Operation Epic Fury goes well, but… The headwinds are strong. All from the loopy Left and ranty Right in the West. Echoing our enemies, Iran, Russia, China.
Western civilisation may never win another war if this keeps up.
This is maddening. The radical left, mainstream media, and the woke right are running the exact same playbook with the US/Israel campaign against Iran as they did with Israel in Gaza.
They create impossible standards in terms of:
-Zero Casualties
-Zero Economic Disruption
-Zero Uncertainty
-Zero Time to Accomplish the Mission
-Zero Collateral Damage
And everything the bad guys do is actually our fault because we made them do it….same script as Gaza…the bad guys have no agency and it’s actually our fault.
Day 32 of the Iran war:
-degraded missile factories, nuclear sites, IRGC bases, and proxy networks
-the Supreme Leader is gone…and his replacement is s vegetable
-all the top leadership is gone…in fact, we don’t even know who’s in charge
Yet the all you hear is endless doomerism.
And all of this sounds exactly like the demoralisation propaganda from Russia, China, and Iran, that has infiltrated our society for years via social media and retarded influencers chasing click.
This isn’t responsible skepticism.
It’s weakness…
And you’ll never get peace through strength when the opponent knows you lack resolve and they can just wait you out.
This is madness.
So “How does this war end?”. Answer: by winning. We, America and Israel, have to win. No ceasefire without capitulation.
I was in Beijing on 9 September 1976, the day Mao died, as was Xi Van Fleet. So I know exactly what she's talking about. The poverty. The corruption. The oppression. The only abundant food in winter was Chinese cabbage, Pak-Choi (Bai Cai), piled high on street corners. All other food was rationed. I needed ration tickets for rice. Ration tickets for cotton. Ration tickets for shoes. Bread didn't exist. You needed permission to travel anywhere. The average urban wage was $25 per month. Farmers much less.
I was a language student. My crude essays in my learner's Chinese were graded not just for grammar and character strokes, but for political content. There was correct view and a wrong one.
It was in the socialist China of those days that I learned I didn't much like socialism, let alone communism (though I tend to treat "socialism" and "communism" pretty much interchangeably. Socialism: bad. Communism: badder).
Socialism in practice, as in China of the 70s, destroyed the lazy undergraduate chardonnay socialism that I'd shared with all my mates.
Sadly, though, it's starting again in America. Socialism. Communism. Maoism redux. We see it everywhere.
I've followed Xi for years on X. She's a vocal critic of the CCP. Her grandparents were the Chinese equivalent of Kulaks, small landowners, who had their land confiscated (ie, stolen) by the CCP. Her grandparents were named "Black Faction" members, Hei Pai. And therefore so were her parents, and therefore so was Xi herself. On person in the family is a Black Faction, all the family members are Black Faction. The only escape from the branding was to escape the country.
Talking in the vid above to Adam Carolla, Xi warns of the dangers of resurgent Maoism in America. The only difference from China's of the 60s and 70s being that the divisions between "good" and "bad" -- which in China of the Mao era were class-based, rich or poor, Hei Pai or Hong Pai, Black faction or Red faction -- in America are based on race, or gender, or sexual orientation, and sometimes all three. The operatives are the same. The SOP is the same. Define and name the parties, label one "good", the other "bad", and have at it -- divide the country; go to war.
With the "good" side, of course, destined to come out on top of the evil "Black faction".
When you look at what's going on in America today, in big chunks of the Democrat party, moving ever Left (the communist hammer & sickle red flag of communism at the "No Kings" protests!), often paid by wealthy donors in America and overseas, can you really say her warnings are not relevant? Are some king of crazy conspiracy theory?
Meantime, China's Communist Party perseveres, even as China's economy is less socialist and more a kind of crony-capitalism. But, The Party stays in power -- 75 years and counting.
The Party Abides, dude.
ADDED: Some background to the Chinese influencer who's popped up all over the internet recently, Jiang Xueqin.
This is funny. And also kind of despicable. And pathetic.
The whole thing about this meeting -- by Canada's New Democrats, aka "Democratic Socialists" -- is that it's all pathological narcissism. Every person has some kind of "point of personal privilege". All process; No substance.
