For four decades the Berlin Wall was both the symbol, and the reality, of a Europe divided between totalitarian and democratic systems.
That wall has fallen, but the barbed wire fences erected by Spain around its Moroccan enclaves are coming to represent an even more tragic separation: that between the wealthy EU and the increasingly desperate poor of sub-Saharan Africa. Recent events have graphically illustrated the scale of a crisis that has been building over the past 10 years.
Thousands of Africans have hurled themselves bodily at the fences that surround the cities of Ceuta and Melilla. They have torn their clothes and lacerated their flesh in their determination to reach the prosperous future that so often appears to be denied to them in their own countries. Some of them, naked and bloody, have succeeded in climbing to some kind of sanctuary on the Spanish side of the frontier, though the administration is increasingly inclined to send them back to Morocco. However, recent actions by the authorities in Rabat have increased human rights concerns about such expulsions. Moroccan security forces have opened fire on migrants rushing the barriers, killing eight of them.
Even more disturbing are accounts of hundreds of migrants being bussed to desert areas on Morocco's borders where they appear to have been abandoned. UN forces stationed in the heavily mined conflict zone of Western Sahara have been seeking to find and assist them. Rabat challenged these reports at the weekend, but simultaneously told the UN to cease rescue missions.
European Commission vice president Franco Frattini advised the EU's Justice and Interior Ministers last week that 30,000 migrants had already gathered in Algeria and Morocco with the specific aim of breaching the frontiers at the Spanish enclaves. And he warned that this pressure was going to increase rapidly. Clearly, Spain cannot bear this burden alone, nor should Morocco be required to act as the border guard for Fortress Europe. Morocco is itself a country with very limited resources, widespread poverty, and a poor human rights record.
Spain's left-of-centre government has come under some harsh criticism, domestically and within the EU, for its immigration policy. It is alleged that Madrid has stimulated a new surge of immigration by granting legal status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants working in the black market over the past year. However, there were strong grounds for regularising a situation which entailed chronic exploitation and the criminalisation of a workforce which is a key part of the Spanish economy.
It is the agony of Africa which underlies the crisis on Spain's borders, which no short-term immigration policy will resolve. The EU needs to look at much more global solutions, including a drastic reform of trade relations with Africa, if this crisis is not to become a permanent emergency. The ethical imperative to assist African countries to create their own prosperity is rapidly becoming an economic and political necessity for Europe itself.