Mostly Bollogs, I'm afraid

But occasionally, a glimmer of truth.
If you find one, please let me know.



Monday 31 July 2017

German

This is an email I received from a lady in Germany a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd share it. Not my words, but hers.

A different perspective from some, I guess.

"About what we talked about concerning the refugee crisis in 2015: What Angela Merkel did then, might have had the wrong effect, spreading news that Germany "invites“ refugees in. But from how I experienced the situation back then, it was a humanitarian measure in a crisis and a situation that could easily have gone terribly wrong claiming many lives. You also need to take our history into account. After the war Germany was not severely punished and totally crushed for what they had done but helped and supported to grow into a democratic and prosperous country. So, I somehow also see it as an act of gratefulness of a country that is doing well, helping others in an emergency. I personally respect Merkel for what she did back then. The side effects were, however, enormous and in the face of a new wave of migrants, this kind of approach can´t continue. Putting people up for a limited amount of time is relatively easy but integrating them into society so that they don´t feel permanently on the margin is much more complicated and can only work if many, many individuals help make it possible by supporting those families and their children to get jobs, housing and education. As we´ve seen with France for example, frustration and segregation breeds violence. Maybe I´m a bit idealistic, but I´ve met and befriended several refugee families and I see them as individuals like me and you. A politician, of course, has to take the global picture into account and that might lead to a different point of view."


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