Are we diverse enough yet?

“Interview with a German journalist: ‘Like many other women in Germany, I no longer feel safe,’” Voice of Europe, January 24, 2018:

We interviewed German journalist and model Anabel Schunke. She studied political science and history and is one of Germany’s most well-known criticasters of the country’s migration policy. This interview is part one of two. Anabel is active on Twitter and Facebook

How did the admission of so many migrants change your country?

Germany is no longer the same country compared with before 2015. There’s now only one topic: The migration crisis. Of course this is also connected with the discussion about Islam and its “excesses” that we have been experiencing for years in this country through Muslim migrants and those that will come in the future.

This leads to a fatal consequence: We are no longer talking about topics appropriate for a civilised Western society. For example, I’m watching the news and see a report on China and the latest technical and digital innovations which they want to compete with Silicon Valley, and so on.

Meanwhile, in Germany we are discussing wearing headscarves, banning pork in canteens, and Islamic studies in schools. We are clearly missing out on the connection to the top of the world and let us drag ourselves from the migration of mostly deeply backward Islamic countries into the abyss. This should not be allowed by a country whose resources are education, German diligence, recognition abroad and the technical innovations of companies like Siemens.

For Germany, migration is an absolute “backward business”. It divides the country; it shifts the social discourse of the future into the medieval past. The question is no longer: How do we want to live here as Germans in the future and defend our position in the world, but how can we make it as comfortable as possible for Muslims in the name of tolerance? Not to mention the daily attacks, the increase of violent and sexual offenses.

According to German media there were fewer women on the streets of Hamburg during NYE. Is that an effect of migrant (sex) crimes?

Of course, that is an immediate effect of the massive increase in sexual offenses against German women. You know, after each terrorist attack, a mantra is repeated that we will not let our way of life be taken away from us, that we should not be afraid.

The truth is that the majority of the population does not want to admit that they are afraid and that they don’t do certain things out of fear. The fear of being called a racist is still greater than admitting that you are avoiding these people and certain events.

It’s the same with terror and the massive sexual assaults since 2015 by migrants. You read the news and, especially for us women, the many reports about violent and sexual offenses have a certain influence. More and more women have unpleasant experiences with male migrants. You have to imagine that, according to statistics, of the over 1.5 million migrants 80% are men. During a walk in the city, it doesn’t matter where or when, you will encounter them.

The effects of immigration are now shaping many cityscapes. Almost every woman now experiences how different the looks at them are and the feelings that result from it. It’s like being a piece of cattle.

In addition, there are actual attacks. Of course, there have always been rapes in every country, but the quality and quantity of the attacks have changed completely. It makes no difference to the victim whether she is raped at home by an acquaintance or in public in broad daylight by a migrant stranger, but for society and women’s overall thinking in this country, it has its effects.

There are no more “safe spaces”. It can happen to you anytime, anywhere, even if you celebrate New Year’s Eve in a large group. The risk of becoming a victim of a sexual offense has become too big and many women have simply withdrawn from public space in order to avoid these risky situations….

It is cruel to see how women keep silent and are unnoticed by the majority of society, while much of the media attention disappears as well. It is in a weakened form what happened in many Islamic countries after the revitalization of conservative Islam.

The woman becomes invisible. Cologne was the point at which I became really aware of what this particular kind of immigration means, especially for us women, but also for society as a whole. I mean, apart from sexual assaults on women, there was a situation in which the state totally lost control in Cologne for hours…