Memory of migrant crisis haunts Europe as first Afghan refugees land

Thursday, 19 August 2021Newsdesk

Even before the first group of 19 Afghan refugees landed in Germany on Wednesday, the line was making the rounds in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party: “2015 mustn’t be repeated.” Armin Laschet, who wants to succeed Merkel as chancellor after next month’s elections, said it Monday. A top party official used the same words shortly thereafter. A government minister repeated them again.

New Delhi, 19 August 2021

As per news report of The Indian Express, The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has sent thousands of panicked Afghans scrambling to flee the country. But it has also panicked European politicians who are terrified of another mass movement of Muslim asylum-seekers. They worry that new migrants will fan the embers of the far-right and populist movements that reshaped politics after a wave of asylum-seekers from the wars in Syria and Iraq made their way to Europe in 2015. Support for anti-immigrant parties has since fallen along with migrant numbers. But with important elections looming in Germany and France, the line being drawn by European leaders is early and firm. Afghans are facing a compassion deficit in Europe that may be insurmountable. That is so even though Afghanistan may present a more pressing moral obligation and responsibility for Europe than other wars, because many of its countries joined the US invasion in a NATO force after the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

Source -indianexpress.com