Refugee debate in Germany: It is not that simple

In the light of recent mass sexual assaults in Germany and elsewhere by people of foreign origin, it is unsurprising that German or rather European citizens—especially those that align themselves with right-wing movements that have opposed Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy from the very beginning—demand a halt to said policy. If only it were that simple.

This is a highly sensitive issue, and I cannot imagine what the victims of the assaults must have gone through. Robbery, sexual harassment and rape are crimes that must be brought to justice and, after having suffered such a traumatic experience, those women have every right to be concerned and to question the status quo. However, those criminal offenses are only the result of a much more deeply rooted problem.

It is now confirmed that the molesters are indeed asylum seekers from Northern African and Arabic countries. Nevertheless, one must refrain from linking these incidents to the immigration issue. As German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has emphasized, oversimplification of the matter isn't going to solve this problem and connecting it to the refugee issue simply constitutes a “misuse of the debate“.

The actual dilemma we are facing is far more complex. While Syrians, who make up the majority of all refugees that have fled to Europe, are different from others in that they are more likely to come from upper-class, and thus well-educated backgrounds, it is a whole different story for people from other countries. In Afghanistan, only 42 percent of the male and 23 percent of the female population receive a secondary school education based on Unicef’s most recent data. For Somalia, those numbers are 10 percent and 5 percent, and for Eritrea, it’s 23 percent and 21 percent. Moreover, those countries are still known to be significantly behind on gender equality. Half of female Iranians, Pakistani and Eritreans think wife beating is justified. In Afghanistan, a stunningly 90 percent of women are like-minded.

Bear in mind those data, and now we’re expecting those people, human beings just like you and me, who have grown up in societies where domestic violence is daily fare to immediately adjust to Western norms upon their arrival in Europe? That would be a very naive presumption. Obviously, the easy way out would be to simply deport the “troublemakers.” However, adopting those measures would only numb the pain but not cure it. Those men would return to their home countries and once again fall victim to the system, continue to beat up their wives or even die. A vicious circle that is difficult to escape from.

This supposition is as old as the patriarchy itself and has been part of the scholarly discourse for centuries. In the early 16th century, philosopher Thomas More, author of Utopia, infamously stated: “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” ( 500 years later, More’s observations are still prevailing.

Germany is welcoming refugees who escape war zones, and yet it keeps exporting weapons and armor to the very countries those migrants once called their home. The United States claims to be the world’s greatest advocate of freedom and democracy and yet it has been subsidizing African dictatorships for decades to secure steady access to oil and gas. Of course there are more variables missing from that equation I just briefly sketched out, but at the end of the day, we are all nurturing the system. We are all guilty.

One can legitimately question why Germany committed to taking in the 800,000 refugees that were expected to arrive in the country by the end of 2015 if cities and communities aren't fully prepared for those numbers. Some impute base motives to the German government, claiming the country is aiming to thwart its fast-aging population by taking in young asylum seekers. Others argue we still feel guilty for World War II and have to proof not only to the world but also to ourselves how tolerant and culturally aware we are. Still others applaud us for our apparent altruism and Christian values. Once again, one cannot expect the truth to be either black or white. It has taken on an ambiguous grey tone and it will take some time to determine how light or dark that grey actually turns out to be. In the meantime, I urge everyone to hold off on premature comments and start thinking before opening their mouth.