Germany's Immigration Problem What to Do Essay

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The Syrian Refugee Crisis

With the war in Syria leading to the loss of so many lives and homes, it was only natural that the developed world should take notice. The Syrian refugees would have to be admitted somewhere, would have to be given shelter somehow. For a world that professed the principles of the UN—to act humanely towards one and all—how could the developed world not respond? Those were Angela Merkel’s thoughts in 2015. Truth be told, however, the experiment had been a long time coming. Integration and immigration had been key topics for Germany’s leader as well as for other member states of the EU. Immigration had been one of the key controversial issues that compelled Britons to vote to leave the EU in the shocking Brexit event that occurred in 2016 (Hunt & Wheeler, 2016). For leaders like Merkel, welcoming immigrants (especially those from the war torn Middle East) was an act of charity that symbolized the universal bond that all people shared. For others—particularly for Britons and Germans who did not want to see their national heritages and cultures altered by the influx of a foreign people with foreign customs and traditions—it was an act of self-demolition.

The leaders of the EU eventually picked up on their followers’ oppositional voice and tried to perform balancing acts in order to appease the voters while simultaneously towing the politically correct line that advocated universal kinship, open borders, pro-immigration policies and greater integration. Leaders like Merkel were reluctant to give up the ideals that they had taken to heart, even though it might cost them their positions of leadership. Merkel was being challenged as Chancellor in Germany. In England, Nigel Farage was leading the charge for Brexit and the referendum’s surprise result would lead to the establishment of a new PM—Theresa May—in the UK. It would appear that the line between being hospitable and being self-destructive was becoming clearer and clearer in the minds of many. Yet it was still not so clear in the minds of the leaders in the EU.

Bavarian Premier and Christian Social Union leader Edmund Stoiber attempted to draw a finer line about where tolerance began and where it ended by stating, “Yes to openness and tolerance, no to Islamist head scarves,” in the early half of the 21st century (DW, 2004). Federal President Johannes Rau of the House of World Cultures in Berlin had stated in 2000 that “we must overcome uncertainty and fear, which can lead to xenophobia, hatred and violence” (p. 2). By 2010, however, things were not exactly advancing as the EU’s leaders had hoped: immigration was as controversial as ever and the flow of Middle Easterners into Europe following the Western invasion of the Middle East in the wake of 9/11 certainly had not contributed to the kind of openmindedness that some leaders had insisted upon.

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This prompted Merkel to state that the grand multicultural experiment had “utterly failed” and that Muslim immigrants were not doing enough to integrate themselves into German culture—a somewhat hypocritical position to adopt for a leader who had spent years begging Germans to open their hearts to foreigners in need (Weaver, 2010). By 2016, after the flow of Syrian immigrants into Germany had given Germans more than enough to think about in terms of the realistic effects of a pro-immigration policy, Merkel was saying that Germans needed to have a “frank talk about integration,” though Germans were more preoccupied with other issues—namely, the increase in rapes, assaults and other violent crimes in their homeland—all by Muslim immigrants who had been welcomed into their home by the high-minded Merkel (Neo, 2016).

The problem, of course, is exacerbated by a wave of nationalism that has been sweeping across the globe—from the U.S. to the UK, from Poland to the Philippines, from Russia to Syria itself. It has been seen in the campaign of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, the campaign of Trump in the U.S., the stance of Poland against the wave of immigration flooding Europe, the military assertion of Russia in the Middle East to help put down the ISIS terrorists and promote a sense of confidence in the Motherland not seen for many decades. Yet in Germany, there is still a longing for a united EU, one where integration is the key word of the day. Perhaps it is the memory of two World Wars fought on the Continent that makes the EU’s leaders so suspicious of this rising tide of nationalism. For the natives of the various countries, however, the suspicion is directed towards the wave of immigrants coming from the Middle East—immigrants who do not share in the Western culture, immigrants whose religion is distinctly Arabic, immigrants whose….....

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