VOTERS in a state election in eastern Germany have rejected Angela Merkel’s governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party in favor of the Islamophobe Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Not only was her CDU thrown into third place behind the socialists but Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is also the state where Merkel herself holds her seat. There is widespread agreement that the CDU took this electoral pasting because of the Chancellor’s principled stand on refugees. She has allowed over a million, largely Syrians to find shelter in Germany.
CDU party bosses along with members of her Cabinet are already pressing Merkel to review her humanitarian policy. There are even warnings that the chancellor could lose her own seat in next year’s general election which must be held by October at the latest.
Merkel, who has led Germany for eleven years, is an extremely interesting politician. In her early days, she was compared to Britain’s “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, not least because both took a chemistry degree. Born and brought up in communist East Germany, it is arguable that she proved herself a more adroit political maneuverer than Thatcher because Germany voting system produces coalitions which require constant wheeler-dealing to keep minority government members on side. Nor has Merkel suffered from Thatcher’s latter-day megalomania which caused her to force through an unpopular local tax and treat her party members with scant regard, which contributed to her ouster by her MPs.
Merkel has sometimes been called the Iron Chancellor but she has proved herself to be very different from Otto von Bismark, the original holder of the nickname. Bismark had the single principle of uniting Germany under the powerful Prussian monarchy, by whatever inhumane methods necessary to achieve it. Merkel is the antithesis of Bismark. Her welcome for Syrian refugees was an act of the highest humanity that has put to shame virtually every other European country. For sure the German economy needs the skilled professionals and technicians among those fleeing the barbarous Assad dictatorship, but there are also Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans who offer little immediate benefit to Germany, for whom the advantages are at this moment entirely one way.
And this is where the racist policies of AfD can be measured and found so wanting. The migrants to whom Merkel has offered shelter were desperate. Her decision was absolutely right in humanitarian terms. In this respect she towers above fellow European leaders with the exception of Italy’s Matteo Renzi whose country has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of mainly sub-Saharan migrants, trafficked through Libya by unscrupulous smugglers. Germany’s remarkable post-war recovery was based in part upon an influx of Turks who worked in manufacturing, particularly the automotive industry. Nobody complained then about their Muslim faith. Germany’s ethnic Turks are now well-integrated. Some family members have gone back to Turkey where their skills and education have helped fuel its own strong manufacturing growth. The same is surely going to happen with these hundreds of thousands of new migrants Merkel has greeted with open arms.
It seems clear that the generosity and humanity of their chancellor ought to be a cause for considerable pride among Germans, despite the inevitable challenges their arrival poses. The success of the Islamophobic AfD is alarming because it negates the liberal principles on which modern Germany is built and harks back to the dark days of Nazi racial horrors.