Rare moment of truth at the UN from brave Kuwaiti dissident@JJJuraid, invited by UN Watch:
Mr. Chair,
I heard the term “colonizers.” But who are the real colonizers? A Jewish Kingdom ruled in Judea for a thousand years. We, the Arabs, took this land.
Who Arabized Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians and Amazighs? It was us, the Arabs.
So why does the council enshrine a lie by keeping a permanent agenda item on Palestine, while ignoring the indigenous heart of Israel returning home?
Let us be clear about who is actually defending our sovereignty. Today, Israel is a fighter for peaceful nations, freeing Gaza from Hamas and saving Iranians from the Islamic Republic.
What Israel is doing to the IRGC — stopping a genocidal regime from acquiring nuclear weapons — is a gift to humanity.
There are 57 Islamic countries and only one Jewish state, Israel. Despite the ongoing hateful desire to eliminate it, Israel has not only survived, it has thrived.
I don't believe in miracles, but this is one.
So I ask the UN: when will you end the ritual of condemning Israel?
Is it not time, instead, to learn from Israel? How to defeat terror, defend free societies, and pursue peace.
Those Brits who peacock as left wing opponents of the far right are among the most disgusting people in humanity
The fact that you march alongside the Islamic fundamentalist supporters of the ayatollahs - those who stabbed Salman Rushdie in the eye, who hang gays and butcher women, who fire rockets upon Israeli civilians and funded Hamas, who massacred thousands on the streets of Tehran - makes you champions of the most reactionary forces on earth
The Ministers in Riyadh. Pic from the World Socialists site, who are very angry at the Ministers! 🤣
How about this? On March 18, 2026, foreign ministers and top diplomats from 12 Arab and Islamic countries met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for a consultative ministerial meeting where they issued a joint statement strongly denouncing Iranfor its recent military actions. They're calling it the "Riyadh Statement".
The countries:
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Egypt
Jordan
Kuwait
Lebanon
Pakistan
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
(Host)
Syria
Türkiye
United Arab Emirates
Never before today, never before the current situation in the Middle East, have we seen such unity amongst Arab and other Muslim states. Denouncing a rogue, terrorist Muslim state.
Muslim states denouncing Iran. Now, who does NOT denounce Iran and its fanatical terrorists?
1. The mainstream media, all the usual suspects: the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, the New York Times. And all the rest. They don't even acknowledge the Riyadh Statement!
2. All of leftie Europe and the U.K. They do not denounce the Iranian regime. My own Australia is pretty limp as well. The PM, Anthony Albanese is in hock to the Muslim vote.
3. And the Democratic Party is actively hoping for an Iran win, because otherwise, Orange Man Bad would have a win. Can't have that.
Isn't that somehow disgusting?
That the most involved states in the region reach unprecedented unity in denouncing this horrid extremist Shi'a Iranian regime. But no one on the Left in the west can bring themselves to wish for a US and Israel victory, so much do they hate Donald Trump.
A US-led victory, should it happen, will be a victory for the West. Also a beginning of real peace in the Middle East. For if Saudi Arabia joins the Abraham Accords, the wars against Israel will cease.
Plenty of folks don't like Senator Lindsay Graham. And truth be told I don't much either.
He's called a "warmonger", and not without reason. His critics say: "You won't find a place on this earth that Lindsay wouldn't like to bomb".
Ok. Fair enough.
But... on this issue. On the big one happening right now, on Operation Epic Fury -- to destroy the capacity of the religious lunatics in Tehran to destroy the world in the name of Allah -- on that one issue, talking on the floor of the Senate, he gives as good a summary as I've seen of the case for this war.
A war, by the way, to stop a bigger war, to stop WW3. A war, an Operation, to end the war that Iran declared against Israel and the US, way back in 1979.
Here's a transcript from Grok, of the first five minutes:
Senator Graham:
OK, I'll go ahead and get started.
You're entitled to your opinion. This is a free country. Whether you like President Trump or not is up to you. Your view of the war is up to you, but you're not entitled to your facts. You're entitled to the facts. And here are the facts.
To my Democratic colleagues, I challenge you today uh to prove that I'm wrong.
