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 jhe90 wrote:

 1hadhq wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Apologies to the Mods if this violates any Forum rules with regard to necromancy or whatever, but I thought I'd boost this thread up, rather than start a new thread, as new developments have happened in Germany.

SPD have agreed new coalition with Merkel

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43276732

So a few questions for German dakka members or any other German politics expert:

1. Is the AfD the official opposition?

2. I don't know how German broadcasting works with regard to political parties, but here in Britain, the opposition get more air time and the right to reply to government initiatives. So again, does that mean the AfD will get more TV time, and hence, more exposure?

1. "official" Opposition ?
Is there more than One flavor?

2. ARD+ZDF guarantee "the correct" view upon things
So we don't Need any competing POV.

3. The Big Crash is on its Way ....

If anything like UK system, Largest opposition is Official, gets a degree of funding and also forms a shadow cabinet to challenge party or parties in power.

all others are Opposition, one is considered the main though,

There's no such thing as official opposition or shadow ministers. Everyone not in the government is the opposition, and the needs of minority governments often end up with parties and MPs shifting between those two groups.

At least here, and I guess it's the same case in Germany, parties get proportional parliamentary time depending on their seats in official control debates, questions in state of the nation addresses and positions in official enquiries or expert groups, but that's about it. Below a certain threshold of seats all parties get lumped together into a Mixed Group to avoid having 10+ groups.

Funding is also proportional (on votes and seats, don't know the exact formula but both count).

Like people before me said, the AfD will be part of the opposition. I think they will get quite some air time, simply because they are the AfD and a) they like to give out shock messages and later track back to get publicity and b) the more left-leaning media like to lambast whatever they do as right-wing populism. Both sides will ensure there will be coverage on them.

The common feeling about the SPD voting for another grand coalition here seems to be that this is another period of Merkel, bought with the death of the SPD, one of the oldest parties in German politics. It seems quite certain that any future positives will be attributed to the CDU as leading party, with the SPD as a hanger-on that can't really profile themselves on anything like they might be able to as an opposition party. I personally also don't see them doing anything grand that would change the public opinion on them. Granted, the FDP was almost beat into inexistence and manage to come back, but much of that might be due to protest votes against CDU/SPD and less because people actually strongly believed in any FDP positions - so, yeah, I think it's safe to say the future of the SPD is very bleak after this decision, unless they deliver some miracle in the next years.


And just a quick reply in regards to those crime stats and the refugee topic:
I've been looking through a few statistics over the last weeks, some articles, some more biased than others, and I'm still not really sure where the truth lies. Which, in itself, is a bit disheartening. For the record, I see myself somewhere center to center-left. However, there were quite a few stories and revelations over the last weeks that really make me think our current government has a more and more visible agenda to suppress any evidence pointing towards fraudulent asylum claims and problems with integration. I've lurked on a German forum with a slightly more right-wing feel than dakkadakka, and people there posted side-by-side comparisons on some German and some Austrian/Swiss newspaper articles about certain crime waves or the latest (attempted) honor killings and stabbings around - to keep it short, even I got the feeling that there's a tendency in the media to sweep backgrounds and nationalities under the rug when another young girl gets stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend and his friends, but an absolute day-long media outrage when there's a hint of right-wing violence in the air. And it creates the feeling that there's a narrative here - the Nazis are an ever-present threat to be kept in mind at all times, but another girl raped and killed by refugees is, of course, an individual case and not part of a larger, statistically significant development.

The most recent story that really ruffled my feathers:

In Essen there is a local volunteer NGO that is called "Tafel" that collects supermarket food that would be thrown away otherwise and distributes it to the hungry poor. Many of these organizations throughout Germany do a terrific job of making sure food is not wasted and the poorest can benefit from it. Now, a few days ago, the Essener Tafel announced that, unfortunately, they would stop taking new non-German applicants (people don't just show up from time to time, they are on organized lists to make food distribution more efficient). Their explanation is that, over the last few months, the number of refugee or migrant benefactors of the Tafel food has risen from somewhere around 20-30% to 75% incredibly fast, so that they are now by far outnumbering the German poor still coming to get their food rations there. Furthermore, there have apparently been a few scuffles, so the Tafel organisators decided to take this step to stop any more (important) non-German applicants so that their long-standing German "customer base" doesn't get completely driven out percentage-wise.

