So as most of you have probably seen on the news, refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere have been flooding into Europe, including Germany recently (it has been a steady stream for quite a while, but the pace really picked up this summer). We have quite a few staying in former military housing here in Heidelberg--last week the paper said there are 3700 people staying at Patrick Henry Village alone. Here is a photo from the Rhine Neckar Zeitung in July---people are packed in even more tightly there now:
So I guess the first scattered thought I will share, is that other than occasionally seeing people at a train station, a doctor'S office or near the PHV entrance, etc. even knowing refugees are here in large numbers, and looking for it, and living less than 5 minutes from such housing, there is really no effect on day to day life for us here in Germany (and my friends in Munich say the same). I still feel completely safe taking our local public transit (which is running on time and not overcrowded) and walking and riding my bicycle around town, even along the edge of PHV. The news likes to make it look like chaos has broken lose here in Germany, and I don't know if it might really be problematic along the borders with some of our Eastern or Southern neighbors neighbors (I admit I am in no hurry to take a driving trip that way, in case borders are closed and/or some violence erupts) but within Germany things are not really different for the typical inhabitant or tourist. I am fairly confident that any major hassles in Munich over the next few weeks will be from the influx of tourist for Oktoberfest and not from refugees.
So in answer to all of those who have asked, yes it is safe to take your planned business trip or vacation in Germany right now.
My next scattered thought would be in reference to memes like the one below (or posts or comments expressing the same thoughts):
I see these things and I really hope that the poster has a fundamental lack of understanding of the situation and not a fundamental lack of compassion.
I don't know where the photo of Kurdish female fighters is coming from, but these women clearly have access to some sort of organization and likely training as well as weaponry and uniforms.
My limited understanding of the situation in some places in Syria is that this simply is not a possibility for many; that staying "to fight" would mean almost certain death and possibly rape or torture for themselves of their children beforehand. And in spite of many assertions on message boards and facebook about the number of adult male refugees, every article I have seen in any mainstream sources points out that over half of the refugees are children. If their parents were to stay and try to fight both their own government and ISIS, how would the children escape rape and murder? Or being co-opted into ISIS at a young enough age to be brain washed into fighting for them (which would add to the danger to us all!)?
Besides, I really cannot fault anyone for preferring to move and get somewhere safe to live their life, rather than fight to the death for the chance to continue living where they had been. Is that really so unusual? Do the same people posting these memes fault Jews who fled Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary, etc for not trying to fight Hitler's forces?
I am also bothered by the sexism inherent in the post. By making a point of comparing the women to the men, instead of simply adults, the underlying assumption is that men, as a whole should be braver, that women are somehow less likely to have that trait. That whole idea does not sit well with me.
Moving on to more thorny topics--I am also seeing lots of vitriol on social media aimed at the various missteps and decisions that one country or another, or one official or another had made in coping with the situation. This was most frequent when Hungary stopped trains headed towards Germany and moved refugees into camps to process paperwork before allowing them to move--I think the situation lasted only a few days but the cries of racism and comparisons to things like concentration camps went on much longer. All of these types of over the top reactions and extreme offense and anger aimed at officials who are coping with making snap decisions with little to no time for research or consultation with others, feels really out of line to.
It's easy to sit in our comfortable living rooms and say what we think shouldn't be done. I assume it is not nearly so simple to be faced with a few hundred, or a few thousand, hungry people with minimal or sometimes no paperwork, half of whom are children, all of whom are likely frightened or desperate at least on some level and trying to figure out how to best accommodate and feed all of them NOW while also keeping your country safe and following rules about processing incoming peoples, etc.
I think the reasonable thing to do is to expect missteps, look out for them and discuss then and try to fix them as quickly as possible, but continue to appreciate and understand the various leaders being placed in the positions of making these decisions with no prior training for such an unprecedented event. I guess basically, I wish more people would cut the leaders some slack and help them change paths when needed rather than making them the enemy when their attempts prove to be misguided.
I have a few more, equally (or more) scattered thoughts, but I think this is enough in one post.
--Hadley
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