The following interview was published by Deutschlandfunk (German Public Broadcasting), presumably from a radio transcript. Many thanks to JLH for the translation.
Note: The situation on the ground is changing rapidly. After this interview took place Germany was been forced to close the pipeline from Austria to shut off the gusher of “refugees” pouring in.
“Like a Hippie State — Led by Feelings”
September 8, 2015 — British Political Scientist Anthony Glees, interviewed by Tobias Armbrüster for Deutschlandfunk
Armbrüster: “Willkommenskultur” (Welcoming Culture) could be the next German word that gains currency in English usage. At least that is what the British daily The Guardian is writing lately. In fact, there is an astonished observation in many countries at the moment of how the Germans are not only welcoming refugees, but greeting them, providing for them and even inviting them to stay in the country. This does not quite fit with the image of Germany in the rest of the world, that is characterized by arrogance and a fair share of xenophobia. On the telephone right now is Anthony Glees, a political scientist at the University of Buckingham. He has watched British-German relations closely for years. Good morning, Professor Glees.
Glees: Good Morning
Armbrüster: Mr. Glees, when you heard about the shouts of welcome, for example in the Munich main railroad station recently, how much did that surprise you?
Glees: That surprised me very much. Not because I don’t think the German government has any humanitarian feeling, but because Germany — especially during the Greek crisis — has based itself on the laws. And what Mrs. Merkel and the Federal Republic have done in regard to Hungary seemed to be illegal. That was a great puzzle for connoisseurs and friends of Germany in Great Britain.
Armbrüster: How do you solve that riddle? What is your explanation for it?
Glees: I don’t know. I think, it can be, that Germany has historical feelings the British do not have. It may be that there is still in 2015 a memory of what occurred with refugees before the Second World War in 1938/1939. But for us in Great Britain, presently not only battling terrorism, and faced with solving not only the economic, but also the humanitarian immigrant problem, the German attitude seemed casual and not properly thought through — especially so, when the Germans are not following the rules in things European. People may think what they will about the Hungarian government, but the rules are there, and if Germany does not abide by them, then, some say, the Union will fall apart.
Armbrüster: So this view of a Germany that adheres strictly to the rules, is that collapsing?
Glees: Precisely, and that is a great difference — the tectonic plates are shifting, when Germany acts like a hippie-state, which is guided only by feelings. David Cameron expressed my reaction when he said yesterday in the lower House [of Commons] that Great Britain must naturally act from its heart, but it must also act with its mind. And the question in Great Britain is: If Mrs. Merkel is following this policy now — quite different from the policy followed with Greece — how will it all end? Great Britain is militarily involved in the battle — a fight to the death against the so-called Islamic State. Germany, on the other hand, still stays out of such things. But to say, at the same time, to the desperate, poor peoples in Syria and Iraq, please come to the Federal Republic, that seems to many British people to be insane. It will never end!
Armbrüster: So that means that many British are astounded to learn about that, but they do not feel called upon to emulate the Germans and say: Come to us, too?
Glees: No, not emulate. David Cameron said that we will take 40,000 people from the Syrian camps, that is the refugees who are not in Syria, but in Lebanon and Jordan, but we will take no one who is attempting to enter the EU illegally. That is his principle. Because if you do that with some, then you would have to do it with all of them. It would be impossible and the problem would never end, if there were a permanently open door. And there is another consideration for the British. These refugees come to Germany, but after five years they receive ID papers which allow them to travel anywhere in the European Union. As you know, Great Britain is not a member of the Schengen accords. At the moment, they cannot come to Great Britain legally. But in five years, it is possible that millions who have come to Germany will move to France and other EU countries, then to Great Britain. That is the feeling, and it is very dangerous. I would even say that it is undemocratic. To have a sensible humanitarian policy, it is necessary to be able to distinguish between people who want to come to Europe out of desperation, and those who — understandably — are coming for economic reasons. That has to be emphasized.
Armbrüster: Professor Glees, this debate is going on here among us, too — the question of who can stay here and who should be sent back. But let me return to the image of Germany. What is resonating in Great Britain these days, when these pictures from Germany are shown? Is it admiration or, as you have just mentioned, is it fear that the Germans are opening the door and people may come to us, and then to the rest of Europe, and we know nothing of their motives?
