On November 9, a bitterly cold and overcast day, Berliners were out on the streets in thousands to commemorate a landmark event in the history of the 20th century. It had been 25 years since the Berlin Wall, a brutal and crude symbol of the Cold War, came crashing down, heralding the end of the Soviet Union that, for most of the latter half of the century, had been locked in an existential battle with the West.
The mood was somewhat sombre, tinged with a sense of triumph and pride that Germany had emerged stronger after a peaceful reunification, taking its rightful place as a major power at the high table of international politics. People milled around the vestiges of the Wall, talking of the days when it still stood, and watched documentaries on giant video installations of the chaotic days leading to the moment when East Germans, tired of decades of suffering in a Kafkaesque nightmare, brought it down. But while Berliners and the thousands of tourists who had descended upon the city celebrated, not much attention was paid to the new walls that have been erected around Europe to keep away immigrants and refugees from impoverished, strife-ridden countries in search of a better life.
According to a study by a consortium of European journalists, in the past 14 years, close to 24,000 refugees from outside the European Union (EU) have died trying to reach the continent.
Welfare curbsAt present, immigration is one of the most divisive issues confronting an already bitterly divided Europe. In May, Eurosceptic, far-right parties in France, the U.K. and other nations made big gains after contesting the EU elections on an anti-immigration agenda. They received a boost on November 11, when the European Court of Justice weighed in on the issue, ruling that the EU’s richer countries could limit the access of migrants from other EU states to welfare benefits if they migrate only to claim social aid.
Within days of the judgment, Germany and Britain moved ahead with welfare curbs, with British Prime Minister David Cameron calling the ruling as “common sense” and saying that the “right to go and work in another European country should not be an unqualified right.” Though according to German weekly Der Spiegel , Berlin feels that Mr. Cameron, under pressure from the U.K. Independence Party’s spectacular electoral gains, would cross the red line and push Britain closer to exit from the EU if he continues insisting on a upper limit on the number of migrants from other EU nations, The Financial Times quoted Germany’s Labour Ministry saying: “From now on, incoming EU citizens must, in principle, support themselves [financially].”
In August, two Ministers in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government presented a draft law to curb down on abuse of the country’s welfare system, though there have been very few cases of proven deception by the immigrant population. Ms Merkel’s attempts to strike a delicate balance on the issue have been visibly skewered by large-scale migration to Germany, from both inside and outside the bloc. In 2013, 1,30,000 refugees applied for asylum in Germany, almost a third of total asylum applications in the EU.
“I am not sure if we can let everyone into Europe,” Stefan Bresky, Head of Education and Communication at Berlin’s Deutsches Historiches Museum, told me. “But just building some fences, some new walls, that is not the way. We should discuss this problem with our European partners and there has to be a new dialogue between Africa and Europe. So tearing down walls, it does not stop with the fall of the Berlin Wall.”
Displays of xenophobiaThe continent’s biggest economy, Germany, is in need of a highly-skilled workforce to keep its economy running. According to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, the country may need to fill up to a million jobs in science and technology-related fields by 2020 even as, on account of low birth rate, its workforce continues to dwindle. The Berlin Institute for Population and Development estimates that by 2050 the number of working-age people will decline from 53.3 to 38.6 million, while the number of economically dependent (children and pensioners) will rise exponentially.
Changing demographics, the global recession and increasing pressure on the welfare system has ratcheted up cultural and racial tensions in Germany. In the last week of October, a loose network of neo-Nazis and football hooligans calling themselves Hooligans gegen Salafisten (Hooligans against Salafists) marched through the heart of Cologne, injuring 49 policemen and damaging property and chanting their message loud and clear: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out.” These displays of xenophobia have, however, come not only from the extreme right, which has been condemned to the fringes of the polity since the end of World War II, but also from the AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, whose leaders have been quoted as saying that the German identity is “dying out” because of immigration. In the northern state of Lower Saxony, where the party has representatives in the legislature, it has called for tighter regulations on building mosques.
After last year’s tragedy off the coast of Lampedusa in Italy, in which more than 360 African refugees died after their ship caught fire and sank, there were calls for amendments to the EU’s asylum policies and wider distribution of asylum-seekers among the bloc’s nations. But nothing changed on the ground. In October, Ms Merkel’s government participated in the EU’s crackdown on undocumented migrants from outside the bloc in an operation called ‘Mos Maiorum’ (a Latin phrase referring to unwritten codes of laws and conduct in ancient Rome). Termed inhumane by rights groups, security agencies have been accused of resorting to racial profiling and hassling people. According to a report by Berlin-based anti-racism group Nadir, “Mos Maiorum was a peak in the EU migration politics concerning the effort and number of the operation but not in the general practice of racial profiling. Racist controls are a regular threat to people without papers throughout Europe.”
The economics of a globalised world is compelling European nations to open themselves up to immigrants. In Germany, by 2030, the number of people retiring will be twice the number entering the labour market. In such a scenario, hounding people in search of a life of dignity and xenophobic demagoguery would only prove detrimental to the continent’s future. More than political and economic pragmatism, it is a question of humanity and being true to the principles on which the EU was founded. How ironic will it be if Ms Merkel, who grew up under a communist dictatorship in East Germany, does nothing to bring down this new Iron Curtain around Europe?
sattwick.b@thehindu.co.in
(The writer visited Berlin earlier this month on an invitation of the German government.)
