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| Nadine Langer's two daughters are the German-born in their class in Lebenstedt |
In the comments, to this article:
Douglas Murray reckons ("The Strange Death of Europe") that the reason Mad Mutti Merkel said "we can do it", and let them come in willy nilly, was that she -- and her fellow travellers -- were worried about what it would look like to have German soldiers at the borders turning back refugees.The article is behind a paywall, but PDF is here.
Sounds about right to me....
I recall seeing her in a Town Hall, a few years ago, when this whole refugee disaster was unfolding, and a fellow shared his concern about the refugees, their uncontrolled numbers, their different culture, etc, and her response was to sneer about "who are we to say our culture is better than theirs" (or words very close to that effect). She *sneered* at him. No-one picked her up on that. So..... result: Germans were horrid to Jews 70 years ago, so now their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren have to put up with the results of Merkel's guilt feelings.
What a way to make policy!! Especially when it's so consequential.
LATER: text below the fold.....
By Andrea Thomas
Updated Oct. 15, 2017 2:11 p.m. ET
SALZGITTER, Germany—Late this summer, Nadine Langer took her six-year old to her first day at school. The girl was one of two German children in her class, she said, amid 20, mostly Syrian, refugees.
“I am not against foreigners,” said Ms. Langer, 41. “But there is a point where we have to wonder who is integrating whom.”
Germany’s 2015 refugee crisis has largely disappeared from the headlines. But in this and other midsize towns, it is continuing to unfold, putting communities under stress, pressuring local coffers and feeding concerns about safety, jobs and the quality of education.
Some 140,000 asylum seekers have entered Germany so far this year—a sharp drop from the 1.2 million who arrived in the past two years. But in places such as Salzgitter there is a sense that the government, having housed and fed the newcomers, is failing in the longer-term effort to integrate them in German society.
This unease, pollsters say, boosted the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany at last month’s election, making it the first far-right party to enter parliament in half a century. This shock means immigration will loom large when Chancellor Angela Merkel kicks off negotiations on Wednesday to form a three-party ruling coalition.
Immigration has also returned to regional politics. In Lower Saxony, where Salzgitter is located and which elected its parliament on Sunday, integration and schools have been central in the campaign. Conservatives for years have said that refugees, a majority of whom settle permanently in the country, must learn German values, a concept known as Leitkultur.
Many here say they are proud of their town’s tradition as a refugee haven. But as their numbers rose sharply last year Salzgitter took the unusual step of requesting a moratorium on new arrivals.
“The established parties lived in a bubble. They said everything was fine, closed their eyes to reality and didn’t see people’s concern,” said Salzgitter’s mayor Frank Klingebiel.
Mr. Klingebiel hails from the conservative Christian Democratic Union. But his concerns transcend political lines. It was Stephan Weil, the left-leaning state premier who sought re-election on Sunday, who greenlighted the ban on further refugees moving to Salzgitter, which took effect this past week.
With about 5,700 mainly Syrian refugees for 106,000 residents, the highest proportion in the country, Salzgitter is an outlier. But several other communities, from Wilhelmshaven in the north to Hof in the south are also struggling.
In Salzgitter, a pre-existing Syrian community and a glut of affordable housing drew over 2,000 refugees last year and nearly 1,000 this year, leaving a clear imprint on the town’s district of Lebenstedt.
Nour Alwadi, a 25-year-old from Damascus, arrived last year with his brother and his wife Asma. They now have a nine-month-old baby. His parents joined him in Salzgitter five months ago.
“We moved to Salzgitter because there are already many Arab and Turkish migrants here, we have friends here,” said Mr. Alwadi. “The people here are nice. We can attend mosques here.”
Many of those born or growing up in Salzgitter say they want to help refugees but that the influx has become too big to handle. Concerns range from the impact on schools to rising welfare costs, crime, and a diffuse sense that the local culture is becoming diluted, defeating the purpose of integration.
“There are permanently fights and the police have to come,” said Gülcan Dia, a 46-year-old German of Turkish heritage who works for a charity helping refugees.
Wherever refugees outnumber German children in schools, critics like Ms. Dia say, they find it harder to learn German. Local pupils, too, are falling behind on the curriculum.
A national school report released Friday showed a correlation between rising numbers of migrant schoolchildren and a deterioration in academic performance. In 2016, the share of foreign fourth-graders rose by one third to 34% from 2011, according to the education ministry, while the number of children who passed standard writing requirements dropped to 55% against 65% five years earlier.
Salzgitter Mayor Klingebiel said the town was struggling to find teachers for schools, kindergarten and adult language classes.
The AWO Familienkita kindergarten in Lebenstedt looks after 50 children, 18 of them Syrians. More than two thirds of the 160 children on the waiting list are Syrian.
“It’s good that we got this (moratorium), we simply couldn’t handle the situation anymore,” said manager Andrea Bernhof. This “gives the kids a chance to settle in and get proper education.”
Entering the labor market has proven equally difficult. Nationally, only 15.3% of adult nationals from the refugees’ main countries of origin had a regular job in July, two years after the refugee crisis peaked, according to the German labor agency. In Salzgitter, 91% of asylum seekers and refugees live on benefits.
Nicola Pöckler who works for a charity that helps refugees find jobs said many of the newcomers are only qualified for the simplest of occupations. “We don’t have the jobs that these people could take.”
In Lower Saxony, the anti-immigration AfD, seeking to tap into the growing discomfort, won its first parliamentary seats in the state. But its support there was just 5.8%, far below its 12.6% score at the September national election.
Michael Gröger, the party’s candidate for Salzgitter, said even the notion of integration should be reconsidered. “This asylum madness has to stop. An asylum seeker is a temporary guest, no immigrant. An asylum seeker doesn’t have to be integrated.”
