Saturday, November 21, 2015

The Thing About Fairness and Unfairness

If you follow Channel One (ARD) or Channel Two (ZDF) news (our public-run package in Germany), there's been this reporting angle going on for several months on refugees and status.

If you are an asylum seeker, immigrant, or refugee.....trying to get a visa or permission to stay in Germany....it helps to be mostly Syrian or to a lesser degree Iraqi or Afghan.  Beyond that, if you are from Eritrea....it helps to some degree.  But then you come to forty-odd countries where you just don't get much status or statistical help in passing.

In other words.....you walk for weeks and weeks to reach the promised land, and sit in some refugee camp for six to eight months.....to discover that because you aren't from land X.....you didn't get permission to stay....but someone else did get permission.  Anger, frustration and resentment follow.

I noticed last night on ARD....a short piece which hinted that the Balkans countries (Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Serbia) have put up fences and limiting who passes through.  Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis pass.....everyone else is refused.  It was an angry crowd standing there.

There are various people who watched the crowds surge through in July, August and September....got all hyped up in their original country and left in October to find themselves now at the border of some country and refused access to continue the 'walk'.

If you follow the weekly reporting of various sites in Germany.....there are increasing numbers of fistfights that occur between Syrians and other nationalities.....over perceived favored treatment.  Syrians stay in the camps or centers for a shorter time, and other nationalities stay for a much longer time.  It doesn't take an idiot to figure out the gimmick.

As they stand there at some border point and get denied....you just can't see anything positive coming out of this confrontational period.  At some point, these groups denied the chance to continue their hike to Germany.....will go and attack the Syrian groups.  The news media will jump in....hype the attacks and assign some type of blame out for the out-of-control situation.

The thing about criticism over this thing....is that there were no rules at the beginning of this episode and everyone mostly grinned as things were hyped up positive for months and months.....then discovered that it's a rather unfair world.   Sadly, you can't make this stuff up.

No comments: