Migrants, murs et camps. Les formes extraordinaires du droit de l’Antiquité romaine à aujourd’hui

• Main Author: Soazick Kerneis
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: L’Harmattan 2018-10-01
• Series: Droit et Cultures
• Subjects: Border; Wall; Buffer zones; Other; Barbarian; Camp
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/droitcultures/4509
• ISSN: 0247-9788; 2109-9421

Rome is a fascinating example because Romans, from the very beginning had to manage the relation with the Others. The latest times have been dramatically emphasized, they are linked with the fall of Rome and in this way may sound like a dramatic precedent. Nonetheless we have to remember that, for a long time, Rome had a very different attitude. Strangers were very welcome to be integrated in the City, there was no border, and the aim of Rome was to convert the rest of the world to its values. So the question is: why did Rome change its politics towards the foreigners? Why did it build borders? Why did the figure of the barbarian become so frightful? Why were barbarians settled in buffer zones, why deny them citizenship? And what was the result of this politics of exclusion? To understand it, we will consider the border in its two aspects, first as a straight defensive line, then as an intermediate space. As well, it is easy to see that it is in this second aspect that the wall was the most effective. The lesson of the past is easy to understand. Walls were built with the purpose of protecting societies against poor people, other cultures or religions. But this is nothing more than an illusion as the wall is no more than the expression of the fear of the other. It would be more appropriate to consider borders as a place of cultural and political mutations where new ways of life and maybe new forms of politics, another way to understand the rule can develop.