Wine, oven-roasted vegetables and migration

#242

My Dear Friend of Democracy,

We finished this bottle of wine the other day.

He had invited a couple for dinner at our place in Berlin. It was a wonderful evening. He ate oven-baked vegetables, hummus, beetroot salad with pomegranate, emptied a wine bottle – and had inspiring talks.

Heading to the end of the evening, we came to the inevitable topic of migration.

I had commented that some of the migrants have a traditional gender role image. And that this is a problem, especially for women.

There was opposition by the guests at the dinner table.

The two main points were that the problem was not one of male migrants but of men in general and, secondly, that the responsibility for integration lay primarily with established society, not with the new arrivals.

I agreed with both arguments.

And yet, I said, where problems exist, they must be addressed. Otherwise, the field is left to those who use such issues to score political points. And they score points by exaggerating.

We left it at that. We didn't discuss it any further. But I want to go further here. A theory I would like to know your opinion on.

Here we go:

The progressive part of society has such a hard time with the issue of migration because it cannot face the truth on one crucial point. Because if it did, the self-image of the helping Samaritan would be damaged.

What do I mean by that?

There is a simple way to help the poorest, the most persecuted, the most humiliated in the world. All we have to do is allow them to get on a plane. There is no easier, safer, cheaper way to get to us.

But people are not allowed to come by plane. They have to undertake long, arduous, expensive and dangerous journeys until they have the (dwindling) chance of being allowed to cross the border of our countries.

Most of the people cannot do this. Women often cannot. Old people. Children. Because they lack money, knowledge and strength. And that's why it's mostly young men who come.

Why is this so? Why are we so merciless?

I have only one explanation: if we allowed the plane as an escape route, we would have to face the unpleasant truth that we cannot help everyone. We would then have to select very carefully. We would have to turn away the majority at our borders, at departure airports. In many respects, that would not be easy.

But here is the point: This self-admission that we can only accommodate a fraction of those in need would be for the benefit of the poorest of the poor.

The plane would be their rescue.

All we would have to do is face an unpleasant truth - and accept the consequences. The truth would be to admit that the possibilities for help is always limited. The consequence would be that we would have to secure Europe's external borders better.

As I said, we didn't have this debate over dinner. Maybe because I was afraid the evening would end in discord. But maybe I shouldn't be afraid. And discuss the topic. Over dinner. And in many places.

See you in Europe,

Johannes