-
31 December 2015
- From the sectionEurope SPIEGEL.DE
Image copyrightEPAGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel is to use her New Year’s speech to urge Germans to see the influx of refugees as an opportunity for the future.
Warning against support for xenophobic groups, she says “it’s important we don’t allow ourselves to be divided”.
Germany has taken in more than a million asylum seekers this year, far more than any other European country.
Europe’s response to the migration crisis has been criticised by the outgoing head of the UN refugee agency.
Antonio Guterres told the BBC that the EU had been and continued to be “totally unprepared” for the arrival of refugees and “unable to put its act together”.
More than one million refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea since the start of 2015, according to the UNHCR. About half are from Syria.
Germany has been the destination of choice for many of those arriving by sea, and it has also attracted large numbers of migrants from Balkan states.
‘Hate in their hearts’
In her New Year’s address to be broadcast on Thursday evening, Mrs Merkel acknowledges that the past year has been challenging but she repeats a message she has used on several occasions: “Wir schaffen es” – we can do it.
She warns that integrating the new arrivals will take “time, strength and money”, according to a pre-released text of the speech recorded on Wednesday.
“I am convinced that if we tackle the huge task posed by the influx and integration of so many people in the right way today, then this will represent an opportunity for us tomorrow.”
The chancellor does not specifically mention Pegida, which has held large “anti-Islamisation” rallies in Germany, but urges Germans not to follow “those with coldness, or even hate in their hearts, and who claim the right to be called German for themselves alone and seek to marginalise others”.
Image copyrightAPThe migrant crisis has strained relations between EU member states, with some countries introducing temporary border controls despite the bloc’s principle of passport-free movement.
Criticising the EU’s response, Mr Guterres – who is stepping down as UN High Commissioner for Refugees after 10 years – said divisions in Europe meant countries had failed to act.
“For the first time, in meaningful numbers, refugees and other migrants came to Europe – and Europe was totally unprepared for that,” he said.
“But not only it was unprepared then, it is still unprepared today. It was unable to put its act together.”
Instead, he said, countries had served their own interests – discouraging migrants from entering their borders by introducing increasingly harsh policies.
Some states such as Hungary, Austria and Slovenia have resorted to building fences along their borders to manage the arrivals of thousands of migrants.
Meanwhile, a Danish government proposal to seize assets of asylum-seekers to help fund their stay has drawn sharp criticism.
SOURCE:
Categories: Europe, Europe and Australia, European Union, Germany, The Muslim Times
An immigrant is an immigrant. He is neither illegal or legal.When does an ‘immigrant’ become a ‘native’?? All of us were immigrants at one time in the recent or distant past. Especially all white Americans, South Americans, Africans, Australians. How does their immigration policy sit with the fact that they just waltzed in and took over?
Europe is dying its natural death. It needs more and more immigrants to keep their societies alive. Without migration, European societies and economies would bleed to death. The people who make me the most ill are the people who decry immigration, then employ immigrant cleaners on crap wages. Yes, it’s much like the Republicans in the US, who stoke hostility against Latino migrants, while all the time depending on them as nannies, cleaners and gardeners. Well of course, they will support any policy that will strengthen their own position whilst damaging the rights of indigenous people and any politician wanting to retain British Values and Liberal values will fall by the wayside. So, the banker from Germany the cleaner from Colombia who cleans his/her office will all vote to strengthen their ‘own’ position, because of course their interests precisely coincide. Its almost as if you think they are all the same. And what on earth are ‘British values”? If you are talking about the kind of crap spouted by UKIP and the Tories.
The debate in Britain is becoming more and more polarised on the issue of immigration. Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats are all vying with one another to appear more and more anti-immigrant. Yet it is clear that immigrants are vital to the life of this country, and have been instrumental in creating much of what we now value most. Much of what the big parties are doing is to distract from the real threat to people’s standard of life and to our culture – the capture of our state by the interests of the wealthy and big corporations.
Your car is German. Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Tamil. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers are Arabic, your letters Latin. And you complain that your neighbour is an immigrant? Pull yourself together!
Most of Brits do not want immigration on this scale. That is shown by every poll. But at the same time they want someone to serve them in a bar and clean their hospitals and make cheap clothes. They want someone to drive them across town. Birth rate is declining and old population is on the rise. Migration is on the rise. Mass immigration has caused problems, but it is the fault of the politicians. In education, migrant communities should have their own state funded schools with their own teachers so that native teachers could concentrate on their own children. It is never too late to set up schools for different communities. Muslim community suffer more than others in the field of education.
IA
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk