Refugee
Debate: The Shrillest Are Gaining the Upper Hand
Opponents
of Angela Merkel's refugee policies act as if the country were on the
verge of collapse. Their tone is so shrill it has created a climate
in which people just shrug their shoulders as the government takes
steps to dramatically curb asylum-seekers' rights.
A
Commentary by Maximilian Popp
Quiet has returned
in Sumte. Last autumn, journalists from around the world suddenly
descended on the village of 100 residents in the state of Lower
Saxony, when it was reported the tiny town would have to take in
1,000 refugees. Even the New York Times dispatched a reporter. Half
of those migrants have now arrived in Sumte, but in sharp contrast to
the doomsday predictions of refugee opponents, the response by locals
here has been temperate. "We're handling everything very well,"
Mayor Grit Richter recently said in a newspaper interview.
Quiet has also
returned to Passau. On some days in 2015, as many as 8,000 refugees
arrived each day in the city at the German-Austrian border -- more
than in any other place in Germany. The respected weekly Die Zeit
described it as a "German Lampedusa," referring to the
Italian island that had previously been a magnet for boat refugees.
Despite this, Mayor Jürgen Dupper affirms: "Of course we can
handle it."
One hears little
about the asylum debate these days from places like Sumte or Passau.
The same holds true of Eichstätt in Bavaria, where the city and
volunteers have joined forces to organize refugee integration, or in
cities like Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden, where thousands of people
continue to volunteer to help refugees, sorting donated clothing at
asylum-seeker hostels and offering German-language courses for new
arrivals.
And yet, it's the
Cassandras who continue to dominate the debate. They complain of
breaking points that have allegedly been crossed and warn, as German
philosopher Peter Sloterdijk did last fall, that there "is no
moral obligation for self-destruction." Conservative Bavarian
Governor Horst Seehofer joined the chorus by warning of a "collapse"
of the state.
Drowning Out Voices
of Reason
It is true that
there is considerable room for improvement in the handling of the
refugee crisis. People are continuing to die along the European
Union's external borders (though that is not something that those who
claim to be concerned about the refugee crisis are particularly
concerned about), the planned distribution of refugees across Europe
has failed and, yes, some of the migrants are criminals.
But it is also true
that refugee integration has been a success story in many parts of
Germany. For a long time, the German government ignored the refugee
issue and, despite knowning it was necessary, failed to create an
infrastructure for handling new arrivals. Ultimately, however,
Germany's civil society did an impressive job of making up for the
state's shortcomings.
Nevertheless, those
in Germany who oppose the refugees continue to act as though the
country is on the verge of collapse. They're acting as cheerleaders
for Germany's downfall, and their cacophony has grown so loud that
they have drowned out any voices of humanity, pragmatism or reason in
the public debate.
Indeed, the
conservative Christian Social Union from Bavaria, the populist
Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Islamophobic PEGIDA movement and
their ilk have pushed the refugee discourse so far to the right that
the German majority simply shrugged when parliament recently pushed
through the most drastic revision of asylum rights in the land since
the early 1990s.
Even as Chancellor
Merkel publicly announced, "We can handle this," her
government in recent months has been pulling the emergency brakes,
declaring a number of countries to be "safe countries of origin"
-- thus eliminating the right of such nationals to apply for asylum
in Germany -- expanding residence restrictions that limit the
movement of refugees in the country and imposing restrictions
requiring asylum-seekers to remain in camps or initial reception
facilities until their applications are processed. The government is
also moving to restrict the right of the reunification of families.
All these steps have a singular aim: to deter refugees from coming to
Germany.
Despite this,
Merkel's asylum policies are still considered to be generous, even on
the left side of the political spectrum. This is partly attributable
to the vocabulary adopted by Merkel. In contrast to the conservative
wing of her party, she does not speak of an "upper ceiling"
on the number of refugees that can come to Germany.
Last summer's
refugee movement mobilized more people than almost any other event in
recent German memory. And the people who provided a helping hand then
are still out there today giving their support. It's not a small
group of people either -- but their voices are getting drowned out at
the moment. That's why those who support more liberal asylum policies
need to get out there to make sure their voices are heard. They need
to get networked and to clearly articulate their positions. The
nay-sayers and doomsday proclaimers cannot be allowed a monopoly in
this debate.
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