Weird. Reading the news about the neonazi riots against refugees in a small village in Germany, watching the despair of the refugees trying to cross the border between Greece & Macedonia, the hopeless situation of the refugees in Calais, I should have taken my usual deep dive into anger & weltschmerz.
But this time, I didn’t. And why not? Because…
- a famous german actor not only gets really pissed at some politician who thinks refugees are only here for the 300 euros of “pocket money”, but starts a private initiative with a rapper to house refugees, and donates 100.000s of euros for it
- a christian democratic politician (I never expected coming it from that corner) not only publicly says building a wall around Europe is not a solution, but he himself takes two refugees in his own home
- a local initiative to support the refugees waiting with 100s to get registered publishes a list what they would need, and from that list it becomes clear, the city people have donated everything that could possibly be needed, from food, clothing to toys and diapers. The help from the city people comes in such amounts, it’s actually almost impossible to manage
- even non-leftish papers publish lists and statistics to counter all those underbelly feelings of “worried citizens”
- all the initiatives I see popping up in my newsfeed to support the refugees at Calais
- and how many times by now have I seen the “cookie analogy” popping up in my newsfeed (“there’s 20 cookies. The banker takes 19. There’s one cookie left. The banker tells the worker “watch it, the immigrant will take your cookie”)? Or all the other stuff my fb-friends post from which one thing becomes really clear.
Empathy and solidarity are still going strong.
Yes. The world is burning. And going to hell in a hand basket.
But. Thank goodness it seems not just the weirdo alternative leftish people refuse to “think” with their underbelly, but the mainstream tends to do the same. And it’s not just words. Or signing another petition. It’s frikkin ACTIONs. They might be drops in the ocean, but dang. It’s a lot of them…
(now the frikkin european politicians should finally GET it: a. if you export weapons, you can take up refugees b. the xenophobes might shout (and act…) loud, in this case, the oso quiet voice of the majority tells a different story: refugees ARE welcome)…