It is rather like a ball of wool. One skein unravels and the whole thing turns into a knotted mess. The refugee problem in Europe especially Germany now threatens to collapse as the good intentions signpost the way to a living hell for the thousands pouring in from Syria against a tragedy of lost lives in rickety boats at sea.
For the Merkel government, it is a pincer movement. On the one side, the opposition has started drumming up resistance to the migration issue and is getting attention whether we like it or not. Add to this the labeling of these masses as class C citizens who have to stay in allotted areas only and cannot freely choose lodgings. This sets up a future confrontational society and the final result is invariably ghettos and crime and survival in adverse circumstances.
While one might be able to understand some policing of immigrants and even stretch that to a credential check in the interests of security the moment you begin to control movement and eye the ‘furriner’ with suspicion the recipe for disaster is ripe and ready. Not only does it puncture self esteem and produce humiliation but there is that them and us factor which politicians will exploit.
Equally worrying at the end of a general lauding of German largesse is that the nation’s laws for minimum wages and benefits will not accrue to these people. So what status will they enjoy, if the word is valid in the context of comfort. You cannot have a half German identity or a passport that is only a piece of paper unrecognized outside the borders.
What then will happen is that these people will never be able to strive and seek and may as well be confined to internment camps. Since most of them are with families what such an approach can lead to is a generation of young Syrians filled with resentment living in Germany and other countries who follow the same process of reducing human dignity while saving it.
No one says it is easy. It is not and just last week the German will was a matter of high praise. But the stamina for the long haul is necessary because once you have let them in you cannot create a lower class of citizen without having to pay a price down the line. The tactic of publicizing the ban on benefits in order to disenchant more people from crossing the border will not work because when you are homeless and desperate you don’t think of these subtle niceties, you think that for the starving and exhausted family half a loaf of bread is better than none.
There are no easy answers. And not many will be forthcoming at the meeting in Brussels where the 28 member states of the EU are meeting to discuss the distribution and rehabilitation of 130,000 refugees streaming in from Syria ... and counting.
