Last week my Psychology teacher announced that the coliseum of our school would soon turn into a camp/home for 300 refugees.
As soon as the words left his lips, the students sighed in annoyance and two girls immediately raised their hands. The teacher picked one of the girls and the student said. “So, like, I don’t wanna be racist or something and this really shouldn’t come across as racist but will they steal my stuff like not to be racist but will they rob me?” Yes, she actually said that. I turned around and looked at her, confused as to why she would say something this stupid. Rob her? Steal her things? These people need shelter and this was all she had to say about that? This was her concern? Why the heck would they steal anything from anyone? Because they’re foreigners? But that wasn’t even the worst part.
The worst part was that the other students nodded in approval. Disgusted and disapointed, I left the classroom when the class was over. I went and told my friends about what I had just witnessed, hoping that they would disagree with what the girl said. To my surprise they also agreed with her. “I don’t think that it’s a good thing that Germany is allowing so many refugees to come. They bring crime with them and make Germany unsafe.” “They’re living off our backs.” “Germany already has enough problems and they’ll just be another one.” “Germany doesn’t care about its German homeless people but builds shelters for foreigners.”
One would expect seniors to say this kind of stuff but sixteen and seventeen year olds? Of course I had to straighten this out because apparently they had forgotten that their beloved country needs refugees, emphasis on needs. Currently there are more old than young people living in Germany, which means that Germany needs young people and workers because without them, Germans would have no one to pay their pension. Many Syrian refugees are very educated and Germany will benefit from this on the job market. And this is how Germany’s youth thanks them? By being ignorant? With preconceived notions? These teens with their privileged lives, don’t give a single thought about how much suffering these people had and still have to endure.
We can’t even imagine how it must be to no longer feel safe in your home, living in fear of bombs and terror. We do not know how painful the journey is or how agonising it is not knowing if your family is still alive. We don’t know anything and yet we think that we have the right to insult these people and label them as criminals and thieves.
The audacity…I’ve talked and listened to many Germans and their thoughts on refugees and it seems like nearly everyone is against them and you know why? Because they’ve never been in their shoes and they have no empathy whatsoever for those people. For them, they’re just a bunch of foreigners making Germany unsafe. But they’re not.
They are victims. Survivors. Fighters. It’s sad; when you listen to Merkel’s positive and encouraging speeches about refugees, you would think that her views represent the views of Germany. Unfortunately they don’t. When you ask a German teen whether they support refugees, they will probably say they do or that they don’t really care about it but once they’re among each other, their true colours show and #RefugeesWelcome becomes nothing but another pretty hashtag that they can put in their instagram bios to make them look ‘liberal’ and ‘open minded’. So are refugees really welcome or is this whole thing just another case of white saviorism?
