Foreign Affairs?

Hey guys!

The topic I want to talk about this time is a rather unusual one for my blog, I guess, but when I was writing about the topic of friendship in my previous post I thought: Why should I not write about this when it is something I think about a lot and consider important? I couldn't think of any reasons, so here we go.

Migration has always exited in human history and it will probably always exist. There have been various reasons for it in the past which are still reasons in the present and will continue to be reasons in the future. To name some: wars - fear of being killed, destroyed homes, no perspective, no guaranteed security, persecution of any kind; persecution in general - political or religious; hunger; natural disasters; no perspective in the home countries - economic crises and associated job shortage.

Basically, the will to survive, the hope for a livable life and the pursuit of liberty and happiness.

Now, as I said, migration is nothing new but especially since last year when the so called 'refugee crisis' began to arise in Europe and especially in Germany (maybe that too is just the perspective which the media wants to make Germans believe), the topic is dealt with in the media on a daily basis. And I don't mean, they just report on the latest number of arriving refugees or their countries of origin. Also, I don't mean that multiple politicians take a stand on a possible maximum limit on refugee reception or a solution for their accommodation or integration into 'our' society. This is a very difficult topic to deal with politically, I understand that and I do not want to touch on that any further but what I'm very concerned about is how the rest of our society deals with the refugees coming to our nations, or more precisely to Germany.

I know, many people are volunteering and/or have a welcoming attitude towards the refugees but there are also maaany people and entire organisations all over the country (Pegida, Legida, etc) who either seek for physically confrontation or even - for the latter mentioned party - promotion against 'alien religion/culture in order to preserve the endangered Western culture'. I mean, sorry, but what?!

As far as I know, culture has always been developing and changing due to natural events, nowadays particularly due to globalisation, I guess. It's not a static phenomenon and nobody is ever being harmed by an evolving and therefore changing culture or a religion that originates in other parts of the world.

Yes, different cultural backgrounds may cause clashes or difficulties because of different values and beliefs but is that a justification to spread and promote hate and cause victims of violence and burning refugee homes? My answer is a clear NO!

What bothers me even more than the violence and injustice that is happening because of the pure stupidity of 'patriotic people who are worried about their well-known and appreciated values and cultural imparatives threatened by unfamiliar ones' (even though this is obviously bothering me A LOT!!!) is that these organizations are so successful gaining supporters in a country like mine. 

I mean, do I really have to point to my nation's history? These kinds of happenings outrage me really much and at times I feel ashamed to be German. What have the people who support the whole thing have accomplished to make them entitled to live in this country which the refugees have not? Is it really a question of  birthright!? Since when are certain people allowed to tell others that they can't live in a certain area of the world? Of course, society has a lot of challenges to take on in this respect, I would never put that into question or deny that but some people should definitely reconsider their attitude! Also, try to think of reasons why the refugees are refugees in the first place. I don't think they just liked the idea of leaving their homeland, their relatives, their familiar environment and risking their own and the lives of their family covering thousands of kilometers, crossing multiple countries or even the Mediterranean Sea in the cold season with as many belongings as they can carry. Do you?

Happenings like those in Cologne on New Year's Eve or other similar ones across the country are horrible and wrong and the delinquents have to be held accountable. No doubt about that! But are these crimes really the consequence of different religious or social beliefs or isn't it maybe a thing that should be assessed on an individual level? If you look closely, the media wants us to create a certain picture. There surely are sexual assaults on (German) women committed by German men as there have been all the time but since media does not circulate them at the moment, people are misled to think that they are exclusively and frequently committed by foreigners/refugees which leads to totally unnecessary and incredibly unjust prejudices against all foreign looking (especially Arabic, Islamic) people.

I recently saw a meme saying something like: 'Bernd sexually molested a woman. Who is guilty? Bernd. Ali sexually molested a woman. Who is guilty? Islam.' This says everything, doesn't it? There are always stupid and disbehaved people all over the place. Only because media reports of crimes committed by refugees/immigrants have occurred frequently at the moment, this doesn't mean that there are none or less committed by Germans!

When I was in London, I had a very interesting conversation with two guys (both from different countries) about the 'refugee crisis' and how the nations could or could not handle it and I was quite shocked about the perspective of one of them. He suggested for the goventments to create 'camps' for the refugees - prison-like - so that clashes with the other inhabitants are prohibited and to exceptionally let some of them go into the cities if they behaved well because otherwise it would be too dangerous. The only thing that came to my mind was: Wow, I would've never thought, I would ever hear such a thing these days from an educated adult. It was probably a naive thing to think. Anyway, it's really sad. Who is the dangerous one in reality?

What do you think about the recent happenings in Europe concerning this topic? Which impression do you have about the situation and the ways politics, media and society handles it?

♥