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Syrians in Germany celebrate the fall of the Assad regime. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Genuine love will take no account of what gratifies the other, of what is agreeable to him and gives him joy, but will only direct itself towards what will benefit him, regardless of whether it affords him pleasure or not. That is genuine love and service!
Many people are only brought to an awakening and to activity through suffering. If others help them too soon they slacken, depend upon this help and succumb spiritually, because without some stimulus they cannot remain active. Then they live on aimlessly, often spending their time only in observing what is to be criticized in others instead of looking within themselves, and yet wishing to possess what others possess. A corrupt generation is created by such one-sided giving, worthless for a robust and cheerful life, and therefore harmful to the entire Creation!
– Abd-ru-shin
Recently, I attended an Advent dinner, financed by donations to our volunteer cemetery group. Apparently, we are doing such a good job that people want to reward us, which is nice. The food was good (the restaurant is owned by an Indian guy who offers Indian and Italian cuisine – don’t we just love globalism?), and everybody had a fun time telling ghost stories because I had just returned from a research trip to the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP), aka the Parapsychological Institute in Freiburg.
So all was fine until the inevitable happened: Syria came up.
There is this Syrian family in our town that two church ladies of the volunteer group take a great interest in. Now, they are in a bit of a quandary. The parents are debating whether to return or not. They have just bought a house. Remarkable, by the way; they were able to do so after only eight years in Germany. I had to save up twenty years for it. Then again, nobody made a deposit for my rental apartment or paid for its fixing up when I moved out, as was the case here – one of our well-meaning ladies did so for this Syrian family.
“But the children!” Of course, the two ladies are absolutely opposed to the family returning home. The children have put down roots here, after all.
Well, if anyone has an easy time being uprooted and placed somewhere else, it’s children. They’ll be fine, ladies.
“We don’t know how the situation will unfold there.”
True, and it’s a testament to experience that people are not buying into the “democratic Islamist” story our media is trying to sell. Then again, the media is remarkably subdued on that topic. Assad very bad, sure; but the “reformed jihadist” is perhaps pushing it a bit too far. Also, it’s not really in the interest of the usual suspects to tell people that everything’s peachy in Syria now, is it?
One of the first things the German government did was to reject the idea of forcing anyone to leave (my translation):
Some German politicians immediately launched a debate about the return of refugees who had fled to Germany. … “Some of the statements made in recent days have deeply unsettled our fellow citizens of Syrian origin,” said [Chancellor Olaf] Scholz in his chancellor podcast published on Friday. “That’s why I want to tell them today: anyone who works here, who is well integrated, is and will remain welcome in Germany. That goes without saying.”
Many Syrians have “successfully put down roots here with us”, the Chancellor continued. “Around 5,000 Syrian doctors work in our hospitals alone.” We will not ask people like these “to quit their jobs and leave”, said Scholz.
Why not? Doesn’t Chancellor Scholz want Syria to have doctors?
One of our well-meaning ladies, a retired physician, referred to this very argument (you can always tell which news media a person is following by the use of certain words and arguments alone) when she exclaimed in self-righteous indignation that this further “unmasked” the AfD. I had no idea the Alternative für Deutschland was wearing a mask, and I have no idea what the point of her statement was – the AfD wants everybody to die by depriving them of health services?
By the way, according to this lady, “dictators” have also been “unmasked” by the fall of Syria, namely Assad and Putin. Please. All I’m asking for is some creative, intelligent propaganda! It can’t be that difficult.
With a view to the debate on possible upper limits for the admission of refugees and the famous statement by his predecessor Angela Merkel, Scholz went on to say that he thinks “we can be very proud that we have taken in so many; that we can be very proud that we have managed to integrate so many into Germany and that they are working with us”. Many have now acquired German citizenship and many speak perfect German. However, the SPD [Social Democratic Party of Germany] politician emphasized that people without a right of residence would have to leave Germany again. This is especially true for criminals.
Yeah, about that, Scholzi…
“More than 60 percent of deportations failed in 2024”
“Youth in custody pending deportation – repatriation failed
In North Rhine-Westphalia, a religiously radicalized minor was taken into custody pending deportation. However, the planned repatriation to Serbia did not take place.”
“36 people deported from Hamburg to Serbia and North Macedonia – Hamburg has recorded the highest number of deportations since 2015 and 2016. Now another deportation flight has taken off.”
“Asylum expert explains why Solingen Syrian was never deported”
To name but a few examples.