Now, there was a huge media uproar about it. With some articles being closer to the truth than others. What irks me most is that one of the Green party officials immediately tweeted about "The Tafel only serving food to Germans now" and claimed racism and extreme right-wing ideology being the reason for the Tafel's decision. And this is simply a bold lie, the Tafel is keeping its 75% refugee/migrant clientele - they are still giving 75% of their food to migrants and refugees, not NOTHING like her tweet claimed. They just don't want to increase that percentage any further, temporarily. But that's the spin that was immediately put on this Tafel decision, that it's a blunt racist decision to take food supply away from migrants. And bear in mind, this is a volunteer NGO with no obligations to the state. Hell, Merkel herself said she disapproved of this decision.
And that works into what one of my countrymen posted higher up - politicians in ivory towers disapproving of decisions made by volunteer helpers in the field, decision made by people who actually do the fething work of helping the migrants and refugees, seeing them everyday and doing what they can. And when they get overwhelmed and say "We can't do more than this right now, we need to pull the brake here for a second" then the left-wing politicians swoop in from their cushy political jobs and upper-class mansions to claim racism.

Eh, that turned out to be a bit of a rant. Was just supposed to be an example of how the refugee and migrant situation here binds into internal politics and voter decisions. If I got some part of the story wrong, please feel free to correct me, other Germans.

It seems quite certain that any future positives will be attributed to the CDU as leading party, with the SPD as a hanger-on that can't really profile themselves on anything like they might be able to as an opposition party.

The SPD is quite odd in this as they actually don't seem to want their positive contributions to be recognized. Say what you will about Schröder, but the SPD probably saved the German economy with those reforms (and Merkel has been leeching off that success since 2005), but they don't want to have anything to do with it. The CDU will take what they get, though, and make the SPD take the blame if possible. IMO the SPD has the most terrible tacticians of the bigger parties.
(To see where I'm coming from, I lean towards the FDP (for the US people: liberal does not mean the same thing in the German political continuum as in the US, our liberals tend to lean center-right-ish).

As to the Tafel story, I agree, it's ridiculous. If I had been the boss of the Essen Tafel, I would have told them all to go f* themselves and closed the doors or renamed my organization "Food for Grandmas and single moms, others need not apply".

 Witzkatz wrote:

The most recent story that really ruffled my feathers:

...Now, a few days ago, the Essener Tafel announced that, unfortunately, they would stop taking new non-German applicants ... Their explanation is that, over the last few months, the number of refugee or migrant benefactors of the Tafel food has risen from somewhere around 20-30% to 75% incredibly fast, so that they are now by far outnumbering the German poor still coming to get their food rations there. Furthermore, there have apparently been a few scuffles, so the Tafel organisators decided to take this step to stop any more (important) non-German applicants so that their long-standing German "customer base" doesn't get completely driven out percentage-wise.

...What irks me most is that one of the Green party officials immediately tweeted about "The Tafel only serving food to Germans now" and claimed racism and extreme right-wing ideology being the reason for the Tafel's decision. And this is simply a bold lie, the Tafel is keeping its 75% refugee/migrant clientele - they are still giving 75% of their food to migrants and refugees, not NOTHING like her tweet claimed. They just don't want to increase that percentage any further, temporarily. But that's the spin that was immediately put on this Tafel decision, that it's a blunt racist decision to take food supply away from migrants. And bear in mind, this is a volunteer NGO with no obligations to the state.

How is that not treating Germans preferentially to non-Germans? Giving preferential access to a service based on the nationality of someone is the very definition of Xenophobia. It also perfectly fits the way people use the word racism currently, and I would be surprised if it did not breach German equality laws. The fact that they are a volunteer NGO is irrelevant.

The important question is why 75% of the people applying food aid are migrants, who make up about only a few per cent of the total German population, rather than German citizens.

I think the key thing is to understand why this is happening before we rush to blame anyone in particular.

As to the Tafel story, I agree, it's ridiculous. If I had been the boss of the Essen Tafel, I would have told them all to go f* themselves and closed the doors or renamed my organization "Food for Grandmas and single moms, others need not apply".

And they have been sued now by some political fringe party, I think. Which is a bit of a weird way to go about it, because if they get sued, they'll probably have to close shop and then there will be no food distributions at all anymore, neither for Germans nor for refugees.

How is that not treating Germans preferentially to non-Germans?

Of course, it's singling out a group. However, the Essener Tafel is not alone in this, other Tafeln have just used different demographics to cope with a ridiculous amount of demand and little supply. Another Tafel, for example, stopped accepting applications from young, single men - with the argument that especially the elderly are more liable to fall sick when deprived of proper food. Make of that what you will, our charitable food NGOs seem to be at absolute capacity, something that nobody is happy with, but everybody tries to compensate one way or the other.

