What Munich stands for today

[selenak]

While what's euphemistically called "refugee crisis" continues to worry and horrify me, I have to admit that events in Munich this week made me feel a bit better about my part of the world (at least the people, not the politicians in same). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I mean the way the people of Munich responded to the ca. 2000 refugees arriving on Tuesday via train from Hungary; reports in English are here and here.

(I'm in Bamberg right now and will be for another week, otherwise I could tell you first hand, since Munich is my main place of residence.)

Another great Munich fact from last week: when the right wing nutters from Pegida wanted to have an anti-asylum demonstration last week, they had to cancel not because of intervention but because nobody showed up. Seriously. Nobody, as in zero. Whereas half of Munich came to the main train station to help the refugees. Take that, hate speech producers!

Of course, it's important that this spirit of help remains instead of dissipating, because the situation in Syria and elsewhere grows only worse and the refugees will become ever more (Germany expects up to 800.000 to arrive 2015 officially, unofficially people say it's probably going to be more like 1 Million), but it's still something hope-inspiring in days of terrible news otherwise.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I wish my country's politicians had 1% of the spirit of the citizens of Munich.

[selenak]

To be fair: Our politicians are a mixed bunch. The mayor of Munich is okay; not only has he consistently been pro refugees (and clashed with the governor about it last autumn and winter), but he was hands on for three hours on Tuesday and helped organizing at the railway station. However, at the same time, the ruling party in Bavaria, the CSU, seems to have had a competition as to who could say the dumbest, coldest and most racist thing. Basically, it was a citizens yay, head of province government nay situation. (In Bavaria, you have the paradox of a traditionally leftist capital - Munich - in a traditionally conservative province.) Thankfully, politicians on the national level are now overall going in a pro-refugees directions. May it last!

[lilacsigil]

Australia is locking up children in tents in foreign countries - there were credible reports that children were being abused (beyond the imprisonment and the breaking of international treaties!) so they made laws banning doctors from reporting child abuse in detention centres. Even Hungary has nothing on us right now. And both major political parties are just as bad.

[fallingtowers]

I must admit that I didn't go there to help out myself (though I at least joined some of my co-workers in a donation drive for toiletries for the Bayernkaserne - not that buying bags full of toothpaste and shower gel does do anything much to alleviate that feeling of helplessness, but it's better than nothing, right?).

However, my workplace is pretty close to the central station, so I did see a bit of what was going on. I really had the impression that everything was organized very efficiently, and that all people involved, police offers and volunteers, were both professional and friendly. And reading on Twitter that people donated so much stuff that they had to be turned away does fill one with a bit of hope for humanity.

[selenak]

Definitely better than nothing, and I donated, too, last month before I left Munich.

It really looks like this one time, people were both flexible and efficient, humane and professional, and the cliché of Weltstadt mit Herz became true. *crosses fingers the spirit lasts a while*

[ratcreature]

I find this emphasis on refugee numbers really aggravating, because to me it feels like politicians are basically trying to mask their logistical incompetence and unpreparedness by making it sound extreme and unexpected, like some kind of natural disaster happening (and of course unfortunate "flood" metaphors abound), when it wasn't.

Like for one small example, here in Hamburg there has been scabies in the refugee camps for a while now, but they couldn't even properly treat and contain it for weeks after it first appeared, because they had order the scabies medication (that can be taken orally so many hundred can be treated at once to really get rid of the mites in all exposed rather than salves or such) through some special channel from France or something, because it wasn't available here. Who overcrowds people to more than three times the capacity in places and doesn't prepare for the diseases that come with that at the same time? And it seems like that with everything.

And I get that it is more refugees arriving than in some time, because we managed to block a lot via "Fortress Europe" borders plus the Dublin rules which conveniently make Germany safe from being a common first place of arrival, but it is entirely unsurprising that that couldn't last, and even now the number of people that actually make it here from the origin of the crises is still so small that it shouldn't be that hard to manage or cause this much flailing around.

I mean like an actual refugee crisis would be like when after WWII when almost half of the population of Schleswig-Holstein was refugees from the east at times, and that with a destroyed infrastructure, i.e. numbers like what Lebanon has to handle right now.

[selenak]

The thing is, the government response to natural disasters (and banking crashes!) has been far quicker and involved far more money than so far has been provided for the refugees when, as you mention, this as opposed to natural disasters etc. has been something in visible development for a long time.

At least everyone through the parties is admitting now that the Dublin rules are unworkable even from a purely pragmatic, non-moral pov. (Well, other than a few CSU hardliners, but never mind them.)

[ratcreature]

Though a European solution doesn't seem in sight yet. Finding billions to save banks (though maybe closer to fantasy gazillions by now, who knows) is apparently far easier than to even just adequately fund organizations like the UN Refugee agency, so it doesn't run out of food for people, let alone step up to help resettle refugees in some orderly framework, instead of letting them drown en masse. Next everyone will be totally unprepared and act surprised when people move on from Lebanon as it descends into further chaos.

[raincitygirl]

I wish Canada (or rather, Canadian politicians) would be more like the people of Munich. And a fair bit of the mainstream press coverage here has been along the lines of "those poor Europeans, having to deal with INVADING HORDES of impoverished brown people." I've been following the crisis in the Guardian when I can, which seems to be one of the few mainstream English-language media outlets that's reporting on the situation in a compassionate way. And the stories about what ordinary people in Germany have been doing have been quite inspiring.

[selenak]

Trust me, we've got mealy mouthed politicians as well, some of whom took their time to take a stand, and some who used the populist rethoric, too. But the media mostly has been good. Even our equivalent of the Murdoch press, though they used some "invading hordes" rethoric last year, this year have swung around and even started an anti hate campaign after the attacks on refugee centres by Neonazis a few weeks ago. Since their readership overlaps, it may actually do some good.

(ETA: as a Guardian reader, you probably are already familiar with it, but just in case, this article covers the varied responses from politicians and citizens pretty well.)

But all the volunteer work has restored something of my faith in humanity. I just have to take care to avoid stupid comments to newspaper articles...