Germany gets picky about its refugees
posted at 8:30 am on May 29, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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The ruling party in Germany has decided to call for greater access for Iraqi refugees to seek asylum there. The CDU has one proviso, however. They only want non-Muslims:
For months, ethnic violence has been on the ebb in war-torn Iraq. But that has done little to ease the pressure of over 2 million refugees seeking shelter in neighboring Syria and Jordan. Indeed, for many of them — particularly those once part of Iraq’s Christian minority — going back may never be an option.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party said it would like to see Germany do its part to help out. At a press conference in Berlin, parliamentarian Erika Steinbach, the CDU’s human rights spokeswoman, said her party wanted to see Germany accept thousands of Iraqi refugees. In particular, she said, the CDU wants to extend its welcoming hand to Iraqis who have suffered religious persecution in Iraq. In particular, that means the Christians. …
According to Steinbach, the CDU envisions bringing a large group (possibly as many as 10,000) of non-Muslim refugees to Germany with the understanding that they would not be treated as asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in Germany, and Steinbach said that it is unrealistic to think that Christian refugees from Iraq would ever be able to return. For this reason, their ultimate integration in Germany should be supported.
Members of Yazidis and Mandaean religious minorities would also be among those allowed in, according to the party’s proposal. The CDU argues that, in contrast to Muslim refugees from Iraq, religious persecution makes it unlikely that Christians, Yazidis and Mandaeans would ever by able to return.
Maybe Merkel and the CDU should wait a little longer. No thanks to them, the extremists in Iraq have lost significant ground and the non-Muslim Iraqis may not need asylum at all. The Mahdis have all but surrendered to the civil authority in Baghdad, and al-Qaeda has even begun acknowledging their defeat.
The reluctance to take Muslim refugees sounds pretty odd, coming from the heart of multiculturalist Europe. The UN agency handking the refugees also thinks it sounds strange. They don’t split refugees by religious denomination and are unlikely to accede to such a request, from Germany or anywhere else
Can you imagine the stink it would cause if the Bush administration or the Republican Party even suggested this? The shrill hysterical shrieks of “Christianism!” would rend the air from coast to coast. It might even be called a form of passive ethnic cleansing, assisting the extremists in Iraq of removing non-Muslims from Arab lands.
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That’s one hot potato!
MarkABinVA on May 29, 2008 at 8:37 AM
Sweden is having questions over the issue as well.
bikermailman on May 29, 2008 at 8:39 AM
I don’t think the Germans were ever multi-culturalists, their ethnic Turkish population nothwithstanding.
JiangxiDad on May 29, 2008 at 8:40 AM
The hysterical cultural relativistic multiculturalism is laying waste to Europe. They are becoming a cultureless wasteland thanks to the Lefty cultural Marxists. The same a$$hats infest our own Left and are only too happy to drive Western culture off a cliff all in the name of “diversity” and “tolerance”.
DerKrieger on May 29, 2008 at 8:44 AM
JiangxiDad is right.
Deutschland was never multicultural after the 18th Century. Before that, they suffered their own inferiority complex as a culture denegrated by the other Europeans. German princes spoke Italian at court, French to their lovers, and German to their horses. No joke. That the rest of Europe snubbed them for so long, well, there goes history up to date.
Good for Merkel to take the stand that a sovereign nation has the right to limit emigration as it sees fit. The USA has plenty of its own precedence to put a plug on it as well. To hell with destructive PC.
maverick muse on May 29, 2008 at 8:49 AM
Yes, we really need the non-Muslims elements to stay in Arab lands, so that there can be a healtier democratic dialogue within those areas.
thuja on May 29, 2008 at 8:50 AM
I don’t know, with sharia law in Iraq’s constitution, there isn’t going to be much they can do. The one big mistake of the whole thing.
MattMacD on May 29, 2008 at 9:16 AM
I see your point that Iraq has become, and has potential to further become, a safer place in general for all. However, Christians will always be in danger in a Muslim land.
Grafted on May 29, 2008 at 9:19 AM
The chickens have come home to roost.
Johan Klaus on May 29, 2008 at 9:26 AM
Dead people can’t have a dialogue.
Johan Klaus on May 29, 2008 at 9:27 AM
It would be a dishonest argument if it was made. Libeals might as well say that global warming is responsible for the deaths of Iraqi Christians.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 9:44 AM
The Turks in Germany tend to be there for economic reasons. They work hard, keep to themselves (except for the odd fight with the Greek guest-workers) and eventually retire back to Turkey. Unlike The Muslim immigrants in England, immigrants to Germany work or go home. England let in huge populations of Muslims in its anti-colonial guilt phase and let these folks go directly to the dole, do not have to work and agitate as you will. Same for France. Sarko will be upset that he didn’t get the “no more muslims” bug before the Germans.
GeneSmith on May 29, 2008 at 9:48 AM
You mean like non-Muslims in our friends’ country Pakistan? Or the Jim Crow laws in our friends’ country Saudi Arabia? How about Iran where conversion to Christianity is a crime? Why can you not see the religious apartheid perpetrated by ISLAM worldwide? It isn’t just against Christians, it is especially against Hindus and Buddhists. Why do people have a hard time recognizing that Islam is a problem – not multiculturalism – Islam is the main culprit of religious persecution worldwide.
Germany didn’t say we only want Christians (as you imply). They said there was no need to accept Muslims because they enjoy more freedoms in Iraq than any other religious group. . . oops I hope by saying that it doesn’t make me an ‘Islamophobe’ – the horror of being called Islamophobic keeps objective journalists from being objective. We must capitulate at all costs Ed, right?
If we can’t call a spade a spade, we won’t ‘win’ the war on terror.
ThackerAgency on May 29, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Herr Klaus. Isn’t the German expression for that Heilige Scheiße?
JiangxiDad on May 29, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Don’t forget the Jooos. Almost sounds like you mean everyone else.
JiangxiDad on May 29, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Continental Europe is waking up. England, fast asleep. When we begin to absorb their fleeing citizens, as Canada, Australia and New Zealand already are, we will get some really great food :)
JiangxiDad on May 29, 2008 at 9:56 AM
Since when did that stop them?
urbancenturion on May 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Barry may need to be familiar with this new law if he wants to ‘talk to’ Iran any time soon. . .
ThackerAgency on May 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Italy, especially.
Nothing stirs.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 10:05 AM
I think the main problem is that the Republicians do not point out liberal dishonesty either because they are too timid/polite to do this or because they share the liberal beliefs of the Democrats.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 10:07 AM
I think Merkel has an ulterior motivation and it’s not really about removing the non-Muslims from Iraq, it’s about beefing up the Christian population in Germany. She’s looking at France and England and stepping up to the front of the line.
Texas Gal on May 29, 2008 at 10:14 AM
In that case its unfortunate that she choose Iraqis, even if convenient at the present time. Christians from the Middle East (sometimes called “islamochristians”) tend to be set in their dhimmitude by and large. However I have seen exceptions. Perhaps it is a shrewd move.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 10:18 AM
Indeed, the guest workers were always expected to leave. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who allowed them to reunite with their families (i.e. bring them over) now publicly regrets that.
When the Social-Democrat/Green coalition came to power in 1998, the guest worker program was declared a “life-lie” and “integration” the new goal.
After this new objective has failed spectacularly with regard to Muslim immigrants, it is not surprising that no one is interested in acquiring more of them. Now it’s just a matter of further limiting “family reunification” with imported brides and most importantly, we need to start returning them, the worst cases first (i.e. hardened criminals, long-term unemployed etc.).
GermanAtheist on May 29, 2008 at 10:20 AM
OT: Orianna Fallaci Square
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 10:25 AM
Well, that’s who the refugees are … Iraqis. I think the fact that her political party is the Christian party and they want them to be non-Muslim and state they will not be treated like asylum seekers but allowed to work and encourage integration, she looking to enlarge her political party base.
Texas Gal on May 29, 2008 at 10:41 AM
Islamophobia alert! Where is the Italian equivalent of CAIR?
Annar on May 29, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Her party is not a Christian party, it is a Christian Democratic party. Jews, Atheists and even Muslims are among its membership.
It is true though that Christian believers are more likely to vote for it.
GermanAtheist on May 29, 2008 at 10:45 AM
As these non-Muslims no doubt will and for generations so will their offspring. Not unlike the Blacks and Jews in America have allegiance to the Democratic party.
Texas Gal on May 29, 2008 at 10:55 AM
How freakin great!
JiangxiDad on May 29, 2008 at 11:04 AM
I think it is an excellent idea. PC be damned!
awake on May 29, 2008 at 11:05 AM
Yup. The Italian government are brilliant. Berlusconi provides leadership and irrevent comic relief while the Lega du Nord handle immigration and crime.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 11:19 AM
My brother, who travels to many places in the world, including Europe tells me that a friend of his (my brother) as said on more than one ocassion, that what Germany did during the 2nd world war with jews and minority populations was only “Practice” and a “Warm up” for what is coming.