The important question is why 75% of the people applying food aid are migrants, who make up about only a few per cent of the total German population, rather than German citizens.

I think the key thing is to understand why this is happening before we rush to blame anyone in particular.

It's a very important question for sure, especially since Germany spends at absolute minimum 2000 € per month per refugee, a multiple of that for minors - food shortage should not be an issue with the funds at hand, but it seems to be the case.

A cause of this might be one of the most critical points in recent years regarding to immigration: If a refugee applicant is denied asylum here, they are usually supposed to be sent back to their home country. However, if a refugee then refuses to state his country of origin, he can't be sent home. (And of course they have no passports and official documentation.) As a result, they are officially "tolerated" - their asylum claim denied, but no way to send them anywhere, so they are "kind of" allowed to stay here, but without the support network and financial input that accepted refugees get.

It's one of the weirdest situations I've heard of in the last years. And with no clear way to solve it. If you can't send them home because you don't know where they are from, at least maybe try to integrate and support them better by putting them in the same networks and help institutions as the accepted refugess, I'd say - but that would be, in the end, completely negating the idea of being able to deny an asylum claim on solid arguments, because they would be accepted nevertheless in the end.

Some AfD guys suggested that you might want to put asylum seekers who forgot which country they are from into detention until they remember where they are from, but I guess we can agree that would be a bit of a sledgehammer approach to the problem...

And they have been sued now by some political fringe party, I think.

Yeah, the ADD, which is an Erdogan puppet party.

but without the support network and financial input that accepted refugees get

Nah, they are not allowed to work, but still get housing paid for by the state plus 350ish Euros a month.
As an accepted asylum seeker you are allowed to work and - if you don't get a job - you get about 50 Euros more.

The important question is why 75% of the people applying food aid are migrants, who make up about only a few per cent of the total German population, rather than German citizens.

Particularly older people are ashamed to use that service and many migrants send money home - so every cent you don't spend on food you can send home or blow on stuff. Western Union is currently having a field day.

Some AfD guys suggested that you might want to put asylum seekers who forgot which country they are from into detention until they remember where they are from, but I guess we can agree that would be a bit of a sledgehammer approach to the problem...

That's a bit harsh. I'd give them a broom to keep them occupied with daily payouts. No show no money.

Just a few statements from these Tafel NGOs translated to get a picture of it:

In lower Bavaria, they had days where they had open doors for everyone - and about 80% migrants and refugees came, with just 20% Germans. The local volunteers stated there was a lot of shuffling, shoving and physicality, and they realized less and less Germans are coming on these days. As a result, they are now delivering food especially to elderly Germans on another day, because those guys are not coming into the Tafel anymore.

In Brandenburg, due to the huge number of refugees and migrants coming, the Tafel decided to open for Germans only on two days, and all other days reserved for those migrants and refugees. As a result, the Germans felt singled out and discriminated against.

So, there's shortage of food and of available logistics and aid workers everywhere, but everybody is trying to cope. One way or the other, they run into issues. The Essener Tafel with they temporary stop in taking on refugees and migrants argued that they want to avoid "Social Envy" in literal translation from the native Germans when 80-90% of the food would go to refugees and migrants and so little to them. Make of that what you will.


Overall, the Tafel volunteers "in the field" feel left alone by the politicians in this, with mostly critique coming down from up top. Some Bavarian volunteers basically asked Merkel to come down there and work the counter in one of their places for a week and then re-think her disapproving remarks. (Because, the whole situation begs the question: In a country supposedly as rich and socialist/social-democratic as Germany, why is there even a need for a crapton of volunteer NGOs collecting donations to feed increasing numbers of poor people? What's the state doing, while it's criticizing volunteer aid workers trying to do what they can?)


That our political parties are kind of all over the left-right spectrum these days can be seen when on of the most prominent politicians of "Die Linke", the traditionally most leftist party in current-times Germany apart from fringe parties like the communists, is defending the Tafeln for their decisions while Merkel as a CDU politician, from the traditionally strong center-right conservative party, is bashing them...

I was wondering that myself.

However, since about a million refugees and migrants arrived in a year or two, it's a lot of new people to integrate even for a big, rich country like Germany.

It seems as if the government is happy to make use of vounteers to do various kinds of social tasks, but at the same time to subject them to the kind of regulation and criticism that normally you would only expect to impose on actual staff members.

, it's a lot of new people to integrate even for a big, rich country like Germany.