Glees: That is the fear: that the character of Europe will be fundamentally changed by the German approach. But also that the Germans will not follow the rules — their own Schengen rules. If it occurs to Germany that special measures should be taken — exceptions made — then Germany will do that, and I think that is a very knotty problem. You could argue — as do some in Great Britain, who I think are wrong — that Great Britain should leave the EU, that the EU is a superstate that wants to control everything. In the refugee crisis, we see just the opposite. No one can control it. There are thousands in Calais trying to come through the Channel tunnel. Giving in to this lawlessness can mean the end of the Union. That would be terrible.
Armbrüster: Angel Merkel has also recently said that what is needed in this situation is German flexibility. Isn’t she coming close to the British there, because they are world champions in political flexibility?
Glees: Pardon me for laughing when you put those two words together — Germans and flexibility. Germans are the people of the constitutional state, who follow laws, and may do that with their hearts, but always with their brains. That is now completely upside down, and many believe that the Germans have misplaced their brains.
Armbrüster: So that means that this approach to things does not make Germans more sympathetic in the eyes of other nations, at least not for you in Great Britain,
Glees: Quite unsympathetic, and I regret that very much. The European Union cannot always allow itself to be managed by France and Germany. That is very important for the new democracies and those on the southern edge of the European Union to see. Either this terrible problem is… Many people in Great Britain have family histories that contain immigrants. The Queen herself, as is known, comes from a German family, My family too has immigrants. This is a terrible problem. But it can only be solved by laws and the agreement of all participants. It cannot be solved by only Germany and France and perhaps Italy.
Armbrüster: These analyses were from Professor Anthony Glees, a political scientist at the University of Buckingham. Thank you, Mr. Glees, for your time this morning.
Glees: My pleasure.
Those are pretty girls holding that sign. Future rape victims, no doubt.
Youthful chics. Not if they are desperate for a ‘husband’ even more messed up than they are – a Muslim fantasy perhaps? Reminds me of those lovely Christan French girls in Southern France where I once lived before the current drive for complete nazification, who married Ali or Mo and headed off for a new life in Lebanon or elsewhere. A few years, months or weeks later they were back in France (if they were lucky) broken physically and mentally. Why now these ladies need just pop down to the local ‘multi-cultural’ obscenity for thrills and spills.
“Hippie State” only explains the mentality of the useful idiots. There’s no mention of the real reason this otherwise insane policy of “invite as many immigrants as possible no matter what” is being followed: some politicians need more proletarians for their revolution. I seriously doubt the people in charge actually have this same naive hippy mentality.
A state full of hippies very quickly turns into communist or some other sort of totalitarianism since the hippie mentality will put anyone who uses thr right buzzwords into absolute power “for the greater good” or “for the children” or to “save the whales”, but the mentality is too irrational to do anything else like solve any other real-world practical problems resulting in the need for a “big brother” to solve them by force.
Mr. Glees had an odd response saying in essence that the fact that the EU can’t control immigration shows the people who say it wants to control everything are wrong.
But this immigration madness reveals that the EU has not lost control but is proceeding effortlessly with its plan to flood Europe. No loss of control is involved.
The sad thing that is that scientists are supposed to exist to explain to us how systems work and make valid predictions based on those models.
So you would hope that someone called a “political scientist” would see their purpose in explaining things like who stands to gain and lose in a situation, who is being manipulated and lied to, etc. For some reason I never seem to see anyone called a “political scientist” explaining any of these things.
I believe it is quite obvious to the ‘thinking’ person that Professor Glees has only scratched the surface of what really ails Germany and Austria and to a lesser extent, the rest of pre-Soviet collapse Europe.
The eastern states of the EU, particularly Poland, have been holding huge demos rebutting the importation of future terrorists and that is in stark contrast to the multi-culti/PC indoctrinated western states of Europe, which are by comparison, committing an act of cultural suicide driven by those they elect into office who are also charged as a requirement of that office to safeguard the citizen from undue harm.
I wonder if those young ladies were asked the question; what do you expect from those who you are welcoming as refugees? What would their responses be? I would wager that not one of them would even entertain the idea that those they welcome are there to subject them, given the opportunity, to the kind of physical and sexual abuse they ever thought possible from a human being, let alone those one drops their guard for to welcome them in. They would not believe anyone who would wish to warn them so.
Gobsmacking stupidity now on open display throughout Western Europe!
It’s worse than stupidity. It’s collective madness, mass insanity, on a scale not seen in Europe since the Middle Ages.
Insane to who? This isn’t foolishness to the new generation, it’s mantra. The post WW-2 curricula sealed their fate. Regardless, Islam in the western neighborhood comes from weak survival instincts and it won’t stop unless the DNA evolves. As for the Europeans that feel trapped by the madness, my only suggestion is to make a migration of your own to a nation with stronger survival instincts and don’t be so feckless with your new host nation.
Jeff E. You maybe right for many, but there are also many who became impervious to the ‘indoctrination’ process because of one reason or another. I would venture that some folk have an inbuilt radar that goes up whenever something is taught them that they know their parents would not approve of. Close families whose parents were/are well aware of the things that are now being ‘taught’ in the post war indoctrination process will always be alert to what their kids tell them and counter that which they know goes against common decency and Christian morality.
I did that with my own kids as I know that other parents have done the same.
So don’t write a whole generation off just because of some displayed insanity – as the Baron puts it. Even in Soviet Russia the ‘education’ system failed to indoctrinate the entire population and while many knew what was going on very few had the courage to advertise their knowledge knowing what the state would do to them.
In most Western countries it is the same scenario today – people are hobbled by the ‘Iron Curtain’ MC/PC fascism that has descended on them and are waiting for it to be lifted so that they can begin to express their outrage at what their ‘governments’ have brought them.
It will eventually come – it’s just a matter of time.
Aye, it’s all true. Remember those old films of thousands of Jews being whisked off to “labor camps” by a hundred or so Nazis? Why didn’t the Jews fight back like they did in the ghetto? The same sort of situation is at hand here, except this time its not done under the banner of nationalism but of compassion. I feel sorrow for these new ignorant young people. Either lay down like lambs or fight like wolves. Seems like a lot of lambs will die before the wolves begin stirring.
Baron, do you have a clue about what Merkel is thinking?
This was the woman who declared multiculturalism to be a “failure” some years ago.
I haven’t a clue. Mrs. Merkel is a “Christian” Democrat, and the new enriched voters will mostly vote for the Social Democrats and other leftist parties. I can’t see the percentage in it for her. But maybe some of our German readers can shed some light on this topic.
just like the dinosours clapping the meteor
A simple solution: let those who welcome “refugees” take them into their own house and feed them. After a few days their attitude towards “refugees” will change.
When one sees the pictures of the hordes of “refugees” flooding into Europe, it is astonishing that easily 85% of them are able-bodied, well-fed, young men. Supposedly in the muslim culture everything is about honour! When the sister of one of those young men speaks to a stranger she has dishonoured him, the family, the whole clan/tribe and must be killed, but it is not against the honour of these same young men to run away like rabbits (no offense meant to rabbits) and not stay to defend their homeland and their clan.
I was a refugee myself and I can tell anyone that there were not many (if any) strapping young men amongst us.
And as far as the 3 young welcoming GERMAN ladies are concerned they might wake up to reality when they will be brutally raped (not that I wish it for them, far from it) by those welcomed “refugees”. These girls’ attitude shows how successful brainwashing and indoctrination by school, university, church and politicians is when started at the age of 3 or 4 yrs old.
I think it is too late for Germany and the whole of Western Europe to recover from these hostile hordes that are now inside their borders.
And unfortunately it seems that neither the US (definitely not under this president) nor Canada want to learn anything from what is happening in Europe. Canada’s PM, Mr. Harper, wants to give resistance but our population seems to be hell-bent to kick him out.
“I think it is too late for Germany and the whole of Western Europe to recover from these hostile hordes that are now inside their borders.” Yes, unfortunately, I must agree. I’t too late. There is simply no way Europe can recover from this as a whole. The future Europe will be a war zone, perhaps resembling Beirut during the civil war there. There will be chaos and mayhem. Maybe the russians will invade some parts as “liberators”. And perhaps there will exist some white “ethnic” city-states or small independent regions in a sea of muslims. One thing is sure, it will not resemble anything like the multi-cultural paradise some idealists think. There will be famine and anarchy as the agricultural system breaks down, the infrastructure collapses and all law and order disappears. Millions will die. Hordes of Europeans will flee the continent, taking the European culture with them, and perhaps pass on to their children a dream of some day returning. But where can they go, and who will take them in? Years of indoctrination, the “march trough the institutions”, and the systematic destruction of European culture and mores has finally payd off. It’s all very unreal to me, like being in some surrealistic movie. Is this really happening? Please tell me it’s just a bad dream.
The ‘If only the Jews had fought back’ is a [deprecated] question now. The European countries are still at the ‘oh stop it! Islam is like any other religion. Give it time and this will all just blow over. You watch too much news and read too much history.’