During the negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the Iranian nuclear problem, President Trump sent Steve Woodoff and Jared Kushner to negotiate with the Iranians. They say, Mr. President, all they want is peaceful nuclear power. The Iranians, they've been saying that and they should be entitled to enrich like other countries like us.
A bunch of nations enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. And they claim, why not us? Because you're cheap. The IAEA, not me, not Lindsey Graham. You've have a history of not living up to what you say about your ambitions. That your enrichment facilities are not designed to produce peaceful power, but to produce a weapon.
So during the negotiations, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner offered the Iranians, listen, if you'll give us your highly enriched uranium, we will guarantee you a lifetime fuel supply for free. That you can have all the spent fuel you need to operate a peaceful power program. You don't need to enrich. And if you want to enrich for medical purposes, very limited, fine. But you can't have an enrichment program that would lead to making bomb braid material because you're not reliable.
And I would go a step further.
It'd be like letting Hitler have anything. See the difference between me and I think a lot of people here, maybe most Democratic colleagues, I think these guys are religious Nazis. Miller Hitler wanted a master race. He wrote a book. Nobody believed him. He literally wanted to kill all the Jews and nobody believed him.
The Ayatollah is the same. The the regime is built around a cult of death. They want three things. To purify Islam, they're Shi'ites. Their number one enemy is Sunni Arabs. They think they're they've got the faith wrong, that they're that they're traitors to the faith. They hate Sunnis because they're not true to the faith.
And Saudi Arabia believes it.
So they want to purify Islam, bend it to their will, make every Sunni reject their view of Islam and accept the Ayatollah's view. That's what they say, not me. I believe it.
Number two, they want to kill all the Jews. And they openly say it. They're not hiding their disdain for Israel. They're actually talk about it. They put death to Israel on like milk cartons. These people are serious. and you should take them serious.
Like in the 30s, people didn't want to believe that Hitler meant what he said because they were tired from World War I. And they said, "Oh, he's just all talk. He wants this. He wants that. He wants more German-speaking territory. He's not completely crazy. You know, he's sort of just doing the Hitler thing."
Well, he was completely crazy.
Now, I don't know why he wanted to kill all the Jews. I don't know why Hitler thought the Aryan race is the only pure race on the planet, but a lot of people are dead because we got that wrong. Let's don't do that again. We're playing like World War II never actually happened. And you're rewriting this regime's history from 1979. What have they done until today? What have they done to make you think they don't believe what they say? What behavior have they exhibited that they really do want to be normal?
So during those negotiations when they said no to every offer under the sun, they said something that was a fatal mistake for them. "Oh, by the way, we have 460 kilograms of uranium at 60%".
Cliffhanger, right? Carry on from here if you're interested in the rest. It's a pretty good!
TDS is at “an all time high”, says Berkeley professor Victor Davis Hanson.
I agree. From random college students interviewed on their spring break, to demonstrating grannies on roadsides, to the Late Night hosts, right up to senior leadership, so many appear, to me, sitting here in Hong Kong, supping from a variety of media, seem to me off the planet. They are inhabiting a differed universe. Though I should say “bubble”, I suppose. About which I’ve written before.
Brice Springsteen is out there, yelling (liberals, young and old, do an awful lot of screaming), contrasting Dems and Reps:
Democracy over Authoritarianism
Rule of law over lawlessness
Ethics over unbridled corruption
Unity over division
Peace over war
Ok, sure Bruce. But which is which? I could make a grounded case that the left side of the list is the Reps, and the Dems are the right side. Springsteen is delusional enough to think it’s the Dems who are the “Democracy over authoritarianism”, etc. (But I won’t make that case for now. Too tedious. Save to say a powerful facts-based case can be made for my side of this duality).
Meantime Late Night hosts are so Trump delusional that they’re against the war in Iran. Not for any reason. After all, Democrats have long called for the Iranian regime to be stopped. No. They do not have a reason to be against it. Just Trump hatred. Putting TDS over national security.
This is the little wooden boat I built in our backyard in 2013. She was at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club in Wanchai, for some mast and keel work. Then we towed her back home to Discovery Bay. See my blog about the build here.
Rich Lowry asks the obvious question and gives some answers.