The issue that many people have is that about 70% of those new people are young men with zero skills that would be applicable in a first world work market. In fact, there are so many young men in there that the age cohort of 14-30 is badly lopsided now, with 10% of it filled by the new refugees/immigrants with hardly any females. It's easy to say " look you guys are 80 million, what's a million more, not even 2%" if you ignore that this will look very different in the very near future. Also, there are currently only 15 million actual taxpayers in the country who have to prop it all up*. Civil servants do pay taxes, but to be fair - that money comes from the 15 million first, it's a booking trick. In any case the social system is, in my opinion, a huge pull factor that leads to people without skills coming here for a free lunch while the people you could integrate well go to the US mostly - they've got themselves to sell for a good price that makes work more appealing than getting the equivalent of food stamps. I'm not a huge fan of Milton Friedman, but he was, in my opinion, correct, when he said: you can have a social state or open borders, not both. (Because you will very rapidly run out of money if more and more people come and at some point the guys paying for it all - and for whom the system was actually created in case they fell into unemployment for a short while, solidarity between workers and such - will ask themselves why they're paying through the nose for the life-long welfare of people who have not and probably won't ever contribute to the system and don't even come from the same cultural background. And that's when it's going to get ugly and as such I'm really wondering why our government is playing so fast and loose with this issue.

*I'm actually an average German taxpayer - I earn pretty much the median income - which means that last year on July 20th was the first day of the year that I worked for money that went into my own pocket. Just saying. (Actually this would be the case if I wasn't married and didn't have an even worse tax class. My personal point was probably somewhere in August. The last time I did some extra work for my company I earned an extra 1750 Euros gross that translated into 715 net, the state took a nice and dandy 60% of the money I earned. Guess what I'm not going to spend any more evenings on. It's not worth it. And that is why I am really not a big fan of the socialist bloat that has taken over during the last 25 years. It kills off the drive to achieve more because you're hardly allowed to savour successes, and I believe that that is what gets socialist countries killed. There's no reason to try to be better - unless you know a guy who knows a guy in the nomenclatura.

@Kilkrazy: Yeah, I've been getting that feeling, too.

And - don't get me wrong, I think it's admirable that quite an amount of money is put into integration efforts for the refugees - there are also some instances of gross mismanagement or overspending which can be a bit disillusioning.


Oh, on the topic of Merkel's quote about the no-go areas - it's a bit ambiguous. I think I found the original quote from her interview. She was asked about what "Zero tolerance" in the context of internal security means to her, and one of her answering sentences can best be translated to "That means that there are no no-go-areas." - Leaving it kind of open if she means these shouldn't start to exist or if she means they exist already and need to be stopped. Not really sure about it from my point of view.

 Witzkatz wrote:

Oh, on the topic of Merkel's quote about the no-go areas - it's a bit ambiguous. I think I found the original quote from her interview. She was asked about what "Zero tolerance" in the context of internal security means to her, and one of her answering sentences can best be translated to "That means that there are no no-go-areas." - Leaving it kind of open if she means these shouldn't start to exist or if she means they exist already and need to be stopped. Not really sure about it from my point of view.

It is ambigious, but she seems to imply that they might exist in relation to crime and such, not the refugee 'wave' of 2015/2016 as some tried to make it seem. Which is the important distinction when the concept of no-go areas is brought up, as its heavily used by right wing politicians to link it to immigrants/Islam, what Merkel wasn't implying.


Also, I found the study but can't properly link it from my phone. The 10% rise in violent crime headline's impact is much reduced when actually looking at the provided statistics over the 20 year observation period. Violent crime seems to have increased around the mid 2000's as well, with no 2015/2016 refugee 'wave'. So I'm falling on the side of yes, certain migrants do contribute to crime, but overall it doesn't seem disproportionate for the majority of them compared to 'Germans'. Only a small part of asylum seekers really drive up the numbers, the ones with nothing to lose and already set for deportation so to speak.

I think it perfectly reasonable to discriminate/direct what demographic your aid goes to. Every charity does it to some degree. If I set up a charity to help out old people with chores, I'm immediately excluding helping out young disabled people with them. That's not automatically bad. It just means that they weren't the target demographic.

Likewise, if I set up a food aid organisation for my locals, I'm under no obligation to suddenly start providing food for a massive surge of foreigners who just show up one year. Sure, it didn't say 'locals only' when I started it; but that's because that massive need for food aid for migrants didn't exist when I set up shop. My intended target demographic was the locals, and whilst I'm happy to help a number of them out; my purpose was to help out the locals when I started up.

