New to the EU. Barely unpacked and already feared? Photo: Ryan McGuire (CC0 1.0)

There is no easy way to deal with the vast amounts of asylum seekers coming to Europe. Merkels initial open door policy has given way to growing critisism, from which has sprung a dangerous growth in xenophobic attitudes. Khaled Gazi, a Syrian refugee, gives his take on being politically correct and where it's gotten us...

A post by Khaled Ghazi

These days, we are seeing massive opposition towards asylum seekers throughout the EU, including in Germany. It is time to hear the authentic voices of Europe’s citizens, to hear from them frankly what their concerns are. It is time to stop letting the mainstream media frame the debate.

We need to stop demanding unlimited tolerance towards refugees from Europe’s citizens. Because all too often, this tolerance is fake. We need to let people talk rationally and openly about their thoughts, concerns and ideas, even if these views might be extremes. Because these views are a fact. They will not go away just because they are not spoken about. We need to uncover people’s fears in order to deal with them, to respond to them, and to - ideally - make them go away.

I’ll tell you what worries me: when people are compelled to restrict their speech to being “politically correct”, peaceful speech in public, while at the same time feeling hate, deep down. People who are angels during the day and angry citizens before going to sleep, saying to their partner or friends: “I have no problem with the refugees, I am for the right to seek asylum. I am against PEGIDA, AFD and Neo Nazis. However, these refugees are spending my tax money to fulfil their desires and to pay for their drinks, those ignorant and non-thankful people. We should put an end to Chancellor Merkel’s open door policy and take care of our GERMANY ourselves.”

I find people who speak peacefully in public and restrain their hate speech to private situations much more dangerous than PEGIDA and AfD.

Fake tolerance caused huge problems in France and the UK

What Germany needs, I think, is a good and honest social debate.

We need to put an end to people’s fear of being labeled a racist just for being critical about refugee policy. We need people to be honest about their concerns, otherwise we cannot come up with a sound plan for resolving asylum-related issues.

Fake tolerance has been tried in France and the UK, where it is really causing huge social problems, threatening the civil peace in those countries and providing the perfect breeding ground for islamophobia.

Speaking about refugee issues with no limits or restrictions would allow us to find solutions for a significant problem in the making: rising extremism amongst incoming refugees.

To be clear: As of now, I do not see this being a significant problem. But it could become one.

Integration and honest discoures are the key, not isolation

Already, we are seeing refugees drifting into Islamic radical thinking, generalizing and misjudging everything about European society.

I have experienced first-hand how refugees slip into Islamism, becoming more conservative than they used to be upon their arrival in Germany. There are rooms built for prayers and Islamic lectures held in some of the shelters. Also, I have experienced first-hand violence against people who are not Muslim or who have a “different” point of view…

The reasons for this are manifold. Firstly, people are being isolated from the society into which they should be integrating. As refugees in "Notunterkünften" or refugee shelters, people become dehumanized. They are treated as numbers. At the same time, they have a lot of free time and no activities to fill them. So they restrict their actions to eating and surfing through social media, having the whole day to immerse their thoughts into this closed world. They spend months waiting to be able to submit their asylum application - before being then obliged to wait for a decision.

At the same time, they are expected to integrate into society and to learn German. And rightly so! We would be fooling ourselves by thinking that the Syrian war will be over within the next ten years. I wish it were so, so that I could return, but it won’t be.

To be clear: the majority of refugees want to integrate. They want to contribute and be part of this society. What they experience, however, is society’s fear of them.

But when they really want to contribute they have list of obstacles in their way

• long process to get a work allowance

• limited movement without any options of choosing type or a place for residence

• refugee obliged not to work but rather take the social welfare from the state

I wonder what would happen if a european citizen had to wait for an identity card, legal status or a just for confirmation that he exists. In short, there is a lot of work that lies ahead, to make the most of this situation for both side, and the only way to ensure a positive outcome is through honest and open discussion, where everyone's concerns are heard. It's the only way to make real empathy possible and to stop fake tolerance.

Links**

• Activate Europe. Online only?

• Europe: A New Version is Available