German Chancellor Angela Merkel can be forgiven for bemoaning that no good deed goes unpunished.
Recall that she made quite a show last summer of welcoming as many refugees as could make it to Germany. But she soon had just cause to rue her open door policy – as reports of assimilation woes and spikes in crime attended sequent waves. I duly commented in “Migrant Invasion Causing Humanitarian Remorse in Germany,” September 28, 2015.
Understandably, Merkel felt compelled to allay growing fears. Unfortunately, she did so by pitting the categorical imperatives of assimilation against the transforming impositions of multiculturalism. She even pledged to close Germany’s open door enough to “drastically decrease” the number of refugees entering the country. I duly commented in “Merkel Betraying Migration Policy that Won Her ‘Person of the Year,” December 21, 2015.
Then came this bombshell:
Germany is struggling to respond to a mass assault of women on New Year’s Eve, and news that people suspected of a role in the violence included asylum seekers…
Merkel has proposed tougher laws that would make it easier to deport migrants after a wave of sex attacks in Cologne that were allegedly carried out by asylum seekers – an incident she is reported to have described as ‘a bombshell’…
Volker Bouffier, the prime minister of the state of Hesse, told the meeting: ‘Cologne has changed everything; people are full of doubt.’
(London Guardian, January 9, 2016)
According to the latest reports, 370 women have filed complaints – all stemming from what appears to have been a flash-mob of sexual assaults.
Unsurprisingly, xenophobic politicians are stoking remorse and fueling fears:
Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas was the latest high-profile politician to speak out about the string of sexual assaults in Cologne on Sunday. In an interview with the popular Bild am Sonntag newspaper, Maas voiced his suspicions that the crimes, which have the whole country reeling, were not the result of an opportunistic mob mentality but a thought-out, planned attack on the city’s women.
(Deutsche Welle, January 10, 2016)
To be fair, this minister’s suspicions are not entirely unfounded. I decried such “opportunistic mob mentality” among Muslim men after flash-mob sexual assaults became a menacing feature of Arab Spring protests — as “Sustained Sexual Assault on CBS Reporter by Egyptian Protesters,” January 30, 2012, substantiates.
I am all too mindful, however, that Muslim men are not the only ones inclined to such predatory mob behavior. In fact, a significant number of non-Muslim White men were among the predators who perpetrated this mass assault.
Never mind that far too few news outlets are bothering to report this fact. Or that neo-Nazis are already using this incident as a pretext to assault Muslims indiscriminately.
More to the point, though, here is why such assaults are every bit as congenital among Arabs as they are among Europeans:
Halfway into the 2012 edition, incidents of sexual abuse at Munich’s Oktoberfest are on the rise as compared to last year, Munich daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reports…
Irritated by the continued perception of many that women who are involved in sexual abuse of any kind are somehow ‘asking for it,’ feminist activist Anna-Katharina Meßmer said ‘somebody needs to teach [European] men how to behave themselves.’
(Worldcrunch, October 3, 2012)
All the same, not just Germans but all Europeans have just cause to fear what unvanquished and unyielding waves of migrants portend:
[Germany’s Development Minister] Gerd Müller said only 10 per cent of Syrian and Iraqi migrants have reached Europe so far and ‘eight to ten million are still on the way,’ with even more to come from Africa.
‘The biggest movements are ahead: Africa’s population will double in the coming decades,’ he told Bild am Sonntag, adding: ‘In the Sahara up to one million people have died trying to escape.’
(Brietbart News, January 10, 2016)
In truth, I am compelled to say, I told you so. For, regarding the Syrian and Iraqi migrants Müller cited, here is what I presaged in “Europe’s Migration Crisis: Sowing Seeds of Unintended, but all too Foreseeable Consequences,” September 6, 2015.
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Liberal Germans are greeting this first wave of migrants with banners, cheers, and food. But don’t be surprised if these same Germans are hurling xenophobic epithets at sequent waves a few months from now — as predictable strains/conflicts, especially with respect to gainful employment and welfare benefits, become manifestly untenable.
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Regarding the even more undesirable African migrants he cited, here is what I presaged in “Lampedusa Tragedy Highlights Europe’s ‘Haitian’ Problem,” October 7, 2013.
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As tragic as [migrants turning the Mediterranean Sea into a cemetery is], political dysfunction, economic stagnation, and civil strife on the Dark Continent are such that Africans will continue to risk life and limb to seek a better life. Just as no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Caribbean Sea has stemmed the tide of Haitian migrants setting off for America, no legal barrier or risk of drowning in the Mediterranean Sea will stem the tide of African migrants setting off for Europe.
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Above all, though, regarding the best way to deal with this migration crisis, here is what I proposed in “Europe’s Migration Crisis…,” September 6, 2015 – long before Hillary, General David Petraeus, and others began championing it.
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European leaders should coordinate comprehensive humanitarian interventions, enabled and protected by NATO (not UN) forces, to contain would-be migrants within their borders. It’s clearly far better to provide local safe havens than for migrants to continue risking life and limb, only to end up in splendid desolation in Europe or in fetid isolation in internment camps, where millions are being detained today in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and, increasingly, in Hungary.
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It will be interesting to see how Europe copes. But I cannot resist this parting shot from “Europeans Erecting Fences to Maintain Good Relations with African Neighbors,” October 8, 2005.
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There’s no denying that America has an arbitrary, even mercenary, immigration policy (which, for example, grants Cuban migrants an EZ pass but repatriates Haitian migrants summarily). Yet, compared with that of other countries, America has by far the most inviting and humane policy of them all [notwithstanding Donald Trump].
This fact is finally coming into stark relief for Europeans – who once chided Americans with righteous indignation for their treatment of [undesirable] migrants. Because African migrants are now posing the same challenges for Europe that Haitian migrants have been posing for the United States for decades.
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It does no bode well that NIMBY Europeans are threatening to blow their union asunder as they begin erecting fences to maintain good relations with each other … too.
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Lampedusa tragedy…