Hundreds of women assaulted in German NYE celebrations

[ViolentPanda]

no, i am talking about your ludicrous claim that merkel brought all the refugees to europe. laid on trains for them, did she? you fucking gobshite muppet.

She made a political speech saying that Germany would take as many as a million over the next few years, part of which was represented in the German - and then international - media as "come on in, you huddled millions. The water's fine!".

 

[Pickman's model]

She made a political speech saying that Germany would take as many as a million over the next few years, part of which was represented in the German - and then international - media as "come on in, you huddled millions. The water's fine!".

yes. august 24 2015. when she said they'd take a load of syrian refugees. which is of course after years of refugees drowning in the med.

 

[ViolentPanda]

They tend to get lost among the assorted stalkers and cool kids openly denouncing me as a card carrying fronter . This week . Next week it'll be back to a paid kremlin agent again . But they're the sane ones .

No-one thinks you're a paid agent of the Kremlin.
You do all the name-calling and bullshit-purveying gratis.

 

[ViolentPanda]

yes. august 24 2015. when she said they'd take a load of syrian refugees. which is of course after years of refugees drowning in the med.

Exactly, and after years of pressure from the German public to do more, too.
Some on the right are trying their usual trick of having their cake and eating it.

 

[sihhi]

He's a minister , a senior politician now matter hw much you obfuscate . He also mentioned chat rooms as well as right wing platforms , in a general sense . But of course you deliberately left that bit out . As if people can't read the fucking link themselves .
And it's completely irrelevant anyway . This subject being discussed on right wing platforms plainly isn't anywhere remotely as bad as armies of gang rapists assaulting women in their hundreds all over Germany . Not even remotely . And only a bigger fucking idiot than Henriette Reker would try and say it was .

It is the potential consequences or responses that are being referred to. Many would state that the incorrect response- sealing borders as Holland plans, mass expulsions as Sweden plans - will lead to many tens of thousands of deaths on the borders, or abandoning the duty of asylum which parties agreed to in 1951, further deaths less easy to report on.

It's a straightforward point he was making that and one reflected by Federal minister, Heiko Maas, who didn't feel it necessary to make the comparison with the sexual violence. He still has his job. The Lander local minister you mentioned has been dismissed for how he put across .

Here are Heiko Maas and his appointee the chief of German police.

German minister 'calls for special conference to address rising far-Right violence'

Heiko Maas summoned officials to discuss “a wave of xenophobic and Right-wing extremist violence that threatens the peace of our society” in a letter leaked to Spiegel magazine.
New police figures released on Thursday show attacks on refugee shelters more than quadrupled last year.
There were 924 incidents in 2015, compared to just 199 in 2014. Of those, 163 involved violence, more than six times as many as in 2014, and 76 involved arson, compared to just six in 2014.

“We need swift police investigations and assessments to stop the momentum of far-Right crime,” Holger Münch, head of the federal criminal police told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
“Otherwise, in a worst-case scenario, terrorist structures could form.”
Four suspected neo-Nazis were charged last week with planning a nailbombing at a refugee shelter and attacks against mosques and Muslim preachers. They are to stand trial in Munich.

“There has been as much talk on far-Right internet forums since New Year's Eve as there was after the Paris attacks. They invoke self-defence in order to be socially acceptable.
“We cannot have random Pakistani citizens being beaten up by vigilantes. We cannot allow that.”

As someone in favour of citizen action against sexual harrassment, the point being made about infiltration by nationalists into vigilante bodies in general - seeking to provoke war on heritage lines is a valid one - doesn't mean they shouldn't happen for large events where crowds gather. I believe such groups should be joint non-native immigrant, native and refugee constituted.

I have never called you anything btw.

 

[bimble]

sihhi thanks for posting After the Cologne attacks, refugees must be housed within the wider community | Ghiath Al Jebawi

It's kind of an obvious thing to ask where are all these new arrivals to Germany sleeping, what sort of environment are they living in (is it about a million people who have arrived there over the last year or so ?)

Apparently thousands are now living in hotels, for lack of any other option, but those are relatively lucky; the vast majority (after doing 6 months in the initial 'reception centre') are sleeping for years in places called 'Gemeinschaftsunterkunft' ie. communal accommodation.

Here's some pictures of one of these in Bavaria.



