No disagreements here. That does happen a lot. And I agree with the point.
Still obvious parts of the left have an extremely hard time criticising anything related to immigrants/immigration in fear of seeming bigoted.
Can't talk about sweden, but from a german view that is a complete strawman.
Everyone vehemently condemned what happened in cologne.
But some people were smart enough not to judge a huge diverse group based on the actions of very few, others however used it to push an anti immigrant-, anti muslim - narrative.
Thats not even remotely okay.
The debate about "honor culture" that some women tried to start a while ago was met largely with silence from the swedish feminists for example. The reason for that is pretty obvious.
What did the debate look like?
I think I know what its about. The whole honor thing in some muslim families where girls are basically controlled by their male family members and if they for example have a boyfriend the family doesn't approve of it can end in an honor killing.
Is it about that?
If its that, we have that debate in germany, even though we're not calling honor culture debate. Its more about teaching kids in school the value of the german constitution, that these laws are above other laws, including religious ones or cultural norms they may have learned at home.
Teachers than have the opportunity to call in parents of kids who reject that way of thinking.
I don't think there is much more you can do without significantly interfering with peoples personal freedoms.
You are pretty much asking "why is reporting crime newsworthy". Because it is. Why are wars news worthy, why is a natural disaster, why is corruption. Because it is news.
Random fistfight anywhere is germany worthy of a national news story?
No it is not.
Reporting on it only when it involves refugees is a disgusting double standard.
And the media is not only reporting crime about refugees. They are also reporting a ton of other crime - including violent anti-refugee protests and crime to show there are idiots doing that. Let's not pretend all media now suddenly switched to non-stop refugee crime reporting and nothing else.
Anti-refugee crime is a whole other story than normal everyday crime that just happened to be commited by refugees.
Especially in germany where there is a history of violence against minorities.
And no, media as a whole has thankfully not switched to non-stop refugee crime reporting, only some outlets.
But there is definitely a much higher awareness to it after what happened in cologne.
Curiously foreign outlets are at the forefront. Some of the stories that have been posted here haven't even been picked up by german media when some UK or dutch outlets already reported on it.
Cologne played right into the right wing narrative, but from my perspective the right wing in germany is too weak to actually capitalize on it, whereas in other countries this is huge.
And how is adding thousands of people every day to an overloaded system and refusing to see that doesn't work any less of a misunderstanding from your side?
Why do you think it doesn't work?
Its been a bumpy road so far, but saying that it doesn't work is a little far fetched.
Also keep in mind that germany was absolutely unprepared, all the investments Merkel approved will only start to have an effect over the coming months.
I don't know what you expected when the current situation is "doesn't work" in your book.
Because nobody wants to deal with this mess and come with a clear plan, since everything they do will upset their voter base. The right will scream that we are still letting in too many people.
Been saying that for years. Europe has a creeping right wing problem. It showed a little almost two decades ago when the Euro was implemented. We saw it more during the financial crisis in 2007. And we saw it fully fledged when the greece crisis was the top media story: Nationalism and racism.
As I mentioned before, I think germany is more sensitive to these things and therefore started to push back early and as a result germany doesn't have a right wing party with threatening influence.
But when I look over the france, or austria, or the netherlands, or poland, or hungary...
Thats really, really bad.
The left will scream we are giving into the right and should be ashamed to turn people away. The whole center in the discussion is gone and nobody is willing to group together and take the hurt. I'm not in charge of the EU, so I don't know how to fix that either.
Who on left wants to take in economic refugees?
The lefts position of not giving in to fearmongering and hatred is twisted in all kinds of way...
Is there a war in Turkey going on I don't know about? Since that is where they cross into the Schengen zone. Or maybe in Russia, from where people crossed into Norway?
You don't want to upset Turkey by not taking some of the pressure off of them. Turkey is already chock full of refugees.
Just taking in millions of people is also not an option for any country.
No, but as many as possible is an option.
Do you see anybody giving spain shit for not taking in many?
Everybody understands that some countries can't handle the refugees, but the ones that can have an obligation since they are all part of the EU and supposedly stand up for the european values.
Might as well not share common values when you through them out of the window by the first sign of trouble.
Again and again, I am not advocating for sending people to die. Here we go again:
I know, but I think that "sending people to die" is necessary result of your solutions.
1) Fund refugee centers in the region
2) Take in families and the most vulnerable from there and sent them over in manageable numbers to Europe.
The thing is that this won't be nearly enough to be able to handle the masses. People will quickly notice that this doesn't work and will keep trying to get to europe by boat or whatever.
This will
1) Help the most vulnerable instead of mostly young men able to make a hard journey
2) Keep out people who are from safe countries and after months or years will be sent away, but meanwhile take a lot of space in the system that can be put to better use. These are also the people over represented in crime stats.
3) Keep a good ratio of men/women and doesn't break up families, leading to better dynamics and less trouble
1. Thats nice, but these young men will not stop to try to come here then.
2. The people from safe countries who have no chance to get a safe ticket to europe will just continue to make the dangerous journey.
3. Yeah that would be great in theory.
But in reality this will only work for a few people and the rest will just keep on making the dangerous journey and end up at the italian or any other border and they we have to decide whether we let them in or send them back(sending them back implies sending them die possibly and thats something that isn't compatible with our core values.)
I can blame the ones coming here and committing crimes, have unreasonable demands and don't try to fit into our society. Which is the major problem people are afraid of now and in years to come when we let in large numbers of people.
Asserting blame is always easier than trying to understand.
Goes for both sides btw.
Guardian has a good article on this:
If we want Germans to accept Arabs, Arabs must also learn to accept them
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/16/germans-accept-arabs?CMP=fb_gu
No, you want to censor the media about certain issues because you are afraid it plays into the hands of political parties you don't agree with and call it fair and just reporting. That is not how it works.
How is not doing one sided, biased reporting censorship?
I have absolutely no problem with a national news story about some refugee beating up someone, when the 1000 other cases of someone(german) beating someone else up on that day also make it into national news.
But that of course would be ridiculous.
I really don't you here. When american media would put so much more focus and attention on black crime than on white crime, everyone would agree that this is wrong and onesided and biased.
But when its in europe and about refugees its suddenly fair game to do that?
Everyday crime is not worthy of national news, no matter who commited it(unless maybe some celebrities, but thats a case for the tabloids then).
A group of refugees harrassing and raping hundreds of women, thats worthy of national news.
A group of neonazis buring down a refugee center, thats worthy of national news.
A fistfight, no matter who is involved - not worthy of national news.
Hatecrime, whether it is by germans or refugees(I'd consider that attack on the transsexuals in Dortmund a hatecrime*) - worthy of national news.
*But we don't even know if the attackers were refugees.
Yes, I wonder why there is aggression from people who come to another country that takes them in, provides safety, housing, food and even healthcare and education for free.
Are you kidding me? You read what I just wrote and just shrugged it off as if these weren't real issue? You have to be fucking cold.
I mean, some of these people went through hell, are heavily traumatized and have an uncertain future in a country where they know nobody and nobody wants them. But hey, at least they get to sleep in a stinky hall with 500 other guys FOR FREE, so they must be stoked.