Quite a while ago, there appeared a very good ZEIT Online article on practical things the EU foreign ministers could decide on to really & humanely prevent refugees from attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to the perceived European paradise. I was given permission to translate it, so without further ado:
As Europe tried to recently save 700 people about to drown, it sent a Portuguese container freighter. That ship couldn't do much more than roll out its rope ladders and rescue materials to save at least a few of them from a watery grave. A flush of shame should be visible in the faces of the EU's members' foreign ministers because of that murderous weekend, when they met the Monday afterward in Brussels.
For this reason their reaction to the Mediterranean catastrophe long actively disregarded by them can only be: Who handles what task now? Suggestions abound. The foreign ministers could agree on a practical plan of action in a few hours, in 6 parts. A plan, that would be effective in the short as well as the long term. That comes to the rapid aid of those refugees, that are getting into boats today & tomorrow on the coasts of North Africa, and, at the same time, permanently pushes people to no longer attempt the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean that they undertake to live in security.
It would be a chance to give up national egoisms in the face of a thousand drowned refugees. To grasp that a big scare tactic used in foreign policy is a military concept, like the threat of mutual assured destruction that works when opponents armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons face off. But not when people are running for their lives. To prove that the wealthiest continent in the world isn't left helpless by the dynamics of the surrounding conflicts, as could be assumend when observing the deadly scourges taking place in Syria, Iraq or the Ukraine.
The foreign ministers could have agreed, and still can, to implement the following:
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Not the recent Disney movie. The song by Madonna, burnt on CD by my dad some years ago before he died. And the social state many of us are in.
Yesterday, while on holiday on the Eastern coast of Southern Africa, I discovered a copied CD with the handwriting of my dad on it: "Madonna frozen". It turned out to contain the main version of that prodigious New Yorker, whose career I've been following off and on.
I'm pretty amazed that my dad would listen to her at all, since he was usually into totally different kinds of music - classical, German "Schlager" (= folksy hits). This particular track, which I'd hardly paid attention to before now, sounds Arabian every time she's "ooo"ing, which makes it even more unlikely that dad would go for it.
What's particularly striking though is the synchronicity of the message. I am having a phase where I wonder who my real friends are (once again) - whether you can ever really be anything but a lone wolf (Hermann Hesse would say: wolf of the steppes) making your way, as well and humanely as you can, but never trusting others to really "get" you for any length of time. And I know my dad felt pretty apart from the world his last few years.
In the end it comes down to your invisible humility rating. If it's above BBB, you have a chance to be part of the world, perhaps enjoy that phase, talk to those who surround, & come after, you. One question: Who sets the rating? And how do I get to briefly see it?
As for my dad: It's like he persuaded Madonna to talk to me about this. Five times. Several years after he wrote those two words on that CD...
What also freezes me up is the sloppy way people who don't really care about refugees from East & South (seen from Germany) talk when "categorising" them.
Chancellor Merkel talked about refugees in her New Year's Speech a few days ago. She also addressed groupings like "PEGIDA" (basically "patriotic something-or-other against Islam" - one of several that cropped up in recent months), who have usurped the famed "Monday demonstration" slot used by Ex-GDR protestees a quarter century ago to initiate the downfall of that East German Soviet republic.
So, I would like to say that, apart from the two refugee categories Merkel & PEGIDA define (note they are not really the same if you believe the wording), there is a third one, that should be most welcome in Germany:
- WAR refugees - people who are fleeing a war-torn country to stay alive, or have some small bright future for their family; of course, this includes fugitives from civil war, like in Syria
- Political refugees - these are the ones mentioned mainly by Merkel; people whose lives are threatened within a harsh political system, i.e. for their beliefs or non-violent actions
- Economic refugees - these are the ones explicitly addressed by PEGIDA; people who can't live a normal life due to the economic low in their country, often very poor compared to a German std. of living
Of course, the boundaries are blurry. Almost all countries on the planet have some explicit or implicit class system which damns certain parts of society to a less than normal state of subsistence. Of course, any kind of suppressed part of a population will look for ways to improve their lot - even if this tears families apart, to the point of both parents leaving their children, to make more money abroad...