These places are of course segregated by sex, families kept apart from single men.
It's understandable that not everyone has been installed in nice little flats dotted equally throughout the country, or lodging with families, because how could that have been achieved in such a short time etc but it does seem obvious that this is a big part of the problem (criminal gangs wise, and in other ways too, as in how are you supposed to 'integrate' if you live in a bunk bed in a converted office block miles out of town etc)
Types of accommodation - Germany | Asylum Information Database
Unterkunft – muenchner-fluechtlingsrat.de
Germany places refugees in hotels, with cheaper accommodation unavailable as weather turns cold | The Japan Times

 

[bimble]

Have some more pictures of Gemeinschaftsunterkunften in Germany. Don't know how well-adjusted I'd be feeling if i was a very young man living in one of these places, with no privacy at all constantly surrounded only by other men and missing my family etc.

 

[DotCommunist]

britain has some of them to. They keep kids in em as well. Nice little internment camps for people who comitted the crime of fleeing hell

 

[bimble]

britain has some of them to. They keep kids in em as well. Nice little internment camps for people who comitted the crime of fleeing hell

Yep. I understand that there are not a million empty flats in Germany, or a million families happy to take in a lodger or whatever, but you can't stick thousands of young men who have fled from chaos and violence into places like those with nothing to do all day and expect them to be happy well integrated members of your society. Maybe they'll be building factories next door to these places to make the most of the cheap labour but in the meantime of course there will be criminal gangs etc.

Looking at pictures of those dehumanising places - whilst it does not explain it or excuse it - does go quite a long way to helping me get my head around the sexual violence though as well to be honest.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

You're right about criminal gangs surely having a lot to do with what happened on NYE in Cologne, never tried to deny or dismiss that idea at all. If this had been 'just' about mass street robbery / 'steaming' the whole thing would probably be explainable in those terms alone. But it's not, and it's not the theft bit that scares me to be honest its the gratuitous sexual violence bit.

Are you absolutely sure that you want to make the claim that I've highlighted in bold?

Agree completely with the thinking behind your post but.. What on earth use is the word 'criminal' here ? What does it help with?

I'm suggesting that it's a total copout to just call them "criminal' as if that explains anything because the rules about what is criminal are constantly evolving and very place and time specific. I mean, to use 'criminal' as a byword for morally not ok is .. a bit dodgy to say the least and explains nothing about what happened to women on NYE far as I can see.

It's totally criminal in Germany yes of course, and morally repugnant. I'm probably trying to peddle a degree of cultural relativism that people here don't really have a stomach for .

Ok. Never mind. It was just an outburst of criminality. I don't want this to come out wrong but sometimes on this thread I've wondered whether it makes a difference that so few of you are women who have experience of being elsewhere apart from here in cosy liberal modern western cities or whatever.

I don't really understand the question. An act is criminal if it's against the law in the place & time when its done. So for instance in this country up until 1967 a gay man who had sex was a criminal and until 1991 a man who raped his wife was not. calling the perpetrators of NYE criminals is just not very helpful as far as I can see if we're trying to understand what happened and why.

 

[bimble]

Are you absolutely sure about that bit in bold?

I am flattered Bernie!
Yes, I went off on one a bit but that's because I thought you were doing the thing of just saying 'these assaults were criminal offences done by criminals and they should be treated as crimes' which yes they were but that has zero explanatory power as to why they happened.

I've said a few times now that yes you are right street-robbery gangs surely had a big part to play here but that this does not really help me understand the widespread extreme sexual violence.

Also please see above: I feel like I've just learned something anyway, by looking at how thousands of recently arrived young men in Germany are living in bunk beds in converted gyms or disused offices or something, for months and years, with only other men around them.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

If you were in any way honest in your dealings with people here, you would not have made the claim that you never tried tried to dismiss the relevance of criminality when in fact you know perfectly well that you did so repeatedly, as a quick search easily demonstrates.

Presumably you hold the posters here in such contempt that you think you could get away unchallenged with such a barefaced lie.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yep. I understand that there are not a million empty flats in Germany, or a million families happy to take in a lodger or whatever, but you can't stick thousands of young men who have fled from chaos and violence into places like those with nothing to do all day and expect them to be happy well integrated members of your society. Maybe they'll be building factories next door to these places to make the most of the cheap labour but in the meantime of course there will be criminal gangs etc.

Looking at pictures of those dehumanising places - whilst it does not explain it or excuse it - does go quite a long way to helping me get my head around the sexual violence though as well to be honest.

anyone would think you'd never seen a place of work

 

[irf520]

Also please see above: I feel like I've just learned something anyway, by looking at how thousands of recently arrived young men in Germany are living in bunk beds in converted gyms or disused offices or something, for months and years, with only other men around them.

But surely if they are refugees from a war zone those conditions, spartan as they are, are better than what they left behind? At least they're not being shot at or bombed. I don't think that can really serve as mitigation.