So, do I believe Syrian immigrants in Germany will leave of their own accord? No, or at least not many; and first polls confirm it. On the contrary, a new wave of Syrian refugees will be knocking on our doors very shortly, I suspect. And our so-called leadership will do nothing to keep them out. After all, there might be some 5,000 doctors among the million of them.
But hey, according to our church ladies, the few Syrians who might actually leave will take a good impression of the German people with them. In contrast to France, Germany had never really been on the Syrian radar until it took in everybody and their mother. I’m so glad. At least public relations has worked out.
14 comments
Another instance where we see this chameleon argument for immigration. Depending on moment and audience, it can be either that we have to take in the lowest types of people because we have a moral obligation to uplift downtrodden refugees, or that we simply cannot afford not to have migrants because they’re so skilled and we deserve the best. I can remember when we were told the Syrian migrants were almost all children. Now they’re almost all doctors – they grow up so fast.
It was a few years back when I saw a follow-up study on a million “refugees” in Germany. Of the million, only eleven were working. Yes, just eleven – ten government workers, and a single refugee got a job in the private sector.
Well, I’m glad some of them are at least pulling their weight, but it’s all so ridiculous – first we can’t send them home because civil war and evil dictator, and now we can’t send them home because 5,000 doctors and the children. Like Corday wrote, it’s an ever-changing chameleon argument.
At least Chancellor Scholz is ex-Chancellor Scholz as of today. Which means we’ll probably end up with that war hawk Merz. Yay.
I’m really worried about what became of Germany. Germany is again a problem for its eastern neighbors, because its self-destruction will bring us down. Thank to German and Austrian politicians we now have hordes of Muhammadans at out border. Its almost like 1938 but this time not the brown shirts but brown skinned people are coming. A culture of suppressing free speech and persecuting the so called hate speech is also forcibly spreading from Germany. And there is Green Deal…When will this stop?
No one is worse than the White liberal, and a greater threat to White well-being.
No one.
Not the Blacks, not the Middle-Easterners, not even the dreaded omnipotent Jews.
They aren’t omnipotent, but they are remarkably influential for such a small group of people and they are much worse than White liberals.
Having been around a while now, I recognize an impasse when I see one.
(Suffice to say, no one here is in danger of underestimating Jewish underhandedness.)
I’ll be sticking with my position on this one.
I have to agree, sadly.
Regarding cemeteries, I find them interesting. They are a little bit of history left, when other reminders have been destroyed or vanished with time. Maybe most people respect cemeteries and leave them, even if they don’t always maintain them.
In 2008 I went to the former German city Konigsberg (since 1945, Kaliningrad, USSR, now Russia). Konigsberg was part of East Prussia. I was there for two weeks. My mother’s family had a home a few miles outside the city in a small village then called Saalau. It’s a tiny place. When I went to Kaliningrad, a Russian woman gave me a map of the area with the current Russian names of its cities and villages and the old German names. One day I took a bus to Saalau. After getting off the bus stop, I had to walk about 45 minutes on a dirt road to get to the village. There was almost no one else on the road, but a kid was following me and soon caught up to me. As we walked, his friends joined us, and we had a group of maybe eight people walking. I think they get few, if any, visitors, and almost certainly never had an American there before. I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place. There were no signs, not even for its current Russian name. I remember my mother told me there was a castle ruin in the village she played at when she was a kid. I got a picture of it off the internet and showed it to the kid as we were walking. He confirmed I was at the right place. The village was a little further up the road. Nothing had changed there since the Germans left in 1945. I’m guessing the village never had more than a few hundred people, and less than that now. All of the original homes were there, and some looked uninhabitable, with caved-in roofs. All of the homes there were in disrepair, and they all looked like they were from when the area was German. I had a picture of my mother’s home, but I didn’t have it with me, so I was not able to identify which home was from my family.
I noticed that the village once had sidewalks from its German days. No more. As we were walking, we walked by a cemetery. All the graves had German names. It was a very old cemetery in disrepair. All of the Germans fled in 1945, and the Russians living there have no connection to the people buried in the cemetery, or the village itself, other than that they live there now. The people living in the village are poor.
In Estonia, where I live, the cemeteries seem to be kept up better. One I visited had a section for German soldiers killed in the war, and it looks well maintained.
There are agreements between many countries about the upkeep of foreign war graves. I suspect the Volksbund, the German war graves commission, employs someone in Estonia to look after that part of the cemetery. (The USA, I believe, does the same for its war cemeteries in France and such?) Civilian graves are a different matter, unfortunately.
