Angelina: Germany’s open door policy was beautiful... but wrong
ANGELINA Jolie Pitt tore into Western leaders yesterday over their response to the migration crisis, saying they were in danger of promoting the ‘politics of fear’.
Speaking in her capacity as a special envoy to the United Nations refugee agency, the actress criticised Angela Merkel’s open-door policy and warned of a ‘race to the bottom’ in which politicians compete to be the most hard-line on immigration.
She told an audience at the BBC in central London that the German Chancellor’s controversial decision to let in more than a million migrants from the Middle East and North Africa had been a ‘beautiful thing that said something to the world’.
But she suggested the policy should have been introduced in an orderly way and explained better because this would have created ‘less hate’ between many German citizens and the refugees.
She also took aim at Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, saying that it was ‘hard to hear’ such a senior figure calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the US.
Mrs Jolie Pitt reserved particular admiration for a 12-year-old Kent schoolgirl of Polish origin, who asked the actress a question on how to improve the integration of young immigrants. Paulina, who moved to the UK with her family six years ago and now attends the Thomas Aveling School in Rochester, drew a smile from Mrs Jolie Pitt, who said: ‘Well, that is a lovely question. I think I would say that the best thing you can do, especially at your age, is that school is hard regardless with fitting in, so the greatest thing is to be a real friend.’
Mrs Jolie Pitt, who has six children with actor Brad Pitt, suggested a lack of confidence among the Western powers was fuelling a rise in dangerous far-Right sentiment.
She added: ‘It has created the risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost or challenge to their neighbours and despite their international responsibilities.’