In this summer of our discontent, with shootings and racism, homelessness, shootings and racial insanity, shootings, bad music, the death of Bill Cosby and racial shootings in the United States ... and (im)migrants stealing across borders in Europe, invading, creating encampments of despair, yet boundless hope "over there"-- and Brazil going south --
which way do I turn?
When I care but can't help, or can't care to help (can't be bothered) - because after all, what's the point (When I fall in the forest, does anyone hear me?)? Feeling helpless, without hope myself, I succumb: to inaction, and try to profess an "indifference" ...
While seismic demographic shifts take place, overtaking the landscapes and bludgeoning hegemony; the Banhofs and Autobahns, shorelines and coastlines awash with a tidal surge of humanity ... Families escaping, in flight -- Flüchtlinge ...
Refugees fleeing -- fugindo -- seek refuge. The words hang together, saying similar things ... a melting pot of assimilations, sharing a genesis ... Like "those people" pronouncing or spelling them differently. Borne of the same place, the same etymology, if you will ... We are all of us human.
Having said this, there must be order maintained. There are laws to abide by, as well as etiquette inherent in the guest / host dynamic. Everybody has got to eat, and there must be enough jobs to allow all to do so.
While it's "polite" and "correct" to "welcome" an influx of displaced humanity, and humans, sharing genesis, for the most part want to ... On a practical level, the borders should not, cannot, be simply flung open.
Germany's push to disperse the new arrivals is potentially harrowing -- Could families be torn apart, to meet quotas? -- and schönen München's herzerwärmende open arms display does not seem particularly thought-through. Inspiring, emotional, indeed heartwarming ... Certainly what we, as fellow human beings, aspire to and would want for ourselves in a "do unto others", karmic way.
But despite the country's center stage role, and shining examples of welcome and tolerance -- not to mention the peerless steerage of Angela Merkel, coming from the East herself and no doubt recognizing 1980's scenes of trains and walls and Luftballons ...
It's important to keep a practical head on our shoulders. When the last of the well-intentioned chickens and blueberry pies and high-heeled shoes have been gifted in Willkommen, and a meant-to-be-transitory Zwischenstation for many, devolves into permanent crises in housing, disease, crime or civil unrest ... because in the end, fear of the "other" and hatred, fueled in part by prideful ignorance and an innate desire within any species, human or otherwise, to exist amongst creatures who look and communicate similarly, but not to assimilate ...
will not go away.
Inasmuch, the (im)migrants, refugees, all "those people" seeking asylum and better lives in the West via Germany and other places, aren't the problem. The problem inherently lies in wait, in a societal home opening its doors to guest strangers ...
Then there lurk larger, much darker, non-human issues, unable ever to be solved practically ... With September 11th approaching, and the world well-aware how things changed since '01, it's not inappropriate to point out that any mass influx of humanity to "the West", unfettered by visa regulations, could -- COULD, it's conceivable -- include a bad apple.
Or two. Or 1300 ...
The USA's near total laissez-faire on USE's latest migrant drama (the worst since 1992) -- uncharacteristically not butting in, but remaining fairly silent to see how Europe fares -- is surprising, in this regard. Is a full-bellied Trojan Horse marching westward ... ?
Is "the East", figuratively speaking, 'sending rapists'?
Will Chancellor Merkel, and certainly that idiot from Hungary, be left dumm dastehen, with blood on their hands?
I'd like to think not. Wouldn't want to believe it ... but sadly, it mustn't be discounted, as we do keep the borders, as well as our arms, hearts and, necessarily, eyes flung open.
