{"id":3694,"date":"2016-01-21T08:47:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T14:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=3694"},"modified":"2016-01-21T09:31:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T15:31:00","slug":"collective-fear-in-germany-keeping-blinders-firmly-affixed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/01\/collective-fear-in-germany-keeping-blinders-firmly-affixed.html","title":{"rendered":"“Collective fear” in Germany? Keeping blinders firmly affixed!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

from Wikipedia: \"PEGIDA DRESDEN DEMO 12 Jan 2015 115723941\" by Kalispera Dell - http:\/\/www.panoramio.com\/photo\/115723941. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons - https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:PEGIDA_DRESDEN_DEMO_12_Jan_2015_115723941.jpg#\/media\/File:PEGIDA_DRESDEN_DEMO_12_Jan_2015_115723941.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

The Silversternacht attacks.<\/p>\n

Groping in swimming pools<\/a>\u00a0and at a \u201cwelcome party\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now an account in Die Welt<\/a>, a respectable (non-tabloid) German paper, by an utterly disillusioned worker in a refugee shelter in Germany. \u00a0Here\u2019s a translation into English<\/a> (yes, this is Pamela Geller\u2019s site, but the translation is legit if a bit clumsy). \u00a0She reports (a few sentences out of a much longer piece):<\/p>\n

They come to me and demand that I immediately give them an apartment and a fancy car and most also want me to procure them a really good job, and I am supposed to say yes. . . .\u00a0To an originally Arab colleague of mine they have at times yelled \u201cWe will behead you!\u201d. . . .\u00a0There was, for example, a resident who came with his deportation notice and wanted to know what would happen now. I explained it to him and he then went. Soon after he came to my colleague and suddenly showed completely new identity documents with a different name and said he was the man with the different name. . . .\u00a0And part of them do not respect us women. They do not take us seriously at all. If I tell them something or want to give them a statement, then they hardly listen to me. They immediately dismiss us as unimportant and then call for a male colleague. For us women, they often only give us contemptuous or even intrusive glances. . . .\u00a0Of the officials I expect no great help. Neither in this case nor in the other problems that exist with us, neither from the Interior Ministry nor the local Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. If you call these offices they often no longer answer the phone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, it\u2019s good that this is all being openly discussed, right? \u00a0Ceasing to sweep it under the rug is the first step towards finding a solution.<\/p>\n

But according to Deutsche Welle<\/a>, this is all irrational, a \u201ccollective fear\u201d sweeping the nation due to a \u201cmob mentality\u201d based on the insights of social pyschologists which the site reports uncritically. \u00a0Germans, supposedly,\u00a0are simply tapping into their racist roots in their opposition to the new migrant arrivals.<\/p>\n

Rolf van Dick, head of Goethe University\u2019s social psychology department, is quoted: \u00a0\u201cSexual attacks happen every year at the Oktoberfest, but you won\u2019t read about them in the paper, because this is a positive environment.\u201d \u00a0Uh, no \u2014 I have never heard any claims that coordinated mob-style attacks occur at Oktoberfest, and if there truly are more than minor cases over the two weeks, then isn\u2019t it more appropriate to bring them to light, too, than to use them to minimize the concern over the Silvesternacht attacks?<\/p>\n

And, more appallingly DW says, not as a quote but stated as a fact:<\/p>\n

The peculiar aspect of the current situation is that the collective fear in question is vicarious. Nobody \u2013 apart from the men and women victimized on New Year\u2019s Eve \u2013 has any rational reason to fear migrants as a result of the attacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Really?<\/p>\n

This statement \u2014 if it is true of more than one author and an editor who let it pass \u2014 is appalling. \u00a0Either it\u2019s meant to claim that, surely, the attacks on New Year\u2019s Eve came out of nowhere and vanished into nowhere and will never happen again, or that these women somehow deserved what they got but no one else is at risk if they\u00a0behave more properly. \u00a0Which is horrible either way.<\/p>\n

(Picture: \u00a0Germans behaving irrationally \u2013 that is, at a PEGIDA demonstration. \u00a0from Wikipedia:
\n\u201cPEGIDA DRESDEN DEMO 12 Jan 2015 115723941\u201d by Kalispera Dell \u2013 http:\/\/www.panoramio.com\/photo\/115723941. Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Commons \u2013 https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:PEGIDA_DRESDEN_DEMO_12_Jan_2015_115723941.jpg#\/media\/File:PEGIDA_DRESDEN_DEMO_12_Jan_2015_115723941.jpg)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Silversternacht attacks. Groping in swimming pools\u00a0and at a \u201cwelcome party\u201d. Now an account in Die Welt, a respectable (non-tabloid) German paper, by an utterly disillusioned worker in a refugee shelter in Germany. \u00a0Here\u2019s a translation into English (yes, this is Pamela Geller\u2019s site, but the translation is legit if a bit clumsy). \u00a0She reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":3695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,263,264],"class_list":["post-3694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-germany","tag-immigrants","tag-migrants"],"yoast_head":"\n"Collective fear" in Germany? Keeping blinders firmly affixed!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Silversternacht attacks. 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