The Refugee Crisis

|| The Refugee Crisis ||

I have just returned from an interesting tour of Central / East European countries like Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and Poland. I feel it has been a privilege to see these countries at first hand, now that all these countries are facing a major challenge in terms of influx of migrants; it is a ‘Jugosandhikkhon’ (epoch making change) for these countries, if I may say so. 

To find out the mood of the people there about this issue, I thought of raising this point appropriately with the English speaking tour guides in different countries. These people are supposed to be intelligent, knowledgeable and have a solid sense of history. Except one guide, I found all of them not only equal to the task but also brilliant. 

While travelling through the pristine beauty of Salzburg, Hans looked straight at me and said “Do you think the people, who are coming here, would appreciate this culture and try to uphold it? Our next generation is going to pay for it.” There was anger and frustration in his eyes. 

Ita in Berlin was more sarcastic. She said, “The population of Germany is 80 million now, it will be 81 million soon and we shall be supporting them with our tax money.” 

Milan in Bratislava was more circumspect; he said, neither he nor his parents can understand why people are in a hurry to enter Europe and settle down here. He saw a grand plan being hatched by someone somewhere. 

Gregory in Budapest and Carolina in Krakow were also forthright in their views that the mismatch of cultures does not bode well for Europe. 

On the TV in my hotel rooms or in the newspapers, the refugee crisis hogged the headlines. I understood certain language, didn’t understand many, but the emotion in the pictures was not to be missed. I could make out that many parts of Europe are in turmoil and there is no easy solution to the problem of refugees.

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Contributed by: Shankar Mukherjee in WaaS / 01 October 2015