I like Thomas Sowell’s answer to the question: “what can Jews do to be more popular.”. His one-word answer: “Fail”. Which is to say, why people are “obsessed”, why they hate on Jews, is… Envy. The Green Monster.
It is true that everywhere over all time Jews have been disproportionately successful.
The small number of Jews in the world? 12 - 15 million. Reason: big part is Judaism is alone amongst the three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — in being NOT proselytising. They make it super hard for non Jews to convert to Judaism.
I know. I’ve tried it. Me, a Major Philosemite, an Atheist Zionist, tried twice to convert to Judaism. Both times I failed at the first hurdle. Which is that you must profess a belief in God. That I can’t do. And the Rabbis quizzing me; they care about it. By contrast if you want to become a Muslim you just have to repeat the Shahada, two sentences, and bingo! you’re a Muslim. They don’t care if you do or don’t believe in Allah. But if you try to leave?.... Whoops. Apostates are not treated well.
Net result: Global Judaism: ~15 million. Christianity and Islam: ~ 4 BILLION. For every Jew in the world there are ~350 Christians and Muslims.
Ollie Anisfeld talks to historian Trudy Goldabout related issues. Very interesting talk. Jew-hatred is mainly in Christian and Islamic countries. Not so much, or not at all in the East. It’s just not a thing in secular China. In multi-religious, non-Abrahamic India. Or Buddhist Korea. Or Shinto Japan.
And the headline number: the lowest national murder rate in 125 years. Not five years. Not ten. Not a generation. 𝟭𝟮𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀.
Now ask yourself: if a Democrat president had delivered those numbers, what would the front page of every newspaper in America look like right now? What would the lead story on every network be? What would the tone of every late-night monologue be?
You know the answer. You've seen it before.
Instead the media spent today covering whether Tom Homan had a well-thought-out plan to guard airport exits. They spent last week debating whether ICE agents would brutalize travelers. They spent the week before that explaining why Iran was probably telling the truth and Trump wasn't.
Miller's point isn't partisan. It's mathematical. These are the largest improvements in public safety in the history of this country — achieved in a single year — and the people whose job it is to inform the American public have buried them.
Elica Le Bon is an Iranian-born, American lawyer and activist for the people of Iran. Which is to say: ANTI the IRGC and PRO the strikes against it by Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion.
Her own family, mother, aunt, uncle, were all imprisoned by the IRGC regime in 1979. Her uncle was tortured and killed. Mother, aunt and cousin all made it to the U.K. where her father was, and where Elica grew up.
I've posted her a number of times over the years. She's smart, quick, eloquent.
On the outcomes of the current war: she sees either (hopes, really):
Complete surrender by IRGC, or
Severe degrading of the IRGC such that they can't threaten the region or its own people.
Anything else and it's going to be a rejuvenated IRGC. Even more radical.
The people of Iran (Persian, Zoroastrian) are very different from the regime (Arabs and Muslim). Most Iranians -- 82% -- hate the regime, she says, quoting a poll by the Dutch non-partisan pollsters Gamaan. They are seen as the invaders, colonisers and despots. I agree with all of that.
(Gamaan did a poll I quoted before, on "Iranian Attitudes to Religion", showing Shia Muslims are just 32% of the population. Atheist, Agnostic or None are 37%)
She explains the motivations behind IRGC and the Mullahs' hatred of Israel, the eschatology of their world view. And the spread of the Marxist oppressor/oppressed world view amongst the Left.
Clip after clip of Muslims, in the Netherlands, openly mocking the land they've come to, openly saying they're there to take over ("we're here to take over, not to take part!"), openly saying that the native Dutch have no future in their own country...except under Islam.
Openly defying public order regulations and no one does anything about it, not complain, let alone arrest.
As one commenter says: "They're pissing on us and we call it rain".
Sahar, in the OP above, is right to point to the Hijra element of this. Hijra is a Muhammad-era tactic to take over other countries. By mass emigration to them. So those calling for Muslims that want more Islam "why don't you go to a Muslim country?" is irrelevant. Because they are in Europe, in the UK, in America, in Australia, specifically to turn those countries into Islamic countries. That's the task of pious Muslims. That's why they pray openly in the streets (adhan). That's why the guy walks around with boom box broadcasting the Koran (da'wah).
