January 11, 2016
4:04 pm
Cologne
attacks create a defining moment for German tolerance
Mariam Lau
The days when
Germans stood in their thousands on railway platforms to welcome
refugees entering their country are long gone. What happened in
Cologne and other cities in Germany on New Year’s Eve put an end to
that. Scores of young women were sexually assaulted and robbed by
gangs of men of Arab or north African appearance. The police were not
able to protect them. Some of the men checked by officers that night
held refugee documents. Stolen mobile phones have been traced to
refugee shelters.
It is Angela
Merkel’s worst nightmare. Having pinned her political future on
“showing a friendly face” to those fleeing war and persecution,
the chancellor now acknowledges that there might be “questions that
go beyond Cologne, such as: are there groups that harbour a contempt
for women?”
It seems there are.
There have been reports of similar incidents in Hamburg, Stuttgart
and other cities. Last week, a group of Syrian refugees living in the
southwestern city of Weil am Rhein was arrested for the alleged rape
of two young girls.
Ascribing cultural
traits to specific groups of people has long been taboo in Germany.
It was a dark habit that took years to unlearn after the second world
war. In the postwar period, sociology always trumped culture when it
came to explaining social pathologies such as violence, crime or
unemployment.
This is changing. An
alliance, of the kind that has existed for some time in the
Netherlands and Denmark, has formed between conservatives, feminists
and gay rights activists. Kristina Schröder, the former minister for
family affairs in Ms Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union
party, tweeted: “For far too long, we have overlooked a misogynist
attitude among Muslim men.” Meanwhile, the leading feminist Alice
Schwarzer wrote: “Once again, I am being accused of racism by the
usual suspects” for pointing out that Germans have been “naively
importing male violence, sexism and anti-semitism”. In doing so, Ms
Schwarzer added, “we not only endanger our own safety and our
values. We also treat these brutish young men unfairly, who were not
born as perpetrators. We should help them become decent people.”
But before Germany
embarks on a giant re-education programme, it needs to restore public
safety. Cologne was not the first occasion on which the authorities
have been either absent or overwhelmed. There has not been a single
conviction following the 400 attacks (including arson) on refugee
homes recorded in the past two years. In Berlin and other cities
there are neighbourhoods where there have been attacks on women on
their own, Jews wearing a kippah and police patrols. In the capital,
refugees camp in their hundreds outside the office of health and
social affairs in the hope of acquiring permits or benefits.
These failures of
the German state are due partly to budget cuts. In North
Rhine-Westphalia, where Cologne is situated, police numbers have
fallen dramatically. But attitudes are just as important. There is an
old saying that when you ask a leftist about a social problem they
will at first deny it, then say that it has always gone on, and
finally that it is good for you. For some years, gangs of north
African youths have hung around outside Cologne’s central railway
station stealing mobile phones and harassing passers-by. But a strong
police presence rarely goes down well in North Rhine-Westphalia,
which has been ruled by a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens
since 2010.
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