Friday, January 08, 2016

Keeping up appearances

It turns out that some of Germany's newest residents have some odd ideas about deportment around women, but that's not the problem, apparently. The problem is the reaction:
Ralf Jaeger, interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, said police had to “adjust” to the fact that groups of men had attacked women en masse.[ . . . ]

Mr Jaeger also warned that anti-immigrant groups were trying to use the attacks to stir up hatred against refugees.

“What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women,” he said. “This is poisoning the climate of our society.”
The invaluable Walter Russell Mead makes the salient observation:
So in the wake of a high-profile, mass attack on women by refugees, an independent Mayor, a SPD regional minister, and a CDU Chancellor have all come out in ways that seem to be at least as concerned—at least—with protecting liberal pieties as addressing popular concerns. It’s the backlash, not the actual attacks, that seems to most worry some of these centrist politicians.

And this is precisely the recipe for getting people to look to Orban-style populism. After all, if even terrorist attacks such as Paris and incidents against women, committed on a large scale, in Cologne cannot get the centrists to focus on popular concerns about immigration, a German voter might wonder, what ever will? Whereas the populists, whatever else might be said about them, do. Which means the choice may indeed come down to Orbanism or Merkelism. And in this environment, that’s not one the elites can necessarily count on winning.
Orban, in case you don't know, is Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, who has responded to the wave of migrants by building walls on his border. From what I know of Orban, he's a bad dude. I'm certain Angela Merkel is much nicer.

I'm wary of populists of all stripes, because they tend to be demagogues. I fully expect populists to continue to rise, however, because the elites don't believe in much other than themselves.

8 comments:

Gino said...

Having family in Germany gives me a window to this issue. Rest assured, the people are angry. For reals.

Their leaders are about as stubborn as ours are about illegals, but in germany seems the divide is much deeper, to the point where the leaders of germany seem ashamed of being german.

Brian said...

"...seem ashamed of being German."

Well, it isn't as though they have any historic reason to be a bit touchy on the subject of nativism, is it?

Gino said...

And THAT is the problem. Hisrorically, germany was always among europes more welcoming societies. One ugly blip later... lets just say that hitler did more to eliminate the german identity than he did promote it.

Mr. D said...

And THAT is the problem. Hisrorically, germany was always among europes more welcoming societies. One ugly blip later... lets just say that hitler did more to eliminate the german identity than he did promote it.

He definitely wasn't about the ol' gemütlichkeit.

Gino said...

i'm not at work anymore, so i can type a lil better... to continue some thoughts..

my son in law is a cop in Frankfurt. he told me some things about how the refugees are handled that really have the german peeps pissed. the refugees live in camps, but are free to come and go as they please. when one of them is caught in town committing a crime (like theft), the cops are called, the refugee is returned to the camp, without charges filed... and he walks back out and does it again... returned again... etc... they are immune from the laws every german is expected to follow.

the flying of the german flag is discouraged, except for special times, like FIFA. last year, germany won the cup, peeps were flying their flags from their houses and balconies... after three or four days, the word went out to take down your flag, or fines would be assessed for noncompliance. one of his duties was to police this, and hand out citations.

he says its like the leadership is determined to eliminate Germany as a national people, like there is something wrong with being german. and there is backlash coming from the newer generation that had nothing to do with the sins of past (now largely dead) generation.

Bike Bubba said...

I would hope that one could have a nice middle ground between the (a) brown shirts and (b) punishing free speech while letting sexual assault go unpunished, but apparently I am hopelessly optimistic. One can recognize the reality of some pretty nasty bigotry being widespread while simultaneously knowing that it's important to punish crime.

Bike Bubba said...

If Gino's testimony is correct, at least Germany has refugee camps, unlike what appears to be the case here. I work with a man who survived Cambodia's killing fields, and in discussing it, we agreed that the refugee camp in Thailand was no great shakes, but he understood that it was important to make sure refugees weren't the Khmer Rouge in disguise.

Now it may be that they're not keeping them accountable to German law, and that's a shame, but let's understand what is really going on.

W.B. Picklesworth said...

I think we'd better allow lots of women to be raped to prove our broad-mindedness. Nothing says progressive like "Pro-rape!"