escaping from the German Democratic Republic to the Federal Republic of Germany. Trump’s wall, however, professes to prevent Mexican and other Latin American citizens from entering the United States. Therefore, the two walls are of a wholly opposite nature even though they are identical in terms of their conceptions about borders. This is to say that both cases share common ground in at least two theoretical approaches. Firstly, both walls were originally intended to transform the national border into a physical and tangible entity rather than a symbolic one. Secondly, they both intended to prevent people from freely moving between the nations’ borders. This second approach closely resembles the idea of criminalizing immigrants who merely chose to live in a foreign country. <h2>Borders, 3 Facts</h2> Ultimately, it appears that both Trump’s administration and its supporters are displaying a notorious lack of historical literacy with regards to at least three facts. Firstly, the present borders are the consequence of both political and military actions across history. Secondly, they do not possess an essential meaning. This is to say that they are neither everlasting nor immutable. On the contrary, they denote symbolic entities which mean that they have been established on the basis of conventions and negotiations amongst societies and governments. Thirdly, it is therefore futile to transform them into entities with physical constraints. In conclusion, a last point could be also provided from the perspective of civic education, this is to say that the porosity of borders alludes to human rights which should not be violated as they represent possibilities of a better life for other human beings. _____________________ Further Reading <ul> <li>Crampton, Jeremy W. “Maps as social constructions: power, communication and visualization.” Progress in Human Geography 25/2 (2001): 235–252.</li> <li>Herzog, Tamar.”Historical Rights to Land: How Latin American States Made the Past Normative and What Happened to History and Historical Education as a Result.” In Palgrave Handbook of Research in Historical Culture and Education, edited by Mario Carretero, Stefan Berger, and Maria Grever, 91–108. New York: Palgrave, 2017.</li> <li>Kamusella, Tomasz. “School History Atlases an Instruments of Nation-State Making And Maintenance: A Remark on the Invisibility of Ideology in Popular Education.” Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society 2/1 (2010): 113–138.</li> </ul> Web Resources <ul> <li>Old Maps Online. <a class="external" href="http://www.oldmapsonline.org/">http://www.oldmapsonline.org/</a> (last accessed 6 June 2017).</li> <li>BBC. “The Berlin Crisis and the construction of the Berlin Wall.” <a class="external" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/places/berlin_wall">http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/places/berlin_wall</a> (last accessed 6 June 2017).</li> </ul> _____________________ [1] Sebastián Plá, “History Education in Times of Trump,” Public History Weekly 5 (2017) 15, <a href="https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/5-2017-15/history-education-trump/">DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2017-9124</a> (last accessed 6 June 2017). [2] Sarah Yahm, “The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Tiny Library,” Atlas Obscura, July 7, 2016,<a class="external" href="http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-us-canada-border-runs-through-this-tiny-library">http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-us-canada-border-runs-through-this-tiny-library</a> (last accessed 6 June 2017). _____________________ Image Credits Mains au ciel, Berlin wall © Jeanne Menjoulet (2016), via <a class="external" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmenj/26804768701/in/photolist-GQDrSv-3PcuEk-r3wmhw-9QZWJP-9eMJo-48fMYW-9eMDG-6qk3Q2-5n3Zjv-JZQgf-pDfxzY-9eMHH-UnpSKf-9eMDb-fMwD4e-9eMCh-6qpcf1-9eMGR-9eMB2-5CSzu-6qk2o8-9eMJN-8VquZV-nHJmVy-9eMKb-66gyMQ-8Y6iup-oftkkb-92ZwZ6-fCegBj-933DE3-6YkZk1-9CCEin-9CFyBf-9eMEZ-9eME8-3Ac1jr-9eMEt-9eMCB-9eMBQ-FQLgmY-9R3PHQ-9QZV2t-6qpb5y-6eg1Ja-9R3RP3-9R3R5A-9R3QpL-9QZVDt-cBw3Yf/">Flickr</a>. Recommended Citation Carretero, Mario: Borders In the Head: Comparing Mexican Wall and Berlin Wall. In: Public History Weekly 5 (2017) 23, DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2017-9457. Editorial Responsibility <a href="https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/author/judith-breitfuss/">Judith Breitfuß </a>/ <a href="https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/author/thomas-hellmuth/">Thomas Hellmuth</a> Copyright (c) 2017 by De Gruyter Oldenbourg and the author, all rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial, educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders. For permission please contact: elise.wintz (at) degruyter.com. Enlace <a href="https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/5-2017-23/borders-in-the-head-comparing-the-mexican-and-the-berlin-wall/" target="_blank">https://public-history-weekly.degruyter.com/5-2017-23/borders-in-the-head-comparing-the-mexican-and-the-berlin-wall/</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Borders In the Head: Comparing Mexican and Berlin Wall Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mario Carretero Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 15/06/17 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Public History Weekly: THE INTERNATIONAL BLOGJOURNAL Description An account of the resource Art�culo comparativo entre el muro entre M�xico y EEUU y el muro de Berl�n. Language A language of the resource Ingl�s Biling�e Fronteras M�xico Muro de Berl�n Trump Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Art�culos de prensa y dossieres monogr�ficos sobre la globalizaci�n y China. Art�culo de prensa Textos publicados en peri�dicos y revistas. Texto original President Trump�s advisers and allies are pushing an ambitious idea: Remake American trade. They are considering sweeping aside decades of policy and rethinking how the United States looks at trade with every country. Essentially, after years of criticizing China and much of Europe for the way they handle imports and exports, these officials want to copy them. This approach could result in higher barriers to imports that would end America�s decades-long status as the world�s most open large economy. This could lead to slightly higher prices in the United States for everything from Chilean grapes to iPhones to gasoline. But it could also provide a boost to companies and workers who make things in the United States and sell them abroad. Will it happen? Mr. Trump has hinted at the issue, saying to Congress last week that �other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes,� but �we charge them almost nothing.� The discussion, if translated into action, could affect national economies and regular households alike � and create big problems for countries like China that depend heavily on exports to the United States. Putting Up Barriers First, it helps to understand how the United States and other countries currently treat trade. The most visible layer is tariffs, or taxes on imports. The World Trade Organization, the global trade adjudicator, has allowed developing countries to impose far higher tariffs than industrialized countries, while they build up industries at home. China has been counted as a developing country. But most countries have additional barriers. For example, China and most other countries, but not the United States, also charge a steep value-added tax, which is a kind of national sales tax on imports and home-produced goods alike. Exports are exempt from value-added taxes, giving companies an incentive to sell overseas. Once value-added taxes and sales taxes are included in an international comparison, America�s trade barriers are much lower than those of almost every other country. Rethinking Trade Mr. Trump�s advisers and some lawmakers don�t like this arrangement. For starters, they question why China�s average tariffs are about three times as high as those in the United States � and its tariffs on manufactured goods, which involve a lot of jobs to produce them, are far higher still. Those levels are allowed because when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, it was clearly a developing country. Lower American trade barriers have helped China increase exports to the United States, while importing fairly little. Today, China�s designation as a developing country is more debatable. China is the world�s second-largest economy and the biggest producer of steel and cars. Still, China trails most developed nations by some measures, and Chinese officials argue that it is still developing and does not yet qualify as industrialized. China�s economy is still roughly two-thirds the size of the American economy, even though China has four times as many people. Average incomes in China are still one-fifth to one-quarter of levels in the United States, and much of China�s interior is still underdeveloped. �We still hold the developing countries� standpoint,� said Li Gang, the deputy dean of the Commerce Ministry�s research unit, the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. When China joined the W.T.O. in 2001, the expectation was that its tariffs would later be adjusted lower during global trade talks, known as the Doha Round. But those talks fell apart for a variety of reasons. How Tariffs Hit Industries While China�s average tariffs are higher, they vary widely by industry, and that has contributed to big industrial shifts. Consider cars. China�s tariff on imported cars is 25 percent of the wholesale price, which is one reason General Motors, Ford and Volkswagen set up huge factories in China. By contrast, tariffs in the United States are just 2.5 percent for imported cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles. So automakers make in China almost all the cars that they sell there, while many cars in the United States are imported. To be sure, automakers have many reasons to build factories in China, including proximity to low-cost suppliers as well as to customers in a big new market. Trade Redo Some of Mr. Trump�s advisers and Republicans in the House of Representatives want to replace America�s current taxes on corporate profits with a system that raises the costs of imports while helping exports. Companies currently deduct practically all of their costs, including imports, from their sales revenue, and then pay taxes on the profits that are left. The new idea, sometimes called a border-adjusted tax, essentially involves ending the deductibility of imports so that they would be taxed. At the same time, profits on exports would no longer be taxed, and the overall tax rate would be cut. Big beneficiaries would be domestic factory owners and workers and big exporters like Boeing. But other countries might retaliate, and some Senate Republicans worry it could violate the rules of the W.T.O. A border-adjusted tax would �mean a trade war not only between China and the U.S. but across the whole world,� said Wei Jianguo, a former Chinese vice minister of commerce. �China is firmly against it.� The idea nonetheless has support among House Republicans, in addition to some of Mr. Trump�s supporters, although the president himself has called it �too complicated.� It has also divided businesses, with big importers opposed. Rising Protectionism Even before Mr. Trump took office, America�s taste for free trade was fading. While China protects many more of its industries than the United States does, China has also been moving faster to liberalize. Global Trade Alert, a nonprofit based in Zurich that tracks and opposes protectionism, has documented 1,066 discriminatory American measures since the height of the global financial crisis in November 2008, including bailouts and subsidies for American companies, Buy America measures, tariff increases and other moves. Those are more measures than in any other country, although that may be partly because it is easier to document such measures in the United States, said Simon Evenett, the project�s leader. The American measures are also extremely narrow, affecting a small share of trade. Mr. Wei said that the United States was wrong to feel threatened by China and should embrace free trade. Like many Chinese officials, he sees the Trump administration as motivated to a considerable extent by a fear of the rise of China, and added that �we don�t want the U.S. to have imaginary enemies in geopolitics.� Pa�s EEUU Enlace <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/trade-china-protectionism.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/trade-china-protectionism.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Building Trade Walls / Construyendo las murallas del comercio. New York Times Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource KEITH BRADSHER & KARL RUSSELL Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 07/03/2017 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/trade-china-protectionism.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 Language A language of the resource Ingl�s Description An account of the resource El art�culo revisa las condiciones arancelarias entre EEUU y China y sus perspectivas de cambio durante la nueva "Era Trump". Arancel Biling�e China Econom�a EEUU Globalizaci�n Impuestos directos Impuestos indirectos Mercado Trump