Czech anti-immigration sentiments got lifted up from the domain of quacks, wannabe Nazis and populists into actual policy when Andrej Babiš woke up one day and realized his party’s popularity dropped a couple percent; a situation very easily remedied by causing an international faux pas by telling Italy he will not accept a single immigrant (because look what they did to your country). His resolve has been tested for the last few weeks with a full-on media barrage regarding the proposed acceptance of fifty orphans from Syria – an issue on which he managed to change his firm opinion only about five or six times a week. [...]
And here is the thing: those fifty orphans could seriously help us there. The Czech Republic has mostly managed to avoid EU scrutiny due to Babiš playing chameleon and changing colors based on whether he was speaking to home or foreign audience. But it seems the chameleon is going senile and cannot shift its complexion as fast as it once could – and sometimes, like in Italy, the true colors shine through. Now, viewed from the outside, there is an opportunity to put his money where his mouth is and prove that he is dedicated to a common European cause. The only problem is that, back home, he has just announced zero tolerance for immigrants. What to do, what to say? [...]
Putting aside the rather distressing implication that a human life loses value with age (something the masterpiece of applied necromancy posing as our current President should get through its brain, whichever canopic jar that might be stowed away in), this first attack was deflected rather easily by pointing out that we’d have our choice of orphans to accept; no one was talking a specific group of children. This did not stop plenty of other parties to join the fun; the xenophobic SPD calling the initiative “pseudohumanistic cries of the neo-marxists” (given the rhetorical capabilities of the average SPD member, one can only assume a dictionary was heavily involved in the creative process behind that phrase) and a party called Czech Sovereignty (nope, never heard of them either) outright accused the orphans of being ISIS fighters – amazing foresight since no specific children were chosen.
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