Hospitality has its limits

I am sure you remember this as it was only short while ago. 

On July 15 of this year, a German TV channel screened a discussion entitled "The Good Life in Germany." Chancellor Angela Merkel was shown speaking to a selected forum of teenage students from a high school in Rostock. Reem, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl from a Lebanese refugee camp who arrived in Germany four years ago with her family, challenged Merkel in fluent German. She asked why is it that she cannot enjoy the good life and education like the rest as she had to leave Germany, because she did not have a residence permit. "Politics is hard sometimes," said Merkel, "There are thousands and thousands more in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. And if we say 'you can all come here, you can all come over from Africa,' we can't cope with that." 

The girl breaks down in tears; Merkel remains speechless for a moment and then walks across the floor and tries to comfort her by a friendly pat on her shoulders. That awkward moment when the German chancellor could hardly find a credible balance between her realpolitik and a young person's legitimate claim for better life went viral on social media as #Merkelstreichelt (Merkel strokes) and received millions of comments, mostly critical of the chancellor.

Now, remember another picture: that of drowned three-year-old Aylan Kurdi on a Turkish shore near Bodrum on Sept. 2 of this year. His body was one of the over 3,000 that have been recovered so far from the waters of the Mediterranean. 

And then a few weeks later, the images of the tens of thousands of migrants walking towards Edirne on the E5, trying to reach the Greek border, hoping eventually to reach Germany or Austria. To the reporters who interviewed them on the way...