Bismarck.Leneth said: »
Caitsith.Zahrah said: »
Len,
Before I get dinner started, and I know it's a dicey subject, but Drac and I have been talking about the New Years Eve sexual assaults via PM and the incidents previously kept under wraps in Sweden. I was wondering if you care to give your perspective. If you would rather not, it's completely understandable. Sensitive issue all around.
Before I get dinner started, and I know it's a dicey subject, but Drac and I have been talking about the New Years Eve sexual assaults via PM and the incidents previously kept under wraps in Sweden. I was wondering if you care to give your perspective. If you would rather not, it's completely understandable. Sensitive issue all around.
Media
I will start with them because I did not learn of the events until it went global with Cologne's Mayor 'armlength' speech. That was the 5th January. The Media reaction was incredibly slow nationwide. Social Networks and local media covered it early, with the local print media first to mention that the initial police report of a 'calm night' seemed to be wrong and the social Networks were the first to mention the attacker's ethnos.
Even as it went gloabl the coverage was rather reluctant and avoided mentioning refugees as far as they could despite knowledge that they were present. They focused more on Police and the numbers of charges, which are up to 560 in cologne alone last I heard.
Now 2 weeks after I find the coverage still too low. Yes, every political talk show is about it now but a few important things has been dropped since quite a few days. For example when it went global there were reports of other German cities having had (to a lower extend, in Hamburg being at 150 charges now) similar problems but now those are not mentioned at all nationwide.
Or practical problems like Police stating the quality of the camera material is too low with the Deutsche Bahn (who is in charge of the train station) answering that it was never stated to be a problem before by police. That is weird as a major part of the political debate is about putting more cameras at public places, so quality of them should be an ongoing concern.
Whenever they do talk about the Ethnos of the attackers, which has been unavoidable since monday, it is followed by an extra notice that it was only a very small per centage of the foreigners and we should not generalise. This is getting pretty penetrant for the average German as it feels like an insult (like a teacher constantly reminding students not to do certain stuff) as it is not done the same with other events.
Politics
Politics reacted correct so far. Finally shaping up the sexual Assault laws they had been working on for months and lowering the first hurdle to send back criminal foreigners to their home country. The last thing hopefully will be backed up with pressure on countries which did not take their people back from now on.
They made mistakes before the events happened though. Like lowering the amount of state-staff (Police, teachers, in judiciary sector have to be highighted here the most). The slim state cannot react to a crises.
Another mistake was being too lax with EU-Member states ignoring the Dublin rules before the refugee influx and the lonely decission to break the rules as well. Combined this makes European cooperation impossible afterwards.
And another point which I made already in the media section, they need to enforce more pressure on countries not taking their people back after the asylum-process is finished and denied. The Tourism sector is ideal as leverage here.
Police
Even after the events on New Years Eve, the public trust in the police is high, between 78% and 80%. We still need more information here though. According to the Police which was present at the scene asked for more support but it was denied (as far as I have heared it is not official yet). The Police chef there already had to go. 10 days after the events a camera team still has found documents like health insurance cards and thrown away wallets near the station at a construction side.
Ever since the press conference mentioning 19 culprits there has been silence about new knowledge.
Maghreb
That's the main heritage of often criminal foreigners, the Syrians are below the average when it comes to crime, while theirs is shooting through the roof. The usual way for these Moroccans, Algerians ect. is to come here for escaping poverty, not being accepted as Asylum seeker, entering illegal employment and then are picked up by/gathering as criminal gangs. Their home states don't make new documents for them and thus hindering us to send them back.
Refugees
Main problem is that we are not obliged to take them in as refugees. They passed too many safe countries to normally get that status. We grant it just because of good will. Most of the non-syrian people, even afghan [unless they are personally in danger because they worked for us] and Iraqi would normally not get it granted.
So nearly every crime commited by these groups is an additional crime brought into the country. And if the politicians were honest to their politics and would stand behind them, they should apologise to victims that were caused because of their decission. Like the 2 minor girls that exchanged caresses with 2 Syrians but when they denied sex they got raped. Of course we just get the average of other people and not 100% good people, but I consider it a lack of responsibility to just include them in a statistic and forget the personal impact.
Sweden
It has a lot of similarities to the german case. Politicians yelling 'I am angry, we never ordered to keep culprits background hidden', the same thing says the police chief and the normal police man/woman last in line is confused. 'Yes you never ordered it but whenever I file my report with such remarks in it gets back to me in order to rework/word/phrase it till it is not in anymore'.
There are many ways within a hierarchy to get everyone in line without stating it directly. Were there any consequences in Sweden yet?
Aftermath
My personal feelings about what came after the events in Cologne, I am majorly happy with them. Like stated before the Sexual Assault overhaul by the lawmakers were overdue and already in planning before the events. It is good that it gets much attention and women go to the police to file charges. In the beginning they just charged for the robbing and we had just 120 after 5 days, but now they are brave enough to charge the sexual part of the Assaults as well up to 560. Sexual Assaults should be taken more seriously and hopefully this will be a turning point for that.
After Media were reluctant and just described it as 'sexual harassments' they are finally now stating the specifics of the charges like 'Finger penetrated the vagina'. Yes it is uncomfortable to say but it must be done to let people feel the seriousness of what happened.
Public does not condemn refugees as a whole, I find that to be a good point.
Future
I am for a continuation of taking in Refugees, but not without limits and controle. We should be able to enforce controle as, like I stated, we are not obliged to take most of them in. One important thing would be to controle the male influx. Media is often working with the picture of '82 people in a bar and 1 comes in [82Million inhabitants, 1 million refugees)'. I find that a bit shortsighted as according to eurostat 70% of them younger than 30 and 75% of the 14 to 24 year olds are male. So the reality of the picture is: 'in a disco the balanced ratio of 50:50 female/male we currently have is changed to 40%female 60% male'. And that is not healthy for a society.
So much for controle of who gets in and now to Limits. Limit could change according to our goals. Our current goal is 'integration of everyone'. And we reached the Limit for that already. Currently only a third gets into integration programs. I remember already talking about how our students have 1 school year canceled already due to low amount of hired teachers and that for refugees the plan was to get some out of pensions. We cannot raise the dead teachers to integrate more.
We could of course accept more if the goal was just to keep them safe like in UNHCR-camps, that would only be limited by the available space, which is not much as we are basically every fourth american cramped into New Mexico.
I would suggest just leasing a fitting territory from turkey under UN controle (with Blue Helmets for security) so that Syrian teachers can teach Syrian kids and getting paid for it ect., Syrian doctors can pick up their job again as well. For job training of they youth they come to EU to learn jobs that help rebuilding Syria when it is safer. It costs much fewer and uses the abilities of the Syrians they already have so they don't get bored and have the feeling of being imprisoned.
I probably didn't write half of what I had in mind as I forgot a few things while wrinting. If some passages are unclear due to surficial editing or forgetting to write a follow up, just ask.
Thank you for your perspective. Trying to think of how to thoroughly respond. Admittedly, I was put more on edge when reports started surfacing in Frankfurt (not that that diminishes incidents across Germany, but that cued a bit more emotional investment) and it somewhat waned after speaking to my cousins.
When reading the initial reports, and following up with the mistake of reading non-journalistic commentary, it's a little more soothing (?) having native perspectives when being geographically dispersed.