Decrying the group for not servicing anyone and everyone is silly beyond measure, and would ruin the charity sector if applied that way. 'What? You're a Jewish charity who goes around to help out families with Alzheimers sufferers? But you only help families registered at your local synagogue? Disgraceful! You have to service ALL families with Alzheimer's sufferers'. etcetc.

Charities can spend their money however they choose, so long as it is in line with their declared mandate. They're not governments.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
For what its worth, trying to find the study I saw this on Reuters, key part:

Violent crime rose by about 10 percent in 2015 and 2016, a study showed. It attributed more than 90 percent of that to young male refugees.

It noted, however, that migrants settling from war-torn countries such as Syria were much less likely to commit violent crimes that those from other places who were unlikely to be given asylum.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-germany-crime/violent-crime-rises-in-germany-and-is-attributed-to-refugees-idUSKBN1ES16J

So maybe we can drop the refugees=crime for now. As it seems mainly driven by asylum seekers versus Syrian/Iraqi refugees from the 2015-2016 wave.

Ah, so 90% of the 10% increase. Go it

So I'm falling on the side of yes, certain migrants do contribute to crime, but overall it doesn't seem disproportionate for the majority of them compared to 'Germans'.

Depends on the home country. There are statistics for this, a dude from Guinea-Bissau in Germany is 48 times more likely a murder suspect than an ethnic German - given that murder is solved in over 90% of cases, this should be relatively accurate. Algerians are apparently really big at theft, harassment and rape (and over 60% of the Algerians living in Germany are "known to the police").

Check these numbers, particularly the last sheet (Tabelle 4) that shows the factors (sorry, this doesn't seem to exist in English, although a guy from the Australian National University did the math).
(Disclaimer: this is a conservative blog).
https://www.tichyseinblick.de/gastbeitrag/wenig-bekannte-fakten-zur-auslaenderkriminalitaet-in-deutschland/
Leben is murder/manslaughter, sexuelle Selbstbestimmung is rape and harassment, Rohheit is assault&battery, then several degrees of theft, the last one is drugs.

I think I need more Japanese friends, these dudes are safe .

Is that taking into account potential differences in the propensity of various nationalities to be reported for crimes though? As an example, if the prevailing perception in a society is that Poles steal bikes, it stands to reason that someone reporting that his bicycle has been stolen by a Pole is more likely to be believed than someone who reports that her bicycle was stolen by a Slovakian, for instance, assuming all else is equal.

XuQishi wrote:

So I'm falling on the side of yes, certain migrants do contribute to crime, but overall it doesn't seem disproportionate for the majority of them compared to 'Germans'.

Depends on the home country. There are statistics for this, a dude from Guinea-Bissau in Germany is 48 times more likely a murder suspect than an ethnic German - given that murder is solved in over 90% of cases, this should be relatively accurate. Algerians are apparently really big at theft, harassment and rape (and over 60% of the Algerians living in Germany are "known to the police").

Check these numbers, particularly the last sheet (Tabelle 4) that shows the factors (sorry, this doesn't seem to exist in English, although a guy from the Australian National University did the math).
(Disclaimer: this is a conservative blog).
https://www.tichyseinblick.de/gastbeitrag/wenig-bekannte-fakten-zur-auslaenderkriminalitaet-in-deutschland/
Leben is murder/manslaughter, sexuelle Selbstbestimmung is rape and harassment, Rohheit is assault&battery, then several degrees of theft, the last one is drugs.

I think I need more Japanese friends, these dudes are safe .

I can read it just fine us Dutchies haven't forgotten our Deutsch , although the article is less interesting than the pure statistics of the BKA and Destatis Statistiches Bundesamt. I already said it depends, but the article's way of presenting statistics involves a bit of handwaving, mainly because the article involves ALL Germans, including your 80 year old grandma who isn't about to murder or rape anytime soon (we all hope). While certain economic migrant groups are almost completely dominated by around 20 year old males, which shifts the perception heavily as it doesn't have the downplaying elements the entire German population has. For example, in 2016, German males between 14 to 25 years old were responsible for half of the German rape and sexual assault numbers, taking out women that age group leaves you with roughly 6% of the German population which translates into a rate of about 0.03%. When I take Syrians in Germany for rape and sexual assault statistics, I get around 0.034% (slightly higher, but not enough to round up). Algerians do seem over-represented, but that might have to do with sample size, which will I get back to later (although their rate is relatively high regardless).

