GIT WHILE THE GITTIN' IS GOOD:

Europe ships war refugees back home: Germany gets tougher on Afghans, Iraqis, and Kosovars. (Isabelle de Pommereau, 9/21/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Aferdite Hasanaj looks like any of her high school friends. But there's a difference: Every three months for the past 13 years, since her family fled Kosovo on the eve of the Yugoslavia war, she's had to ask permission to remain in Germany.

As a refugee whose asylum claim was rejected, she was subject to expulsion any time. In April, the government told her to go back "home" to Kosovo, squashing her dreams of going to college in Frankfurt.

"I've never been to Kosovo, I can't speak the language, don't know the culture," the 17- year-old said at a recent rally held to protest her expulsion. "The feeling of not having the right to belong fills me with despair."

Across Germany, 220,000 war refugees denied asylum have shared Aferdite's plight. But in a backdrop of public wariness about their perceived drain on the social system and an improved political situation in their countries, the government is speeding their return.

"How can a country expel a child who's been here for 13 years, who is good in school?" says Volker Ludwig of the GRISP Theater in Berlin, which staged a play about the deportation of a family. "Such a practice is unique in Europe, and it's outrageous."

In a few years we may well consider the ones who got out alive to have been lucky.

MORE:
Facing up to Germany's fears: (The Monitor's View, 9/21/05)

Observers worry whether Germany - stuck in an economic funk and struggling with a jobless rate of 11.4 percent - can carry out the difficult economic, labor, and social welfare reforms necessary to get its engine purring again.

This won't be possible unless Germany's political leaders - whichever ones prevail - address the population's fear of significant reform. More than anything, this election registered anxiety about losing the perks of the "social market economy." The new, radical Left Party, made up of ex-communists and disaffected Social Democrats, ran against Mr. Schröder's modest reforms and polled a surprising 8.7 percent. It was his reforms - and the Social Democrats' slew of regional election losses - that prompted this early election in the first place. Meanwhile, Schröder's criticism of Ms. Merkel's party as "radically unsocial" turned many voters away from her more market-oriented platform.

How does one calm fears of shrinking pensions, reduced union bargaining power, or more joblessness?

By creating even greater fear of immigrants.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 20, 2005 6:39 PM