 

[Pickman's model]

I am flattered Bernie!
Yes, I went off on one a bit but that's because I thought you were doing the thing of just saying 'these assaults were criminal offences done by criminals and they should be treated as crimes' which yes they were but that has zero explanatory power as to why they happened.

I've said a few times now that yes you are right street-robbery gangs surely had a big part to play here but that this does not really help me understand the widespread extreme sexual violence.

Also please see above: I feel like I've just learned something anyway, by looking at how thousands of recently arrived young men in Germany are living in bunk beds in converted gyms or disused offices or something, for months and years, with only other men around them.

you sound like stan off south park

 

[andysays]

Looking at pictures of those dehumanising places - whilst it does not explain it or excuse it - does go quite a long way to helping me get my head around the sexual violence though as well to be honest.

I've had a few weeks break from this thread, so I've possibly missed some developments in this story as it unfolded, but is there now some actual concrete evidence that some (any) of those taking part in these attacks are actually recent refugees who are likely to have been housed in these places, or is this just another example of someone confusing what they think might be the case with what has been demonstrated to be the truth?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The reason I think stuff like dismissing any discussion of criminality in this context matters is that for reactionary / third position responses to persuade, it's vital for them to close off any sort of analysis along the lines of:

'We actually have more in common with the majority of refugees than we do with anyone who went to Eton, and the genuine issues with a bunch of criminal scumbags who may or may not also be refugees doesn't change that at all'

Similarly, it's vital for them to close off any comparison with existing sexual violence that can't be blamed on a decontextualised 'other' in support of their volkisch dreams.

Hence all the crap people have been getting for perfectly reasonable attempts to make comparisons with Oktoberfest or Gamergate or whatever, to see how similar features of those events are treated differently by propaganda promoting reactionary solutions.

The paired examples technique is a classic method of propaganda analysis and it's perfectly understandable that it infuriates reactionary propagandists when it's used.

 

[mk12]

I've had a few weeks break from this thread, so I've possibly missed some developments in this story as it unfolded, but is there now some actual concrete evidence that some (any) of those taking part in these attacks are actually recent refugees who are likely to have been housed in these places, or is this just another example of someone confusing what they think might be the case with what has been demonstrated to be the truth?

Cologne attackers were of migrant origin - minister - BBC News

The men suspected of attacking women in Cologne on New Year's Eve were "almost exclusively" from a migration background, mainly North African and Arab, an official report says.

Nineteen individuals are currently under investigation by the state police in connection with the attacks, NRW's interior ministry says in a report (in German), none of them German nationals.

Those 19 suspects include 14 men from Morocco and Algeria. Ten of the suspects are asylum seekers, nine of whom arrived in Germany after September 2015.

The other nine are possibly in Germany illegally, the interior ministry says.

 

[mk12]

I know most of those who are challenging Casually Red are more interested in picking holes in his arguments, but could at least one of you clarify what you think should be done about the migration crisis? Tougher border controls? Let more people in? Open borders?

Whether you agree with his views or not, at least he has actually offered a view on what is to be done.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I know most of those who are challenging Casually Red are more interested in picking holes in his arguments, but could at least one of you clarify what you think should be done about the migration crisis? Tougher border controls? Let more people in? Open borders?

Whether you agree with his views or not, at least he has actually offered a view on what is to be done.

What assumptions are we supposed to be making about the state that's presumably supposed to be enacting these measures?

To me that's the tricky part. The refugee flows occur because capital doesn't give a shit about whether a collapsed state is run by gangsters as long as they produce marketable loot and because it doesn't give a shit about ecological damage and other externalities and only marginally gives a shit about maintaining sufficient consumers to buy stuff.

The range of options capital affords to democratic states right now apparently precludes both a serious attempt to stop destabilising the places people are fleeing from, and putting in place some sort of Marshall plan for refugees (and to address the economic context of austerity in which this is happening)

Hence the efforts being made to sell people on lifeboat ethics and third position crap and at all costs to prevent people looking at the refugees thinking, "shit that could be me and my family a decade from now" rather than "look at these nasty foreign rapist scroungers" ...

 

[DotCommunist]

I know most of those who are challenging Casually Red are more interested in picking holes in his arguments, but could at least one of you clarify what you think should be done about the migration crisis? Tougher border controls? Let more people in? Open borders?

Whether you agree with his views or not, at least he has actually offered a view on what is to be done.

every time. Its not a matter of let its about what status the state is willing to assign them cos they are here regardless and will keep coming.


as an aside I was told of a rabbi from RJ tradition on the tele being very scathing about the ideas of 'taking in the women, taking in the children'


'they did that to us' I'm told she said 'took our children at the railway stations. '

 

[butchersapron]

I know most of those who are challenging Casually Red are more interested in picking holes in his arguments, but could at least one of you clarify what you think should be done about the migration crisis? Tougher border controls? Let more people in? Open borders?