Taking the example of Guinea, German men between 14-25 are responsible for about 1 out of 7 murders or a rate of 0.002%, while those from Guinea do seem to have an incredible percentage of 0.02, which sounds like 10 times the rate of Germans. However, the rate for Guineans is based on just 2 murders on a population of around 7.000 or so, this means to statistically rank below Germans, they would have to murder nobody! Syrians for example are at about 0.004%.

This is why statistics create the wrong impressions, for certain groups you're dealing with a tiny sample compared to a massive and diverse German sample. Like this: Eritreans are much less bloodthirsty than Germans, why? Because only 1 Eritrean was suspected of murder in 2016, against a population of around 60.000, which creates a rate of 0.001%. It doesn't mean anything when its that low, because the next year they could murder no one (a decline of 1 murder), a feat the German population would never be able to accomplish.

In essence, yes certain migrant backgrounds are more prone to crime statistically speaking, but that is looking at statistics in a vacuum, while being statistically negligible for the most part. Now involve things like socio-economics, age, sex etc. and the view gets much more nuanced. Its nowhere near as bad as some media tries to make it out to be, it just seems disproportionate because their populations are represented in Germany disproportionately.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Is that taking into account potential differences in the propensity of various nationalities to be reported for crimes though? As an example, if the prevailing perception in a society is that Poles steal bikes, it stands to reason that someone reporting that his bicycle has been stolen by a Pole is more likely to be believed than someone who reports that her bicycle was stolen by a Slovakian, for instance, assuming all else is equal.

This can come into play as well, as the statistics are about suspects, not convictions on nationality.

I exalted that post, I think this is a fun discussion. I think I'm not on the same side as you, but so far I'm finding this quite respectful, which is sadly something that is often missing when people talk about politics. .

I do agree with your reading, what seems to have changed in the last couple of years is the quality of crimes, though. There are a lot of people know who get knifed in the streets (the last one in the news was a teen who stabbed another teen over a religious dispute), that was very uncommon before outside of gang related crimes. Also, paramedics and firemen were not people that you attack while they're helping you.

I think actually one of the barriers of integration is that our way of doing business does not command respect, it's all very soft and understanding, which the people from the south apparently are not used to and what does not seem to be taken seriously. Basically the judicative and executive look like they're easily duped because on the other hand, we're not prepared to deal with people who don't inherently respect the rules at least somehow.

his can come into play as well, as the statistics are about suspects, not convictions on nationality.

Dunno, all I could find on that topic was police saying that it wasn't a big thing as people don't usually say "oh, the guy who raped or mugged me was a white guy, I'll give him a pass".

But rape is a crime with a notoriously low reporting rate. The unlikeliness of giving someone a pass for rape would be a point if the overwhelming majority of rapes were reported, but they likely aren't.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

In essence, yes certain migrant backgrounds are more prone to crime statistically speaking, but that is looking at statistics in a vacuum, while being statistically negligible for the most part. Now involve things like socio-economics, age, sex etc. and the view gets much more nuanced. Its nowhere near as bad as some media tries to make it out to be, it just seems disproportionate because their populations are represented in Germany disproportionately.

This is broadly correct. I chewed some data once upon a time over sexual offence rates here in the UK from people of alternative nationalities. Statistically speaking, you had a far higher proportion of sexual offences from people of some specific nationalities than other ones. But as is pointed out above; you then have to consider other factors; such as the prevalence of young men within a working immigrant population (as opposed to babies or old people, or women, all of which generally commit far less in the way of such offences). You can't completely encapsulate these statistics in isolation. They can however, be a useful exercise in allowing you to direct further more focused research.

To carry on with the above example, if you can take two immigrant populations from a similar part of the world who are largely young males, and one has twice the number of sexual offences per head of the other one; then you need to search out why that might be. To take an example AlmightyWalrus gave earlier in the thread, it could well be that one grouping is being misidentified as another when reporting is being done. It could be that one population is predominantly made up of wealthier grouping, or of a different religious bent. But you wouldn't be able to tell if these were factors without much further research and testing.

Statistics are dangerous things. Rely on them for mass generalisations about people at your peril.

To carry on with the above example, if you can take two immigrant populations from a similar part of the world who are largely young males, and one has twice the number of sexual offences per head of the other one; then you need to search out why that might be.

I think the two Congo states are interesting there, even more so as the people from the much poorer one are "more harmless".

XuQishi wrote:
I exalted that post, I think this is a fun discussion. I think I'm not on the same side as you, but so far I'm finding this quite respectful, which is sadly something that is often missing when people talk about politics. .

