Winton Dong

    dht620@sina.com

    IN September last year, the whole world was shocked when the dead body of a 3-year-old Syrian toddler named Aylan was found on a Turkish shoreline.

    Since its civil war broke out in 2011, a large number of displaced citizens in Syria have been fleeing their homeland to Turkey, Greece, Western Europe or further northern countries such as Denmark and Sweden. During their odyssey to other nations, those lucky ones will perhaps find a small place to settle down. But like little Aylan, many unlucky ones have already lost their lives while fleeing danger.

    When they were at a dead end, a ray of hope appeared. Germany — Europe’s biggest economy — declared last year that the country would throw open its borders to accept Syrian refugees. According to statistics, more than 1.2 million refugees have flooded into Germany in the past year. Compared with its total population of 80 million, such a figure is really gigantic and has put Germany at its limit as migrants surge to record highs.

    Since the housing vacancy rate in Germany is very low, it is very hard to find homes for many of these refugees in a timely manner. Under this circumstance, the German Government has to build more temporary asylums and tents in railway stations and downtown areas. Some hospitals and governmental buildings have also been refurnished as temporary shelters. According to German reports, even the infamous Buchenwald Concentration Camp in the state of Thuringia, which was used by Nazis during World War II, has been turned into temporary housing for refugees.

    According to Malte Lehming, an editor with the German weekly Der Spiegel, the quick influx of refugees has perplexed Germans and has divided Germany. “Some Germans are afraid of Muslims from these warring countries, while others welcome newcomers as an injection of a new working force,” he said.

    Why does Germany accommodate so many refugees? One explanation to this question is that the country is in great need of a growing labor force. As one of the most aged nations in Europe, one-third of German citizens are now over the age of 60 and the country’s total population is decreasing dramatically.

    Such an explanation sounds reasonable. But some Germans refute that as it is very difficult for these refugees to integrate into German society both linguistically and culturally since most of them fled Syria alone. Without the company of their family members, refugees struggle to lead a normal life. If the reorientation process is not smooth, social problems can arise.

    Such a worry is not totally groundless. Successive rape cases, sexual molestations and terrorism by Muslim immigrants in Cologne and other European cities in 2016 have frightened Germany. According to Petra Sigmund, Asian division chief of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, even German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to revise policy to reintroduce passport checks and reinstate border controls. “The result of the refugee influx has not matched the original intention of Chancellor Merkel,” she said when being interviewed by Phoenix Weekly.

    Meanwhile, many EU member countries regard the accommodating policy as a German internal affair, so they are unwilling to accept compulsory immigrant quotas and other binding measures set by the European Commission to relieve pressure on Germany.

    Moreover, in March this year, the EU reached an agreement with the Turkish Government, offering more than 6 billion euros (US$6.67 billion) to help Turkey prevent an influx of Syrian refugees to European nations. It is estimated that there are 2.7 million refugees within the territory of Turkey now. If for some reason Turkey fails to work as the buffer zone, then the situation in Germany will be even worse.

    Unceasing wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria and other places launched or backed by the United States have already led to Europe, especially Germany, to struggle to deal with the flood of refugees from war-torn areas.

    In spite of its embarrassing situation, Germany is really a respectable country in my mind. It is a refugee crisis for Germany, but it is a credit crisis for the United States of America who is the initiator of the refugee crisis!

    (The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily and guest professor of Shenzhen University with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)