The Stranger in Your Land Syndrome

So a Leipzig University study came out.....they went and interviewed around 2,400 Germans and produced this 328-page document.

What it says its that a majority of Germans....around 56 percent....felt that the time had come to ban additional migration of Muslims into Germany. Note, it was higher in the eastern side of the country than the western.

What's going on?  If you go back 2014....you would find the national public news media and hyped-up and positive over immigration (any and all groups).  By the spring of 2016, that national feeling was rapidly moving to a negative feeling.  Today, I suspect if you limited your data collection to strictly working-class Germans....you'd easily find three-quarters who have serious questions and don't think that the Merkel vision is valid any longer. The intellectual crowd or university folks?  Most, I think, are still pro-asylum. 

So will the study will do much of anything?  No.  I doubt if the national public TV news folks will talk much about it or mention it.  If they did.....they'd be chatting over how to convince people to feel better about migration or asylum.

The issue here is that people have this general feeling of German lifestyles and culture, and they think it's being challenged or modified.  If you live in a rural area....you might think this in a lesser way....but if you live in a highly urbanized area, then you see weekly events to make you wonder about the stranger in a strange land  syndrome (my phrase for this).

Resolving this syndrome?  No.  I think part of the path ahead, where Chancellor Merkel finally retires in 2021....might see some shift and change.  But you have to remember....the Green Party, the Linke Party, and a strong part of the SPD Party....all favor this multiculturalism and open-door policy on migration.  Just because 50-odd percent of the public feels this way....doesn't really mean much in terms of party politics.