Not everyone in Germany is as excited as Angela Merkel about taking in nearly a million Mid-East asylum seekers fleeing war-torn Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
As we’ve documented extensively, both German lawmakers and citizens are now beginning to question whether it is indeed advisable to adopt a wholesale open door policy as it relates to migrants.
Indeed, the influx of refugees seems to have allowed PEGIDA (short for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West”) to regain some of the momentum the group lost earlier this year when Lutz Bachmann made the mistake of posting the following picture of himself on Facebook with the caption "he's back."
A PEGIDA rally held two Mondays ago drew between 15 and 20,000 people who listened intently to a number of speakers including Bachmann (who wasn't dressed as Hitler) and fiction novelist Akif Pirincci who said the following about how Berlin should handle the people flows:
"Of course there are other alternatives - but the concentration camps are unfortunately out of action at the moment."
To be sure, not all Germans have adopted anything that even approximates this kind of scapegoating xenophobia. In fact, many have joined Merkel in welcoming Syrian asylum seekers. The problem for Germany - and for quite a few other EU countries tasked with accommodating the refugees - is that no matter how willing the populace is to help out, the reality is that the flow of people is just too overwhelming. The following drone footage underscores that assessment:
Now, in what has to be considered one of the most absurd migrant crisis outcomes to date, a German town with a population of just 102 will be compelled to take in 750 refugees. Here's The NY Times with more [6]:
This bucolic, one-street settlement of handsome redbrick farmhouses may for the moment have many more cows than people, but next week it will become one of the fastest growing places in Europe. Not that anyone in Sumte is very excited about it.
In early October, the district government informed Sumte’s mayor, Christian Fabel, by email that his village of 102 people just over the border in what was once Communist East Germany would soon be taking in 1,000 migrants.
His wife, the mayor said, assured him it must be a hoax. “It certainly can’t be true” that such a small, isolated place would be asked to accommodate nearly 10 times more migrants than it has residents, she told him. “She thought it was a joke,” he recalled.
But it was not.
In a small concession to the villagers, local, district and regional officials told them at a meeting this week that the initial number of asylum seekers, who start arriving on Monday and will be housed in empty office buildings, would be kept to 500, and limited to 750 in all.
Nevertheless, the influx is testing the limits of tolerance and hospitality in Sumte, and across Germany. It is also straining German politics broadly, creating deep divisions in the conservative camp of Chancellor Angela Merkel and energizing a constellation of extremist groups that feel their time has come.
Yes, "energizing a constellation of extremist groups," and for anyone who thought we were merely being hyperbolic when we suggested months ago that the migrant crisis may well have dire political consequences as ultra-nationalistis leap at the opportunity to whip the masses into a xenophobic frenzy, consider the following:
One of the few people, in fact, who seem enthused by the plan for Sumte is Holger Niemann, 32, an admirer of Hitler and the lone neo-Nazi on the elected district council. He rejoices at the opportunities the migrant crisis has offered.
“It is bad for the people, but politically it is good for me,” Mr. Niemann said of the government’s plan that, even under the pared back program, will leave the German villagers outnumbered by migrants by more than seven to one.
Germans face “the destruction of our genetic heritage” and risk becoming “a gray mishmash,” Mr. Niemann added, predicting that public anxiety over Ms. Merkel’s open-armed welcome to refugees would help demolish a postwar political consensus in Germany built on moderation and compromise.
That kind of rheotric has those who long for the days of communist East Germany calling for the likes of Holger Niemann to be "thrown in prison":
Reinhold Schlemmer, a former Communist who served as the mayor here before and immediately after the collapse of East Germany, said people like Mr. Niemann would “have been put in prison right away” during the Communist era.
“Now they can stand up and preach,” he said. “People say this is democracy, but I don’t think it is democracy to let Nazis say what they want.”
Opportunistic political posturing aside, the reality is that Sumte simply can't handle the influx. Indeed, the town faces the prospect of not being able to accommodate the waste from the exponential surge in inhabitants:
Sumte has no shops, no police station, no school and only one bus passes through each day. The initial number of arrivals was, in fact, reduced to avoid straining the local sewage system and give time for new pumps to be installed.
“We have zero infrastructure here for so many people,” Mr. Fabel, the mayor, said.
(Mayor Fabel)
And so, while we are sympathetic to the plight of the villagers in Sumte, this is the inevitable result of fomenting sectarian discord in the Mid-East. In short, the proverbial chickens have finally come home to roost in the West after decades spent playing kingmaker in Middle Eastern countries where frankly, Washington and its allies have no business meddling. Refugees are in effect saying this: "You want to destabilize our country? Fine. We'll come live with you."
Or, as Alexis Tsipras put it this week: "those who sowed winds are reaping whirlwinds."
We close with comments from Dirk Hammer, a Sumte resident and devout Christian who is apparently concerned that Germany could be about to head down a dangerous and sadly familiar path:
Dirk Hammer, a Sumte resident and devout Christian, said that he felt sympathy for the refugees, but that he feared the sheer number of people dumped with little warning in places like this could stoke a dangerous backlash and offer “an ideal platform for the far right.”
“I get stomachaches from fear of what is going to happen — not just here but in the whole of Germany,” he said.