Whether you agree with his views or not, at least he has actually offered a view on what is to be done.

If someone you meet on your passive journey from the SWP to labour said to you "all german women are in danger" from refugees, would you try and respond by agreeing that this is true but this is what can change? Would you accept that filth from someone not pretending to be on your side? Or would you try to suggest how and why this person has a particular agenda - one, tied to definite far right views and wider anti-refugee views?

You're in his pot. He's turning the heat up day by day.

 

[andysays]

Cologne attackers were of migrant origin - minister - BBC News

Thanks for that. It may well have been posted before, but as I said I haven't read the whole thread.

As far as I can see, all we have there is that out of 19 people suspected of taking part in NRW, 10 are asylum seekers. No one has yet been proved to have taken part.

Being "from a migration background" is so vague that I'm not sure what it actually means. It could mean people who migrated to Germany a generation ago; it could mean people who were born in Germany to parents who migrated to Germany over a generation ago.

And yet the dominant theme in all of this still seems to be that the NYE attacks are directly linked to refugees and they are proof that Germany and possibly Europe has a "migration crisis", in other words that we should pull down the shutters and abandon the rest of the world to its fate.

It comes as little surprise that a few here have swallowed and are now regurgitating this line, but I'm disappointed that some others seem to have fallen for it and have allowed the debate to be framed in this way, including you it seems.

 

[mk12]

If someone you meet on your passive journey from the SWP to labour said to you "all german women are in danger" from refugees, would you try and respond by agreeing that this is true but this is what can change? Would you accept that filth from someone not pretending to be on your side? Or would you try to suggest how and why this person has a particular agenda - one, tied to definite far right views and wider anti-refugee views?

You're in his pot. He's turning the heat up day by day.

I don't know much about CR or his history on this site. A lot of posters (yourself included) obviously do and are therefore highly critical of his involvement in this debate. Fair enough. I would just like to read some more robust counter-arguments that not only pick holes in the sources he uses (or doesn't use) but that actually offer a proper alternative. I would actually like to read what you think should be done, for example, as I value your opinion.

 

[DotCommunist]

shifting the debate from 'what happened and how to respond'

to

'The Migrant Question'

 

[andysays]

I don't know much about CR or his history on this site. A lot of posters (yourself included) obviously do and are therefore highly critical of his involvement in this debate. Fair enough. I would just like to read some more robust counter-arguments that not only pick holes in the sources he uses (or doesn't use) but that actually offer a proper alternative. I would actually like to read what you think should be done, for example, as I value your opinion.

It seems to me that one of the most urgent things is to challenge the dominant narrative that we in Europe are being threatened by a "migrant crisis" of rapist refugees, and to ask in whose interest it is that line gets pushed

 

[mk12]

Actually, shifting the debate from 'CR has dodgy views' to 'how should 'the left' respond to the events in Cologne on NYE and to the wider migrant crisis'.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't know much about CR or his history on this site. A lot of posters (yourself included) obviously do and are therefore highly critical of his involvement in this debate. Fair enough. I would just like to read some more robust counter-arguments that not only pick holes in the sources he uses (or doesn't use) but that actually offer a proper alternative. I would actually like to read what you think should be done, for example, as I value your opinion.

You don't need me to tell you how to respond to someone saying 'all german women are at risk' from refugees! As a socialist you know how to.

From our past interactions why would you think i called this thread a cesspit and made the posts that i have done, esp the ones about how it's been used and why i don't think it's worth the candle? And don't accuse me of not knowing any working class people

 

[mk12]

You don't need me to tell you how to respond to someone saying 'all german women are at risk' from refugees! As a socialist you know how to.

From our past interactions why would you think i called this thread a cesspit and made the posts that i have done, esp the ones about how it's been used and why i don't think it's worth the candle? An don't accuse me of not knowing any working class people

I'm not so much interested in your response to CR, or bimble, or any of the other posters on this thread. I'm more interested in your (and other posters') responses to the events in Cologne, the media coverup, the police response, and the wider migrant crisis. I also have it on good authority that you have interacted with w/c people once or twice in your life.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not so much interested in your response to CR, or bimble, or any of the other posters on this thread. I'm more interested in your (and other posters') responses to the events in Cologne, the media coverup, the police response, and the wider migrant crisis. I also have it on good authority that you have interacted with w/c people once or twice in your life.

In that case, a thread outlining what happened, interpretations of why, wider context, what responses are available to who and so so on would be better then this joke.