It's not so they can "practice Islam", it's so they can convert the host country.
Yes, it is colonisation. By any definition of the term.
Ignore the click-bait title of the OP. There is no "pushback". The most of any pushback is the redoubtable Geert Wilders stating -- clearly and reasonably as he has for decades now -- what needs to be done to control the ongoing Islamisation of Holland. But he is ignored. Because... you know... tolerance. Because... it's racism!
Sad.... It's happened so quickly. This is a land, Holland, I knew well once. Have visited often. Have loved. Becoming an Islamic state in front of our eyes. And when it really is, fully Islamic, instead of just submitting, it's not going to be pretty. It has not been pretty in any one of the other 57 Islamic states in the world.
We have a vast variety of views on Operation Epic Fury — the U.S. Israel war in Iran — from CNN sound bites to multi-hour podcasts. From the loony Left to the loopy Right.
Michael Doran and Gadi Taub I’d put in the knowledgable centre-right, clear eyed, clearly spoken.
What we’re trending to now appears to be a “stalemate” outcome. A combination of options 1, “No Real Change, and 2, “False Regime Change”. Which might or could being peace of sorts, but with a sellable “win” to the IRGC. And, more consequentially, more leverage to China, perhaps even China. Clearing and safekeeping the Straits of Hormuz would seem to be a minimum requirement at this stage.
We — at least I — must hope that that is NOT the outcome. Otherwise it’s all been for nothing. Save the deaths of tens of thousands of protesters — at the hands of their own government — and the deaths of dozens I’d snakes, the mullahs, ayatollahs and IRGC leaders.
Elon Musk is creating new stuff. As usual. As with Electric Vehicles. As with Rockets. As with X/aI. As with Grok. As with Neuralink Brain Implants. As with the Boring Company.
Herbert Ong, who I've followed for years, explains the issues today. What's going on in MuskWorld. The building of massive AI Fab plants. The size of three Central Parks in New York City. Building AI Data Centres in space. How he's the one man who can do it. Because of his intertwined industries, all of which he's started.
Elon Musk is a one man growth machine. A one man creator of jobs. A one man creator of new industries.
Flashback: A Palestinian mother from Gaza brought her sick son to an Israeli hospital for life-saving treatment, free of charge, from the very people she views as enemies.
In the interview (right there in the hospital), she openly says she'd rather he grow up to become a "martyr" (die in jihad/terrorism against Jews) than die from illness. She wants him healthy... so he can blow himself up in a crowded Israeli place, maybe even the same hospital that saved him.
She explains: Allah obligates every Muslim to wage jihad and embrace martyrdom. Unlike Jews and Christians who mourn dead children, Muslims rejoice when their kids are martyred in holy war, because Allah guarantees them paradise.
This isn't fringe. It's the raw ideology fuelling the conflict: gratitude for mercy twisted into a desire for future violence.
Human life saved by Israelis, only to be sacrificed against them. That's the tragic, twisted reality.
Islamists in Germany openly call for Germany to become a Caliphate — a colony of Islam, a subject of the Islamic Empire — for Sharia law to be applied everywhere in Germany, for genociding the remaining Christians in Germany. Oh, and killing the Jews too, of course. Those that haven’t already fled.
German police do nothing. Because neither their weak bosses, nor the politicians allow them to do anything to stop the mayhem. To push back on a clear and present existential Islamic threat to the German Republic. Because… you know… tolerance!
This is suicidal empathy: empathy for poor oppressed immigrants, for free speech until Islam, when suddenly free speech will be no more. Because you can’t say what you like about the ideology of Islam. That’s Blasphemy!
The gorgeous kaleidoscope of diversity. The wonderful tapestry of multiculturalism….
Hence the increasing calls from many Germans for “Remigration”, aka deporting.
I’ve followed Tal Oran for years. It’s his video above. Pretty knowledgable about all these issues. But a bit soft in Islam, IMO. Like, he says “I’ve got no problem with Islam”. I do. Its core ideology, the Trinity of Islam, and the behaviour of its votaries, are an affront to enlightenment values. At the deep, fundamental, core.