I do agree with your reading, what seems to have changed in the last couple of years is the quality of crimes, though. There are a lot of people know who get knifed in the streets (the last one in the news was a teen who stabbed another teen over a religious dispute), that was very uncommon before outside of gang related crimes. Also, paramedics and firemen were not people that you attack while they're helping you.

I think actually one of the barriers of integration is that our way of doing business does not command respect, it's all very soft and understanding, which the people from the south apparently are not used to and what does not seem to be taken seriously. Basically the judicative and executive look like they're easily duped because on the other hand, we're not prepared to deal with people who don't inherently respect the rules at least somehow.

his can come into play as well, as the statistics are about suspects, not convictions on nationality.

Dunno, all I could find on that topic was police saying that it wasn't a big thing as people don't usually say "oh, the guy who raped or mugged me was a white guy, I'll give him a pass".

Yes, crimes change over the years, some go up and some go down. Its too early to say if that is an indication of a new trend or just something that is 'big' a few years before going down. Changes might also occur due to domestic changes, not necessarily population changes.

As for violence against first responders, that doesn't only happen in Germany, it was on the increase for the latter part of the 2000's in the Netherlands as well, however its platforming currently and no longer increasing, even though we had the European migrant waves of 2015/2016. Does that mean our migrants/refugees are different? If it was on the rise before 2015/2016, how can it be attributed to the new arrivals? There is more to these incidents than pure immigration numbers. The criminal underworld in the Netherlands for example is being taken over/dominated by 3rd and 4th generation immigrants, while it used to be by 'ethnic Dutch' so to speak. Yet their parents or even their grandparents have also been born here, they speak perfect Dutch and are not that distinguishable from the 'Dutch' generation. So integration doesn't have to be the issue, its society and the culture as a whole that might feed certain trends. Sweden gets mentioned a lot in certain circles, but their rates are only going up because the definitions are broadening. Similarly crime in the years 2015/2016 isn't that significantly higher than parts of the 2000's in Germany. Eventually society just reaches a point of diminishing returns, 0 isn't going to be achievable. But when that point gets reached, a sudden population increase of give or take a million will make the number rise and logically be heavily based on the new population.

As for the "white guy" thing, that wasn't necessarily the point. The point was more that it involves suspects, so in one case you could have only 1 viable one, while in another 4 for example. So you would have to know in how many cases with one perpetrator you have 1 white suspect versus 4 migrant ones or vice versa. Statistics on suspects don't account for that as far as I know.

Opinions can differ of course, as its hard to pinpoint the reasons. I view it as a socio-economic side effect mainly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

XuQishi wrote:

To carry on with the above example, if you can take two immigrant populations from a similar part of the world who are largely young males, and one has twice the number of sexual offences per head of the other one; then you need to search out why that might be.

I think the two Congo states are interesting there, even more so as the people from the much poorer one are "more harmless".

Well looking at the German statistics again, both Congo states are pretty close crime wise, although its hard to find population statistics in Germany about them so no good way to explain the slight differences.

 Witzkatz wrote:
Like people before me said, the AfD will be part of the opposition. I think they will get quite some air time, simply because they are the AfD and a) they like to give out shock messages and later track back to get publicity and b) the more left-leaning media like to lambast whatever they do as right-wing populism. Both sides will ensure there will be coverage on them.

The common feeling about the SPD voting for another grand coalition here seems to be that this is another period of Merkel, bought with the death of the SPD, one of the oldest parties in German politics. It seems quite certain that any future positives will be attributed to the CDU as leading party, with the SPD as a hanger-on that can't really profile themselves on anything like they might be able to as an opposition party. I personally also don't see them doing anything grand that would change the public opinion on them. Granted, the FDP was almost beat into inexistence and manage to come back, but much of that might be due to protest votes against CDU/SPD and less because people actually strongly believed in any FDP positions - so, yeah, I think it's safe to say the future of the SPD is very bleak after this decision, unless they deliver some miracle in the next years.


And just a quick reply in regards to those crime stats and the refugee topic:
I've been looking through a few statistics over the last weeks, some articles, some more biased than others, and I'm still not really sure where the truth lies. Which, in itself, is a bit disheartening. For the record, I see myself somewhere center to center-left. However, there were quite a few stories and revelations over the last weeks that really make me think our current government has a more and more visible agenda to suppress any evidence pointing towards fraudulent asylum claims and problems with integration. I've lurked on a German forum with a slightly more right-wing feel than dakkadakka, and people there posted side-by-side comparisons on some German and some Austrian/Swiss newspaper articles about certain crime waves or the latest (attempted) honor killings and stabbings around - to keep it short, even I got the feeling that there's a tendency in the media to sweep backgrounds and nationalities under the rug when another young girl gets stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend and his friends, but an absolute day-long media outrage when there's a hint of right-wing violence in the air. And it creates the feeling that there's a narrative here - the Nazis are an ever-present threat to be kept in mind at all times, but another girl raped and killed by refugees is, of course, an individual case and not part of a larger, statistically significant development.

