Sunday, September 13, 2015

Geschloßen

It was a beautiful thing to see and feel ... the warmth of the Willkommen, reach for ideal ...

Reality bites, though.  Has bitten back, seemingly hard, already ...

As the Munich HBF has become increasingly a protected zone -- and too easily, perhaps a target -- the gift-givers and welcome-Sänger advised to stay home, the permanent residents of Stadt München incovenienced and detoured onto their own separate overcrowded and painfully efficient Züge and Wagen just to get where they're going, back home or to work each day ... Reality is biting back.

Seemingly hard.

First of all, there is no more room at the Gasthof.  The borders are now closed.  Munich has "welcomed" (allowed in) more than 13,000 refugees this weekend alone.  Just overnight, from yesterday to today!  Sexy, but not arm, proud München can ...

Luckily.  Since the end of August -- in less than two weeks -- the city herself has seen (and admirably, handled) an influx of 63,000 people.  That's almost 5,000 human beings per day ... pouring in on the trains, into HBF ... to the city, the country and hopefully, the societal fabric.

They're not here for Oktoberfest.  They won't be buying Lederhosen, beer and Trachten hats, and bringing these back with them to Aleppo.  Die Flüchtlinge are here to stay ... and as warmly and efficiently as Munich, Bavaria and Germany have so far rolled out the welcome mats, practical integration must now be applied.

I stop just short of saying "enforced" ... yet that, in fact, is what must be reality.

https://photosbyjglo.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/integration-blues-jeffglovsky/
“Integration Blue(s)”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Monday, September 7, 2015

Care, and Vigilance

In this summer of our discontent, with shootings and racism, homelessness, shootings and racial insanity, shootings, bad music, the death of Bill Cosby and racial shootings in the United States ... and (im)migrants stealing across borders in Europe, invading, creating encampments of despair, yet boundless hope "over there"-- and Brazil going south -- 

which way do I turn?

When I care but can't help, or can't care to help (can't be bothered) - because after all, what's the point (When I fall in the forest, does anyone hear me?)?  Feeling helpless, without hope myself, I succumb:  to inaction, and try to profess an "indifference" ...

While seismic demographic shifts take place, overtaking the landscapes and bludgeoning hegemony; the Banhofs and Autobahns, shorelines and coastlines awash with a tidal surge of humanity ... Families escaping, in flight -- Flüchtlinge ...

Refugees fleeing -- fugindo -- seek refuge.  The words hang together, saying similar things ... a melting pot of assimilations, sharing a genesis ... Like "those people" pronouncing or spelling them differently.  Borne of the same place, the same etymology, if you will ... We are all of us human.

Having said this, there must be order maintained.  There are laws to abide by, as well as etiquette inherent in the guest / host dynamic.  Everybody has got to eat, and there must be enough jobs to allow all to do so.

While it's "polite" and "correct" to "welcome" an influx of displaced humanity, and humans, sharing genesis, for the most part want to ... On a practical level, the borders should not, cannot, be simply flung open.

Germany's push to disperse the new arrivals is potentially harrowing -- Could families be torn apart, to meet quotas? -- and schönen München's herzerwärmende open arms display does not seem particularly thought-through.  Inspiring, emotional, indeed heartwarming ... Certainly what we, as fellow human beings, aspire to and would want for ourselves in a "do unto others", karmic way.

But despite the country's center stage role, and shining examples of welcome and tolerance -- not to mention the peerless steerage of Angela Merkel, coming from the East herself and no doubt recognizing 1980's scenes of trains and walls and Luftballons ...

 

It's important to keep a practical head on our shoulders.  When the last of the well-intentioned chickens and blueberry pies and high-heeled shoes have been gifted in Willkommen, and a meant-to-be-transitory Zwischenstation for many, devolves into permanent crises in housing, disease, crime or civil unrest ... because in the end, fear of the "other" and hatred, fueled in part by prideful ignorance and an innate desire within any species, human or otherwise, to exist amongst creatures who look and communicate similarly, but not to assimilate ...

will not go away.

Inasmuch, the (im)migrants, refugees, all "those people" seeking asylum and better lives in the West via Germany and other places, aren't the problem.  The problem inherently lies in wait, in a societal home opening its doors to guest strangers ...

Then there lurk larger, much darker, non-human issues, unable ever to be solved practically ... With September 11th approaching, and the world well-aware how things changed since '01, it's not inappropriate to point out that any mass influx of humanity to "the West", unfettered by visa regulations, could -- COULD, it's conceivable -- include a bad apple.

Or two.  Or 1300 ...

The USA's near total laissez-faire on USE's latest migrant drama (the worst since 1992) -- uncharacteristically not butting in, but remaining fairly silent to see how Europe fares -- is surprising, in this regard.  Is a full-bellied Trojan Horse marching westward ... ?

Is "the East", figuratively speaking, 'sending rapists'?

Will Chancellor Merkel, and certainly that idiot from Hungary, be left dumm dastehen, with blood on their hands?

I'd like to think not.  Wouldn't want to believe it ... but sadly, it mustn't be discounted, as we do keep the borders, as well as our arms, hearts and, necessarily, eyes flung open.

Schrei nach Liebe (die Ärzte) - with English lyrics
https://willkommen-in-muenchen.de/