Flashback: Jordan's newly elected female lawmaker proudly thanks her Muslim mother for being the ultimate role model of "Islam’s feminism."
She recounts how her mother would cry over her one unfulfilled dream: to hide a bomb under her hijab, board a crowded Israeli bus or enter a restaurant, and blow herself up—killing as many Jews and Christians as possible as human sacrifices for Allah, securing her ticket to paradise.
This isn't fringe rhetoric. It's celebrated as empowerment and maternal wisdom on the floor of a national parliament.
Western feminists call for "sisterhood" while this is the real face of "Islamic feminism" in practice: glorifying suicide bombing, child indoctrination into martyrdom, and mass murder as the highest feminine achievement.
The contrast couldn't be starker. Share this unfiltered truth. The ideology isn't hiding—it’s being elected.
Anthony Albanese, PM of my country Australia, got mobbed and screamed at at a mosque while he talks about how he’s fighting ‘Islamophobia.’ This is a matter of weeks after Muslim gunmen went on a deadly Jew hunt on Bondi.
Albanese is the perfect embodiment of cowardly, craven, dogmatic progressivism. He responded to a jihadist atrocity against jews in Sydney by point blank refusing, to even mention that this attack had anything to do with Islam.
He refused to use the words ‘Islamism’ or ‘jihadism’, and condemned generalised ‘hate’ and generalised ‘antisemitism’, ‘gun ownership’ (!) etc, to obfuscate and unfairly tar the whole of Australian culture with the crimes of a radicalised Islamist minority. Then he pivoted, immediately, to focussing on Islamophobia, and did stuff like ban jewish speakers, who were flying to Australia to discuss the massacre on Bondi, from entering the country because they’d been ‘offensive’ about Islam.
Then he visits mosques, gets absolutely hounded by big groups of angry beardos — they’re always angry — shouting ‘Allahu akhbar’, calling him a ‘dog’, ‘genocider’, etc. But none of it will change his behaviour because he is motivated not by a desire to protect Aussie citizens or pursue truth, but to uphold his cultish quasi-religious mainstream-progressive narrative at all costs, always, forever.
Albo the coward. Albo the Islamist enabler. Albo the Islamic terrorism denier.
Why? Why the hate on Churchill? Because he stood up for western civilisation? Because he led the west’s fight against the Nazis?
Tucker Carlson loves on Oswald Mosley, founder and head if the Union of British Fascists. It’s all in the name. This is the name Carlson loves on. He loves the fascist leader of the British Fascist Party, when Britain was at war with the fascist Nazis…. Go figure.
Australia, my country, has abundant resources. Abundant oil and gas. Abundant uranium. Abundant sun. Abundant wind. Abundant coal.
Yet we're now short of energy. The price of electricity is the highest in the world. We have to import natural gas to terminals where we used to export it from. We import petroleum products to terminals we used to export it from. Delivering it to terminals right next to decommissioned oil refineries. Which we closed down because... well.. because.... Because we thought it a good idea to do away with fossil fuels.
This is all the result of POLICY. Not of some kind of weird natural accident. But of policy. Of decisions taken by politicians. In the pursuit of a chimera. Of the crazy notion of Net Zero.
For which the "rationales" are:
We must set an example. But no one follows the example. They only laugh at us. Look at China, increasing its CO2 emissions year after year. In part because of the emissions that Australia has exported to them.
And...
We matter. NO. We don't. Barely 1% of world CO2 emissions are from Australia. And if you think that reducing our CO2 emissions is like a voting system and we all must vote, then also NO. Because there's voting blocks out there, the US, China and Europe that have 75% of the "votes". So our vote matters not one jot.
This is all so depressing.
If you could imagine a case in which the politicians took no part in decision making, we'd be in a much better place, I bet. We'd have nuclear power, gas power and some renewables and our CO2 emissions would be one third of what they are now. That's the case with where I live now, in Hong Kong. Where our power comes from Nuclear and Gas, our CO2 emissions are 4.2 tonnes per person per year, vs 16 in Australia, despite Australia going gangbusters for renewables and impoverishing itself in the process.