The most recent story that really ruffled my feathers:

In Essen there is a local volunteer NGO that is called "Tafel" that collects supermarket food that would be thrown away otherwise and distributes it to the hungry poor. Many of these organizations throughout Germany do a terrific job of making sure food is not wasted and the poorest can benefit from it. Now, a few days ago, the Essener Tafel announced that, unfortunately, they would stop taking new non-German applicants (people don't just show up from time to time, they are on organized lists to make food distribution more efficient). Their explanation is that, over the last few months, the number of refugee or migrant benefactors of the Tafel food has risen from somewhere around 20-30% to 75% incredibly fast, so that they are now by far outnumbering the German poor still coming to get their food rations there. Furthermore, there have apparently been a few scuffles, so the Tafel organisators decided to take this step to stop any more (important) non-German applicants so that their long-standing German "customer base" doesn't get completely driven out percentage-wise.

Now, there was a huge media uproar about it. With some articles being closer to the truth than others. What irks me most is that one of the Green party officials immediately tweeted about "The Tafel only serving food to Germans now" and claimed racism and extreme right-wing ideology being the reason for the Tafel's decision. And this is simply a bold lie, the Tafel is keeping its 75% refugee/migrant clientele - they are still giving 75% of their food to migrants and refugees, not NOTHING like her tweet claimed. They just don't want to increase that percentage any further, temporarily. But that's the spin that was immediately put on this Tafel decision, that it's a blunt racist decision to take food supply away from migrants. And bear in mind, this is a volunteer NGO with no obligations to the state. Hell, Merkel herself said she disapproved of this decision.
And that works into what one of my countrymen posted higher up - politicians in ivory towers disapproving of decisions made by volunteer helpers in the field, decision made by people who actually do the fething work of helping the migrants and refugees, seeing them everyday and doing what they can. And when they get overwhelmed and say "We can't do more than this right now, we need to pull the brake here for a second" then the left-wing politicians swoop in from their cushy political jobs and upper-class mansions to claim racism.

Eh, that turned out to be a bit of a rant. Was just supposed to be an example of how the refugee and migrant situation here binds into internal politics and voter decisions. If I got some part of the story wrong, please feel free to correct me, other Germans.

Interesting that Merkel admitted to the mythical "no go" zones a fee days ago.

You didn't read the thread at all, did you Frazzled?

Yeah, I was going to say...I posted a literal translation with context of the alleged statement on this very page of the thread. It's not a cut and dry admission, more something the usual "could mean this, could mean that" poltical wording that is so common these days.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You didn't read the thread at all, did you Frazzled?

I did. Just disagreeing with her intent of the statement.

What are the chances of a far right party coming up there? Need to know in case we have to break the glass on the DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN CASE OF NAZI INVASION zombie Zhukov vault.

 Frazzled wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You didn't read the thread at all, did you Frazzled?

I did. Just disagreeing with her intent of the statement.

What are the chances of a far right party coming up there? Need to know in case we have to break the glass on the DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN CASE OF NAZI INVASION zombie Zhukov vault.

We, comrade?

 Frazzled wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You didn't read the thread at all, did you Frazzled?

I did. Just disagreeing with her intent of the statement.

What are the chances of a far right party coming up there? Need to know in case we have to break the glass on the DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN CASE OF NAZI INVASION zombie Zhukov vault.

Just to be clear, what do you think her intent and concept behind no-go zones was then?

Also the chances of a far right party coming up? Last I checked the party being led by people who consider Holocaust memorials to bring shame upon Germans and who think Germans should be proud of the Wehrmacht got 1/8th of the vote in this election. I would say we already passed the stage of the far right just "coming up".

By coming up I mean realistic chance of taking over.

 Frazzled wrote:
By coming up I mean realistic chance of taking over.

Well never say never of course, but they're a pretty long way off. No party is big enough to rule alone, currently nobody seems really willing to form a coalition government with them if they even get the chance and it remains to be seen if they can even attract enough votes (or even significantly increase their current share) to become the biggest party in Germany with how the AFD is perceived by a lot of Germans.