The emphasis of this current debate in Germany goes to prove the increasing ability of the AFD to set the agenda! This is terrifying! We have come to the point that an SPD chancellor boasts with limiting support to refugees and having increased "repatriations". The CDU/CSU is scared of losing voters to the AFD and now is pushing the current government to satisfy AFD demands.
While it certainly is necessary to discuss how best to control the arrival of new migrants the German need for migration and the opportunities buried in migration has completely disappeared from public debate!
How do we ensure that new arrivals can become responsible and contributing citizens? Who will in the future take the jobs in manufacturing? Who will man the doctoral and care jobs in hospitals? How do we ever want to escape the downward cycle of dying villages in the countryside (less people -> no store -> less people > no post office - less people > no doctor)? Who will clean our streets? What about an immigration law which encourages immigration of urgently needed qualifications? What about increasing the investment in qualification and integration?
So many things to do, but no public debate about it!
The AFD has been successful in shifting public debate and political action from hope and opportunity to hate and doom. We talk about limiting a bedrock of our constitution, the right to asylum, instead of the opportunities available to us through migration.
If I have ever seen a shift of the Overton window, this is it!
Thanks for this very appropriate comment!
The emphasis of this current debate in Germany goes to prove the increasing ability of the AFD to set the agenda! This is terrifying! We have come to the point that an SPD chancellor boasts with limiting support to refugees and having increased "repatriations". The CDU/CSU is scared of losing voters to the AFD and now is pushing the current government to satisfy AFD demands.
While it certainly is necessary to discuss how best to control the arrival of new migrants the German need for migration and the opportunities buried in migration has completely disappeared from public debate!
How do we ensure that new arrivals can become responsible and contributing citizens? Who will in the future take the jobs in manufacturing? Who will man the doctoral and care jobs in hospitals? How do we ever want to escape the downward cycle of dying villages in the countryside (less people -> no store -> less people > no post office - less people > no doctor)? Who will clean our streets? What about an immigration law which encourages immigration of urgently needed qualifications? What about increasing the investment in qualification and integration?
So many things to do, but no public debate about it!
The AFD has been successful in shifting public debate and political action from hope and opportunity to hate and doom. We talk about limiting a bedrock of our constitution, the right to asylum, instead of the opportunities available to us through migration.
If I have ever seen a shift of the Overton window, this is it!
So true! Thank you, Klaus!