Experiences as a teacher at a school with a high proportion of refugees - it is even worse than you think
Hello everyone,
I studied mathematics and am currently working as a secondary school teacher in the Ruhr area, partly due to the current precarious labor market situation. The proportion of refugees at my school, as at many other schools here in the region, is quite high.
Most refugees are taught in separate integration classes, as integration into regular classes is simply not possible due to the desolate level of education. I teach two such integration classes several times a week and just wanted to share my experiences with you here. Even before starting my current job, I was extremely critical of the current migration, but my experiences in the teaching profession make my worst fears at the time seem like a benevolent utopia.
For context: A large proportion of the integration classes consist of Morrocans born in Spain, but Syrians, Afghans and Roma are also strongly represented. The rest is a wild potpourri of Ukrainians and refugees from other Arab or Muslim countries such as Lebanon or Somalia. One class consists mainly of younger students between 11 and 13 years of age, the other class consists mainly of teenagers around 16 years of age.
Now a small summary of my observations:
In about half of the classes there is no significant literacy in their own language, just over half understand, even after years in the local school system, in about as good a German as I understand Mandarin.
At least in math (I can only judge the other subjects to a very limited extent), the level of education is an absolute fiasco, even among older students. Truly the simplest arithmetic problems (5+6 or 7-4) are already very difficult. The cause often seems to be cognitive, because even if I illustrate the numbers with objects, many students are unable to solve corresponding tasks.
It is currently Ramadan. Ukrainian students who do not fast must leave the room if they want to have a drink or eat. On the one hand, this is a rule imposed by the classes themselves, but on the other hand it is also tolerated or even actively supported by large parts of the other teaching staff and the social worker.
Some male students refuse to sit next to female students for religious reasons. This is also tolerated.
Fights are commonplace and that is no exaggeration. In fact, there is at least one fight almost every day.
There are no properly maintained school folders or generally a careful handling of school materials. Most come to class wearing only the clothes they wear on their bodies.
About half of the class with the older students is always delayed by at least 10 minutes at the first lesson, or sometimes 20 or 30 minutes. Even after the breaks, the class is actually only 10 minutes late each time.
During Ramadan, also tolerated by other school staff, a good proportion sleep regularly in class by placing their head on the table.
Female students are regularly labeled with highly obscene terms. The punishment of such statements either does not take place at all or is so restrained that repetition is encouraged.
On parent-teacher conferences, 90 percent of parents, even after several years of residence in Germany, can only communicate via interpreters.
A few days ago, some students proudly told me what new cell phone models their siblings and parents have, which, mind you, receive almost exclusively transfer payments.
Female colleagues generally have it more difficult than my gender counterparts, who are usually at least rudimentarily respected.
Some students often do not show up at school for months without apology.
A rejection of other religions is very clear in many situations.
For group work in other subjects that spans weeks, the results have a scope that can be achieved by those with normal abilities within five minutes.
There is no mixing with other students. You like to keep to yourself. Even among refugees, groups usually form according to their respective origins.
With all the negative impressions, there are a few positive experiences. A handful of students are actually making an effort and progress. These students are also the only reason why work doesn't seem completely pointless.
I myself try to counteract this to the best of my ability, but this is hardly possible if there is no support from the staff and the school administration. I have already capitulated on some points because a corresponding commitment only breaks your nerves without changing anything.
Many of the older students are leaving our education system anytime soon, and with that, the state is losing pretty much the only way to exert any influence. I fear that the situation in other schools often looks little better. This leads us to send school leavers into the wild year after year who neither write, read nor master the most basic primary school mathematics. Such people are not fit for any kind of work and are doomed to languish in our welfare system for life.
Muslim and African students, in particular, often have an absurd number of siblings by German standards. If one assumes that this reproduction rate will not break with the current generation, but perhaps even increase given the fantastic conditions here in Germany compared to their countries of origin (not for locals, but certainly for people from countries with a per capita GDP of $800), the problems are compounded exponentially.
I lack any imagination as to how the catastrophe that lies ahead could be averted in any way, and this is increasingly frustrating me. Just wanted to share this with you. Thanks to those who stuck with it until the end of the text and gave themselves my whining.
Posted by William Meijer on X, March 20, 2026. Who notes: "Bear in mind, Germany's only resource was always education and good institutions".
