The World is Increasingly becoming 'Closed' vs 'Open

After the unsuprising, yet disappointing American election results in Nov-24, I've been thinking about how the world over we are increasingly becoming 'closed' vs 'open.' It's a pity, really.

In Trump's victory speech delivered in Florida, the issue he first touched upon was immigration.

The Israel Palestine conflict since 2023, on the recurring issue over the disagreement on regions partitioned by the British mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

Closer home, a few months back there was a bill mandating reservation for Kannadigas in private companies in Karnataka, especially home to India's startup hub in Bangalore.

In Maharashtra, Shiv Sena, MNS and the like have been violent against North Indian immigrants for years. And demanding reservations for Marathis across housing, jobs, education.

This rhetoric goes back to so many years. Remember the extreme cause of Germany for Germans, which paved the way to the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust. Sure, it's an extreme. But aren't we're inching to the same.

America for Americans. The Jewish vs Arab State. Karnataka for Kannadigas. Maharashtra for Marathis. And so on.

And yet, there's no doubt about the role of immigrants in the rise to greatness or power for America, Mumbai or Bangalore. Maybe, The World is Actually Not Flat even if Thomas Friedman convinced us with rising internet, global trade and political collaboration about twenty years ago. If there's no sound logic for more geographical closedness, what's the reason for this increasing non-tolerance?

I think it's simple.

- Emotions always win. That fear of being left behind. Or the banding together by ethnicity, trumps all else.

- Politics is lazy. Rather than address root causes for increasing crime, rising unemployment, growth slowdown or anything wise it's much easier to just put blame on 'others.'

- It rarely affects the powerful, either those in government or with the money. So what if media reports show that Elon Musk, enemy of ‘open borders,’ launched his career working illegally. There's easy exception to be made to every rule.