In times of neo-globalisation, where travel anywhere in the world has become easier than just 5 decades ago, poverty will out.
Essentially, all refugees need to be looked at carefully. If there is to be any categorisation, let it be honest and say we want x new immigrants per year in this country, no more. (In the end that's what all the Conservative categorisation boils down to, though the nos. stay hidden as long as possible.)
So, while Merkel is not really addressing PEGIDA's concerns at all, nor PEGIDA taking note of the consequences of globalisation - and the cheap remote labour their personal wealth is based on - let's be more honest about refugees: Either you listen to them and - if humane, probably - get up & help them, or you ignore them. Everything else is just agitation and/or propaganda.
I don't want to ignore them.
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No long spiel this month - but three shorter ones:
1) About a month ago, on one of my fave radio shows, On the Media, there was a segment on the whistle-blowing predecessors of the subject of the new documentary now in cinemas, Citizen4, and William Binney - whom I'd heard of, because he was asked to testify in the German parliament's security scandal committee currently investigating what truly transpired - & Ladar Levison - whose name I hadn't remembered, but learnt now was the guy who shut down his own e-mail service Lavabit, when encryption keys of his customers were forced from him by US institutions, in order to decrypt future mails passing through his firm's servers. So the man now hiding in Russia had equally courageous examples he could draw inspiration from. After some checking, I found a list of 'blowers in Wikipedia - just look at how often the better known US "watchdog" institutions are mentioned there! All those other people - esp. also Fellwock, Drake & Klein - need to be remembered for all they gave up to "come clean"!
2) I.a. in connection with Obama's slow decadence - cf. prev. blog entry - there's been a lot of talk in media & elsewhere about how many changes in recent years were actually bad ones. But, and Obama actually never promised more than this, change is at its onset neither good nor bad. If it does occur, it usually means a lot of unexpected stuff starts happening as a consequence, problems as well as surprising successes, and it's probably never easy. Just as it may be happening at levels or speeds that most people can't discern. Change is always a risk. Avoiding that risk is basically a definition of what the aims of political conservatives are. So, actually, politically left folk are often just social innovators, prepared to risk the New. Yet people who vote(d) for them never seem to grasp that "good" or "bad" change may follow - they want it only to be "good". -- I propose they haven't really understood what politically embracing change means.
3) A few hours ago, I got a sad, but also funny, life lesson on following one of my mottos - "delay judgement!": I decided to try out a new Döner* joint in nearby Bergmann Street, which street, in the last decade or so, has become a real tourist hot spot for some reason. I stood at the counter after having ordered my veggie Döner with special corn bread "pocket". First thing I noticed was that the guy serving me was a bit of a grouch - o well, everyone can have a bad day. Then a lady arrived, asking timidly whether they sold Döner "boxes" - a "box" usually being a rectangular cardboard enclosure for the food, i.e. no bread. The guy looked at her, turned around and wordlessly started cutting meat from the typical great "meat mountain" turnstile you find in every Döner kiosk or restaurant. The woman looked at me, somewhat at a loss; I smiled encouragingly. Then the taciturn one took out a small empty cardboard box, i.e. he'd taken her question as an order & was now filling it. He asked whether she wanted some fried veggies, too; she ecstatically agreed. So I got to thinking, man & shop gets a demerit, woman a nod for being normal... As if to prove me right, he later behaved a little macho-like toward her. But then the lady in turn made some disparaging remarks about a pair of folks passing by, which quashed my positive take on her... Finally, when walking away from the place, trying to consume my - okay-tasting - Döner, even that wholesome goodie basically fell apart: There's a reason Döner "pockets" are basically bread triangles, with one edge closed - so you don't lose half the contents as you eat it on the run. Well, in the end I've never been so full of bits of food & sauce from just below my beard down to my one shoe! Only because he'd taken the round wholewheat bun and cut it all the way through - like a hamburger bun.