I once read a nice story about the former stud farm of Trakehnen in East Prussia. There is this archway (you can see it on the Wikipedia page) which, in the German days, was simply an entrance. Apparently, among the Russians now living there, there is this belief that it brings good look to stand under the arch. So it’s not an old tradition that’s living on – it’s weaving a (fairly) new tale around the remnants of an older culture. Mythology in the making, so to speak.
Okay. That makes sense.
I once read the Russians living in Kaliningrad have developed an interest in the area’s German history. I don’t know how widespread that is, but after 1990 Germans provided funding to rebuild the huge Königsberg Cathedral, which was destroyed in the war. The philosopher Kant’s tomb is there, and I read that when Russian couples get married, they go there now as part of the wedding celebration. Another tradition. When I was there, I saw a Russian couple that had just gotten married.
All of it is a “glorification of Nazism” according to Russian law. Any positive opinion about Germany or revelation of historical truth is a crime in Putin’s Russia. In some sense the anti-Nazi hysteria in Russia is even greater now than back in Soviet times. Russians saved the world from Nazism; the whole world is in debt forever. All those who oppose this notion are Nazis; and Nazis must be killed. https://www.rt.com/russia/607267-nazi-propaganda-russia-punishment/
Uh oh! What will C-C’s Putinist troll “Victor” do with such an alarming increase in revisionist “Nazi” truth-telling in Russia?
—
Wolf Stoner: December 18, 2024 All of it is a “glorification of Nazism” according to Russian law. Any positive opinion about Germany or revelation of historical truth is a crime in Putin’s Russia. In some sense the anti-Nazi hysteria in Russia is even greater now than back in Soviet times. Russians saved the world from Nazism; the whole world is in debt forever. All those who oppose this notion are Nazis; and Nazis must be killed. https://www.rt.com/russia/607267-nazi-propaganda-russia-punishment/
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Sponsors of the proposal… cite court statistics which indicate that the number of people sanctioned for Nazi and extremist propaganda increased from 2,388 in 2019 to 5,163 last year.
Thank you for that RT link, Wolf.
The situation in Russia rapidly deteriorates. The migrant influx is ever increasing. It is less chaotic than on USA-Mexico border but comparable in scale. The hordes of savages from Central Asia come to Russia not on foot but in passenger trains; no one detains them because CIS countries have visa-free regime.
These migrants become ever more aggressive. They are manifold overrepresented in violent crime statistics. Even mainstream people can see it now. The anti-migrant feelings are very widespread in Russia now. But the state keeps a tight lid on discontent. The migrant crimes are hushed up when possible; but any forceful response against invaders instantly evokes violent police action and severe judicial sentences. In this regard the situation is very similar to Britain or Germany.
The Russian mentality is torn apart by these contradictory factors: on the one side Russians were conditioned to hate any “Nazism” and nationalism but on the other side the harsh reality compels them to defend their vital interests. This contradiction adds overall dissent and discontent that undermines the totalitarian state structure.
The mainstream Russian society continues to parrot the official obligatory hatred of “Nazism”. But it must never be taken at face value. Russians, being mostly the descendants of peasant-serfs, have inborn quality of pleasing their masters, whoever they are. But at the same time, the moment an opportunity arises, they instantly pounce on their former master and tear him apart.
When USSR fell in 1990es and with it the whole ideological indoctrination, national-socialism started to gain wide popularity. The whole Soviet endeavor of inculcating people against any nationalism has failed. Russians avidly devoured nationalist literature and gathered in all kinds of nationalist organizations. The kleptocratic post-Soviet system was mortally scared of this tendency. It is one of the reasons why the whole Putin project was put in motion back in 1999. Everyone thinks that it was mainly because of Chechen uprising; not at all. The first executive orders of the new prime-minister were about combating “extremism and glorification of Nazism”. Putin dedicated more than a decade to accomplish this task. Many people were either killed or thrown into jail; some fled the country. Only after clearing the internal political landscape, Putin focused his attention on foreign policy (starting with a feeler into Georgia in 2008 and continuing with the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014).
The main conclusion is that Russians are not “immune” to “Nazism” as Putinists love to claim. I well remember the years when we freely painted swastikas on the streets in broad daylight and gave people radical nationalist literature. There were almost no negative responses. The moment the Putin’s criminal regime falls, the popularity of radical nationalism will skyrocket; it will be even more forceful and omnipresent than in 1990es.
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