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What Munich stands for today
Sep. 3rd, 2015 11:28 amWhile 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.
(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.
