From a Berlin street. Photo: rassloff on flickr.com under CC BY 2.0

Hallo! Wie geht’s? 🙂

In März I wrote this post on PEGIDA and the German word Überfremdung (‘over-foreignisation’). Since that time, the topic of immigration in Germany has been making headline news – mostly due to the refugees coming to live in Germany. According to the interior minister, Germany is expected to receive a record number of applications for asylum by the end of the year. The majority of applications come from Syria, with significant numbers also coming from Kosovo, Albania and Serbia. This is causing political unrest across the country, with many people clearly dissatisfied with the current situation; just yesterday Deutsche Welle posted this article entitled “Attacks against Germany’s refugee homes on the rise”.

I have been following the news on this subject for the past few months and have bookmarked several articles on it that I find interesting. Now I’d like to share them with you all to read at your leisure!

German TV show films ‘German only’ bus experiment A West German TV channel filmed an experiment using actors of different ethnicities and religions to test people’s reactions to discrimination. They set up ‘German only’ areas on the bus, and had a fake conductor tell any ‘non-Germans’ to go and sit at the back.

Angela Merkel attacked over crying refugee girl Angela Merkel was criticised recently for her ‘cold’ treatment of a young Palestinian girl facing possible deportation from Germany. Although Merkel was heavily criticised by the media, the girl, Reem Sahwil, has since defended Merkel for her honest response that ‘politics can be hard’. Watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL214wjxI6Q

PEGIDA aims to launch political party
As a reaction to Germany’s ‘growing anti-refugee sentiment’, the aforementioned PEGIDA are planning to take things one step further by launching a political party ahead of the German general elections in 2017.

German nightclub bans refugees
The owner of ‘Amadeus’, a nightclub near Munich, faced criticism after announcing his decision to ban refugees from his club. Stating his reason for the ban, Martin T., the owner, said, “The blacks have a problem with women and the Arabs have a problem with aggression”. He also said he’d never had any trouble at his nightclub until new refugees came to live in the local housing centre for asylum seekers.

Coffins at Reichstag draw attention to EU refugee crisis A protest art group named Center for Political Beauty set up a mass funeral outside German parliament to emphasise the thousands of people who died trying to reach Europe in boats. This was set up in disgust at the EU’s treatment of refugees. Some members dressed as the grim reaper, and carried coffins bearing the German & EU flags. They wanted refugees to be seen as human beings, not another political issue.

The writing on the cross reads GRENZEN TÖTEN, which can either mean ‘borders kill’ or ‘kill borders’. Photo: floffimedia on flickr.com under CC BY-SA 2.0

Berlin allows Muslim woman to work with headscarf
A young Muslim woman won the right to wear her headscarf to work at Berlin Town Hall after being told that she can’t start her traineeship if she wears one, as no one who works at the Town Hall can show any outward signs of religious persuasion. This is due to the Neutralitätsgesetz (neutrality law), which may well come under review in light of the sensitive political situation Germany is currently in – especially regarding PEGIDA and Islamophobia.

What are your thoughts? If you have any other interesting articles to share, leave the links in the comments!

Bis bald!

Constanze x