18 August 2017
Spiegel: A Syrian Family's Quest to Become German
The Muatis -- asylum application number 03301 A 2014, case file 587729 -- are one of hundreds of thousands of refugee families in Germany. They are Muslims from Syria, like most of the asylum-seekers. And they have a limited right to stay in the country, like most of the others. Until recently, they lived in a container, but now they have their own apartment. And although they are recognized as refugees, they no longer want to be just people with numbers and reference numbers, they want to have children in Germany, pay taxes and be a normal part of society. [...]
The Muatis are the only refugees in the apartment building. But their German upstairs neighbors say that the Syrian family, which lives on the ground floor, is more German than all the neighbors combined.
"Germany isn't going to give us all the time in the world," says Adel. He believes the Germans will give the refugees no more than three years to settle in. In those three years, he says, the refugees will receive help from all over the place -- from neighbors, employment offices and the government. As a family with four children, the Muatis receive a monthly subsidy of €1,800 ($2,135). The Germans don't ask for much in return, except that the refugees learn the language, obey the law and find work. "Three years," says Adel Muati. "We have to make it by then, or we'll never make it." [...]
The Germans, he replies, are generous to strangers but tough on themselves. They separate their garbage, sorting out glass, plastic and paper, and walk their dogs on a leash, like camels. They love cleanliness and rules, they prefer to make their lives difficult instead of easy, and they like to obey rules. "In fact," Adel Muati says, "they would make the better Muslims."[...]
The test is called "Life in Germany," and consists of 33 of a total of 310 questions that German officials apparently believe are important for a life in Germany: What is the name of the festival where Germans wear colorful costumes and masks? What happened on May 8, 1945? Can two men get married? Could a 25-year-old named Tim live together as a couple with a 13-year-old named Anne? What is the Schengen Agreement? What does a year of separation mean? Who wrote the lyrics for the German national anthem?
The Guardian: The UK government’s border proposals for Ireland are absurd
But to understand how this seems to the Irish government and to most people on the island, imagine you are in a decent job. It is reasonably paid, apparently secure and the working environment is quite amicable. Your neighbour, who you like but do not quite trust (there’s a bit of history there) comes to you with a proposition. She’s establishing an extremely risky start-up venture with a high probability of catastrophic failure. Will you join her? Well, you ask, what are the possible rewards? Ah, she says, if – against the odds – everything goes splendidly, you’ll get the same pay and conditions you have now.
This is, in essence, what the British government is offering Ireland. If everything goes fantastically well, you’ll end up with, um, the status quo. Trade will “operate largely in the same way it does today”. The position paper is effectively a hymn to the way things are now. We don’t have a hard border, and we won’t after Brexit. We do have a common travel area that works remarkably well, and it will continue to go splendidly. The position paper takes existing realities and repositions them as a distant mirage, a fantastical possibility: less emerald isle, more Emerald City. [...]
The one really bold move in the paper is its rejection of the technological utopianism of the more enthusiastic Brexiteers, especially in the Democratic Unionist party. The commitment to “avoid any physical border infrastructure” means that there can be no CCTV cameras or registration-plate recognition systems. Magical machines are not going to take the place of human customs officers. [...]
The absurdity of the proposition becomes clear when we think about all the new trade deals that post-Brexit Britain is going to make. With no Irish border controls, US beef, Australian lamb, Chinese steel and Indian cars can be imported into Belfast, sent an hour down the road to Dundalk and exported tariff-free to France, Germany or any other EU country. The only way to stop this happening would be in effect to make Ireland itself a semi-detached member of the EU with all Irish exports subjected to customs controls at EU ports. And this is simply not going to happen – why on earth would any Irish government ever agree to it ?
The New York Times: The Other Inconvenient Truth
Trump’s jaw-dropping defense of white supremacists, white nationalists and Nazis in Charlottesville, Va., exposed once more what many of us have been howling into the wind since he emerged as a viable candidate: That he is a bigot, a buffoon and a bully. [...]
And yet, it seems too simplistic, too convenient, to castigate only Trump for elevating these vile racists. To do so would be historical fallacy. Yes, Trump’s comments give them a boost, grant them permission, provide them validation, but it is also the Republican Party through which Trump burst that has been courting, coddling and accommodating these people for decades. Trump is an articulation of the racists in Charlottesville and they are an articulation of him, and both are a logical extension of a party that has too often refused to rebuke them. [...]
The position of opposing racial cruelty can operate in much the same way as opposition to animal cruelty — people do it not because they deem the objects of that cruelty their equals, but rather because they cannot countenance the idea of inflicting pain and suffering on helpless and innocent creatures. But even here, the comparison cleaves, because suffering black people are judged to have courted their own suffering through a cascade of poor choices.
Los Angeles Times: As he coddles neo-Nazis, Trump’s political isolation increases
And, indeed, it was a defining moment. It made crystal clear the truth that Donald Trump cannot shake his warm feelings for “blood and soil” racists who see him as their ally. White nationalist leader Richard Spencer is absolutely on target with his contention that, though Trump may not be ideologically in lock step with the movement, the president has a “psychic connection” with the alt-right. [...]
On Wednesday, Trump rushed to dissolve two highly-touted business advisory councils before all the CEOs on those panels quit. Business leaders had been bolting for the exits like an audience in a burning circus tent after Trump failed to make a distinction between the Nazi sympathizers who invaded Charlottesville and the people who showed up to protest their vile philosophy. On Tuesday, Trump slammed the departing CEOs as “grandstanders” and said he could easily replace them, but, by Wednesday, the president must have realized no prominent businessman in his right mind now wants to ruin his reputation by colluding with him.
In another dramatic move, five top military leaders — the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard — made strong statements condemning racism and Nazism. The Army chief of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, sent out a tweet that said, “The Army doesn’t tolerate racism, extremism or hatred in our ranks. It’s against our values and everything we’ve stood for since 1775.” Such pointed comments from the military’s top brass are highly unusual and are a sharp, if indirect, rebuke to the commander in chief. [...]
But Trump still has his base. And he will cling to them and coddle them, even if some among them are Nazis and white supremacists. It is a twisted neediness that makes Donald Trump blind to obvious evil.
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