Interesting?
Rockman44 on May 29, 2008 at 1:07 PM
Rockman44, that is utter baloney.
On topic, here’s the great double standard on Europe, and Germany in particular. If they are multi-culti, PC and pacifist, they get faulted for being weak and not doing much to assure their survival. If they aren’t they get blamed.
We must make up our minds and can’t have it both ways.
Entelechy on May 29, 2008 at 1:44 PM
Yes and this very same tactic is used against Israel. The parties and groups in Europe who are willing to stand up for themselves are almost all pro-Israel. That should tell us something.
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 2:29 PM
Muslims create the mess wherever they live. Why should we save them? Save the Christians. Leave the Jews, they will just come over, get law degrees, and then sue us to get rid of Christmas.
Spartacus on May 29, 2008 at 3:17 PM
Whatever happens in Iraq it won’t turn out to be a place Christians will WANT to live.
We’ve let them enshrine Sharia law, thats not good for women, jews, or christians.
Once the Muslim gov’t gets a firm hold of the country you’ll see it start to become more fundamentalist, not less.
That was our biggest mistake in Iraq – NOT nation-building. That is WE SHOUD HAVE gone in with the INTENTION of building a secular state and IMPOSED the 1932 Constituiton, and forced equal rights for ALL. We FORCED Germany and JAPAN to modernize their political systems and should have done the same in Iraq.
Eventually Iraq will become just another Muslim country hostile to the US/West and we’ll have spent billions and 4,000+ lives for that. What a waste.
robscottw on May 29, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Golly, I wonder why.
MB4 on May 29, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Indeed.
The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than with the rise of secularism. The West’s advance was chiefly related to the decline in the influence of religion that sought the truth by “looking in” to see what God had to say, and its replacement by looking out, deriving authority from observation, experimentation and exploration.
The original figures to draw attention to this were Bishop Robert Grosseteste, early in the 13th century, the first person to imagine the experiment, and his contemporary, St Thomas Aquinas, the first man to imagine a secular world, a world without God directing everything. Secularism is not the same as atheism, of course, both Grosseteste and Aquinas were priests. But they helped us to escape from the overbearing medieval view that the world has meaning and pattern only in relation to God [or Allah].
The inconvenient truth is that the West should be exporting secularism around the world before it exports democracy. Democracy implies not just one person one vote, but no less important, that the political process proceeds by rational means, by argument, by persuasion, and is based on knowledge that is as objective, as scientific, as one can make it. The objective knowledge has to come first.
- Peter Watson
MB4 on May 29, 2008 at 4:27 PM
Yes, exactly. Charles Johnson’s readership in particular has never held back when it came to demeaning Europe, including America’s loyal friend and ally Britain. When on the other hand a European country showed some sense of self-preservation (e.g. Germany) the comment section was immediately flooded with tasteful Holocaust jokes or even naïve appeals to save those poor Muslims from imminent genocide.
It was still a surprise to me that he himself chose to follow this two-pronged strategy in October of last year by smearing legitimate European right-wing parties while continuing to insist that we are all spineless dhimma.
GermanAtheist on May 29, 2008 at 4:36 PM
I think that “looking in” was called less secularism, and more reformation. Protestant Reformation, that is. The rise of many a philosopher in the West began through the Reformation, like John Locke and David Hume. Where do you think our Founding Fathers came from and got all their ideas??? You couldn’t separate politics and religion before the 1600’s, in fact…much like Islam today.
Hirsi Ali’s been trying to convince people of the need of an Islamic Enlightenment, but they need an Islamic Reformation first.
Back OT…I am THRILLED Germany’s doing the RIGHT THING. With SHARIA in the Iraqi Constitution, DHIMMIS are TOAST.
Miss_Anthrope on May 29, 2008 at 6:41 PM
That goes too far. Selling indulgences is hardly as bad as the sack of Anatolia.
As for the usual objections:
The Real Inquisition
The Real History of the Crusades
aengus on May 29, 2008 at 7:10 PM
And that’s why America is falling apart. Invite everybody in! Every God-forsaken culture you can think of. Judeo-Christian values? We don’t want em anymore. This is a politically correct society now. Nevermind that without a strong and vibrant Christianity, America is doomed. These are not just words. This is happening as you read this.
apacalyps on May 29, 2008 at 8:27 PM
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