Migrants on doorstep give writer perspective
HAMBURG, GERMANY— With refreshing frankness, a reporter for Der Spiegel turned the spotlight on himself this week, chronicling his reactions since the authorities announced plans in August to settle 700 refugees in his quiet, familyfriendly community in northern Hamburg.
His conflicting emotions reflect the searing debate that has engulfed Germany since hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived last summer. They also cast a light on the difficulty, even in a wealthy country where democracy and rule of law seem entrenched, of reaching a compromise when absorbing a flood of strangers.
At first, the journalist, Maik Grossekathoefer, thought, “Good idea.” He had little sympathy for neighbours who wept at the prospect of living alongside refugees or planned to sell their homes before prices fell.
But then the bulldozers arrived to flatten the greenhouses where the refugee housing — container-like units two or three storeys high — would go.
Troubled by the din, Grossekathoefer, who had worked in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, said he was unable to shake “dark thoughts.” At that time, thousands of refugees were arriving daily at the Munich train station, greeted with tea and toys by well-wishers.
“The more gripping their speeches about their willingness to help, the more furious I became,” Grossekathoefer, 44, wrote in this week’s Der Spiegel.
It is one thing, he wrote, to deliver old clothes to city hall before returning to a stylish home far from any refugee shelter.
It was quite another “to live right next door to 700 refugees.”
Why, he asked, is it so hard for the do-gooders to understand that this is an unsettling challenge? Why is neither side listening to the other?
Now, he said, he just lives with mood swings. “It could be,” he said, “that everything will be super with the refugees. We’ll play soccer and have street parties.”
But “it could also be that the police are visiting every third day,” he said. “And this possibility preoccupies people who live nearby.”
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, may hope that Europe and Turkey can now curb the flow of refugees. But down on the ground, the complex quest for compromise goes on.