I was looking for some more recent novels to add to my list, and decided to ask Chat GPT for some recommendations based on my criteria. One of the novels was Mohsin Hamid’s novel Exit West. As with all the novels, I looked them up and read a little about them to see if I’d be interested. I grabbed this paragraph from the Wikipedia page. 

“Mohsin Hamid wrote Exit West as a way for readers to look at the refugee crisis from a different perspective. Hamid explains that borders for countries are extremely “unnatural” and the issue with migrants and refugees is that their movement is thought of as a problem that needs to be solved. Hamid believes that refugees and migrants, or anyone for that matter, should be able to travel freely throughout the world. Hamid also explains that reading can help people see things from a different perspective, which means that people can become more cognizant of others’ situations and see solutions they never thought possible before. Hamid wrote Exit West to broaden people’s thoughts about the refugee crisis. He wanted to give readers an alternative perspective on how the people could operate in one world instead of one nation. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and his strict border policies, Hamid is trying to show readers that a world without borders is not only possible, but desirable.” 

There are three assertions in this paragraph that I’d like to challenge: 

Borders for countries 
Hamid says borders for countries are ‘extremely unnatural’, but this doesn’t seem right. I could maybe see an argument against the larger nation states, since they have often seen smaller tribal or cultural groups compressed into a larger area (think modern Italy), but even in tribal settings, recognized lands have long been accepted. If a tribe encroached on another’s land, fights could ensue. Even now in America, we will sometimes acknowledge that we live on tribal lands (Democratic party platform). What would that even mean unless some geographic area called “a land” could be enclosed in some sort of acknowledged border? 

The article states that the issue is borders for countries, but it seems like the concept of “a land”, as an acknowledged geographical area for a culture, is still applicable, just to a larger area in the modern sense of a nation-state. 

Diversity 
I certainly see the argument that “seeing things from a different perspective can help them to see solutions they never thought possible”. In fact, solutions to previously intractable problems is always going to be some form of seeing things from a different perspective. 

It’s also not hard to see some truth to the assertion that bringing in people who think differently, may in fact introduce new ways of thinking about things, which may include solutions to problems unseen. In fact, in Helmut Schoeck’s book Envy, he specifically mentions inventors moving to different places and bringing new ideas, which helped the spread of innovation. 

But “thinking differently” is not, in and of itself, a benefit.
Societies dwell together through shared ways of thinking, not diversity. If everyone thought differently about things, there would be no basis for shared values, and therefore, no community.  
Some level of diversity can be beneficial, too much of it can also tear societies apart. 

Refugees 
Accepting refugees on a humanitarian basis can be considered a morally good thing. If fellow humans are in trouble, then giving them a safe place to escape is good. But with diversity as the model, it’s also easy to envision scenarios in which people A are brought en masse into a culture B, and then A seeks to reproduce culture A into land B. It’s possible the reason people in culture A have left their own native lands is because culture A had serious defects, which is why they are having to flee as refugees. (There can of course be other reasons) In such a scenario, the infusion of culture A into the land of culture B would be a threat to culture B, not the “solution to a problem”.
So it would seem that any people/society would have a well-grounded right in wanting to protect and preserve its own native culture. 

Given these things, I don’t agree that “a world without borders is not only possible, but desirable”, unless we first accept that no people has a right to its own culture. 

I asked Chat GPT about these and here is the response on borders: 

“Hamid calls borders “unnatural,” which probably reflects his rhetorical or philosophical point more than an anthropological one. You’re right: historically, human groups have always marked out territory—whether by rivers, mountains, migration routes, or tribal boundaries. Conflict over land is one of the oldest constants in human life. 
“That said, what Hamid may mean is that modern, hard nation-state borders are a relatively recent invention. For most of human history, borders were porous, overlapping, or shifting. Think of medieval Europe, where allegiances and spheres of influence often mattered more than exact lines on a map. Even in tribal contexts, the “border” might not have been a hard line but a zone of negotiation, exchange, or contestation. 
“So while borders in some form seem natural to human societies, the rigidity and legalistic enforcement of them in the modern world might be what Hamid is challenging as “unnatural.” ” 

But I think those explanations fail: 

Let’s grant that edges of territories, where the “borders” are found, may indeed be loosely delineated, particularly in tribal senses.
Hamid could not be speaking of such a thing when he calls borders unnatural. When he talks about people coming to a different country, for the sake of diversity and assisting refugees, those aren’t accomplished by people settling, for a U.S. example, in an uninhabited section of the Arizona desert on the border. Diversity to the native population could ONLY occur through influx and interaction in the major population centers. Meaning Hamid must be saying that people “should” be allowed access whenever they want, to any people’s land.
The same dynamic would be true with refugees. They couldn’t really be helped by merely existing inside another border, although they may be considered “out of reach” if the issue is physical persecution.

Though that in itself brings up another point: if there were no borders, then a persecutorial government could simply go wherever it wanted to exact its measures on those refugees trying to flee. 

Which makes we want to parse out the point that borders are not only restrictions on people, but on particular governments too. If there were no borders, then the government of Iran could go into what is now considered Iraqi territory. So, if for no other reasons, it would seem that borders would be necessary limitations to restrain governments too. 

Again, I see Hamid’s basic argument that borders are unnatural as being untenable.