The flow of refugees into Europe is a source of major problems for European nations. In addition, many of the countries are looking at the issue in different ways and are taking different approaches to dealing with the issue.
Germany is taking the most welcoming attitude and as a result it is also the nation where most of the refugees hope to end up.
Some people have said perhaps it is feelings of guilt Germany has over World War II that is the main reason so many are willing to accept large numbers of refugees. However, it is more likely that their attitude is a result of post-war reflection over totalitarianism and racism.
Not long ago, I traveled to Berlin, visiting the Jewish Museum, a building with a special architectural style where visitors can learn about the history of the Jewish people in Europe, as well as the Holocaust.
In addition, a walk through the streets of Berlin brings constant reminders about the violence of the Nazi government and the Holocaust.
In a park next to the German parliament, the Bundestag, a large wall bears a detailed record of the persecution and killings of Jews and Roma, or gypsies, during the Nazi era. The area also offers a peaceful space with a small pond for contemplation. Furthermore, not far south of the landmark Brandenburg Gate is the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe — also known as the Holocaust Memorial — which was erected in 2005 and covers an area of about two soccer fields. The memorial consists of 2,711 concrete slabs, or stelae, of different heights. The stelae remind visitors of gravestones, and walking through the area stirs up a variety of emotions and thoughts.
As architect Peter Eisenman — the designer of the memorial — said it is intended to force visitors to face the past.
In other words, the urban districts of Berlin, the German capital, is filled with many significant and eye-catching reminders of Nazi brutality and the Holocaust. These are also reminders to all of us that we should think about how we treat those who are different from ourselves. Although the vast majority of people living in Germany have no direct connection to World War II and Nazism, they have all been steeped in a cultural education that has been the result of deep reflection over war and racism that the whole country went through after the war.
Of course, as the strongest European economy, Germany is also the nation that is most able to receive refugees. Following the end of World War II, Germany imported large numbers of workers from Turkey and eastern Europe, who helped rebuild the nation. The workers are called gastarbeiter — guest workers — rather than “foreign laborers” or “migrant laborers.” They have all become the new face of German multiculturalism.
With the help of appropriate arrangements and guidance, refugees might in the future become a new and important social force in Germany.
Chi Chun-chieh is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures at National Dong Hwa University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs