The problem of Muslim refugees in Germany is so bad that it
has become impossible to ignore. Or perhaps, now that Angela Merkel has escaped
political oblivion, it’s a good time to discuss it.
The New York Times account of the situation in the German
city of Essen is compelling, fair and balanced. Naturally, it’s about food, in
particular, about feeding the migrant population. After all, the German word Essen means: to eat.
Before looking at the story, I would note, and I would
emphasize, that such stories never ask what the migrants are contributing to
their host countries. Everyone seems to have accepted that the migrants cannot
contribute anything. This makes them parasites, and it explains the chagrin of
those German citizens whose labor is paying to feed them. I will not emphasize the fact that the migrants are all Muslim and that news stories always neglect this salient fact. You know this already.
Another part of the problem is that these migrants do not
have any manners. It’s bad enough that they are bringing a crime wave to their
host countries. As they overwhelm the resources of the local food
bank, they do not even know how to queue up. As you know, queuing up is basic,
one would say, essential to civilization, especially in places like Great
Britain. People who refuse to queue up, to take their turn and to contribute
fairly should not expect to be well treated.
The Times reports on the situation:
Jörg
Sartor does not like to turn newcomers away from his food bank, especially
single mothers like the young Syrian woman with her 5-year-old son who had
waited outside since before dawn.
But
rules are rules. And for the moment, it is Germans only.
“Come
here,” said Mr. Sartor, waving the boy over. Mr. Sartor disappeared into a
storage room and re-emerged with a wooden toy. Then the boy and his mother were
shown the door, which for the past two weeks has had five letters scrawled
across the outside: “Nazis.”
The
decision of one food bank in the western city of Essen to stop signing up more
foreigners after migrants gradually became the majority of its users has
prompted a storm of reaction in Essen, a former coal town in Germany’s rust
belt, and across the country. Even Chancellor Angela Merkel weighed in: “You
shouldn’t categorize people like this.”
But the
controversy has highlighted an uncomfortable reality: Three years after Germany
welcomed more than a million refugees, much of the burden of
integrating the newcomers has fallen on the poorest, whose neighborhoods have
changed and who have to compete for subsidized apartments, school places and,
in the case of the food bank, a free meal.
Ask any
of the Germans lined up outside the former water tower that houses the food
bank one recent morning and they will call Mr. Sartor a “people’s hero.”
“He
stands up for us,” said Peggy Lohse, 36, a single mother of three.
Until
recently, groups of young migrant men had sometimes elbowed their way to the
front of the line, Ms. Lohse recalled. She went home empty-handed more than
once. Some older women were so intimidated that they stopped coming altogether,
she said.
It is hard to imagine that Frau Merkel is still incapable of
accepting that she made a gigantic mistake, one that has seriously
damaged her country. And yet, it’s true.
Many of the Essen migrants are Syrian. They have affected
the character of the city:
Essen, a
city of 600,000 people, has seen its Syrian community grow to nearly 11,000
from 1,300 in 2015, said Peter Renzel, who is in charge of social policy at
City Hall. Most of them live in the working-class districts of the north.
And also:
The
image of a line in which some wait their turn and others unfairly push to the
front is a familiar one for Karlheinz Endruschat, a local Social Democrat, who
represents the northern district of Altenessen.
Apartments
have become scarcer. Schools report that nine out of 10 of their students are
non-German. Some German residents feel alienated by the number of newcomers.
“There
are times when you walk down the street and you are in the minority,” Mr.
Endruschat said.
Until
three years ago, roughly one in three food bank users were foreigners, he said.
By last November, it was three in four.
For the record, the Social Democrats are the German version
of our progressive parties.
Migrants notwithstanding, the German economy is forging
ahead. It even has a budget surplus:
The
nationwide head of the charity, Jochen Brühl, said the debate currently
animating the country was largely missing the point. Germany is Europe’s
richest country and has a budget surplus of more than 40 billion euros ($55
billion), he pointed out.
“The
whole country is up in arms about this one little food bank in Essen,” he said,
“when the real scandal is that in this rich country we have this kind of
poverty.”
Apparently, the cure for poverty is government handouts.
The food banks in Germany are not run by the state but by independent charities.
ReplyDeleteMerkel will have much to answer for. The question is, how soon will the question be asked, emphatically, and up close and personal?
ReplyDelete"Then the boy and his mother were shown the door, which for the past two weeks has had five letters scrawled across the outside: “Nazis.”"
ReplyDeleteWhich leads me to wonder why said five letters remain after two weeks. Surely there's no shortage of soap over there.
"... Germany welcomed more than a million refugees ..."
speaking of soap, for the record Germany murdered 130,000 German Jews and forced shall we say another million to flee or be imprisoned (and I will not mention the other 10,000,000 dead), so I look at this as a payback with interest.
While I would prefer the islams starve in islamistan, who am I to question the Hand of Providence?
Revenge. Always revenge.
ReplyDeleteA little god.
Without mercy.
Let's all go 'round again.
It'll be fun.
Jack F., anyone born from 1935 on had nothing to do with that, and likely back to 1930.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever lived or worked in a north african country, you will know that this is how one queues up there. By mobbing and pushing and using elbows. They are just bringing their own culture, together with their home religion. Whether they take over or assimilate is the choice of the German people. Their leaders have already made their choice.
ReplyDelete--> Essen, a city of 600,000 people, has seen its Syrian community grow to nearly 11,000 from 1,300 in 2015, said Peter Renzel, who is in charge of social policy at City Hall.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't sounds like that much by proportion, but 10,000 people in 2 years is still a pretty huge number, and they are not uniformly distributed.
I read here Minneapolis has about 8000 residents in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, and the Somalis now make a large proportion of that. It is surprising to see the number of small businesses started by immigrants and refugees. Not all of them were dirt poor when they came.
http://www.startribune.com/inside-little-mogadishu-no-one-is-an-outcast/414876214/
And the Muslim population is large enough that Minnesota Republicans were fearful that the Somalis might try to infiltrate their Sharia Law aspirations into the Republican caucuses. And its a real danger when less than 1% of citizens participate in the caucus system.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/minnesota-republicans-muslims-caucuses_us_5a7217b9e4b05253b2752e90
Overall I have to vote yes on cultural diversity and integration, but not too fast. Poverty is a harder predicament than cultural differences. And its the most extreme Muslims who don't want their moderate brothers and sisters integrating themselves to western culture since it weaken's the power of religion to control them. But certainly there are civic demands to diversity, and if a majority of people find no interest in people unlike themselves, it leaves more fear, and more distrust without any clear bridge, where immigrants are seen as either invisible or criminal.
What's interesting about "sharia law" is that it is another form or arbitration, that, if both parties agree to, would be enforceable in a court of law as any other kind of private law would be. Constitutional limitations would, of course, curb the worst excesses. But if two islam merchants want to resolve a commercial dispute using goat entrails instead of the Uniform Commercial Code, more power to them.
ReplyDelete