Kürzlich frägt mich ein italienischer Leser im persönlichen Gespräch: warum berichtet die Deutsche Rundschau nie über deutsche Innenpolitik? Kein Wort über Merkel, die AfD, Seehofer, Gabriel?
Meine Antwort kam spontan: Deutschland ist nicht interessant. Deutschland ist ein Land ohne grosse Probleme. Es hat die Wiedervereinigung geschafft, hat sie wirtschaftlich verkraftet. Sein Flüchtlingsproblem ist temporär: sobald Deutschland gelernt hat, als ein reguläres Einwanderungsland zu funktionieren und zwischen Flüchtlingen und Wirtschaftsmigranten zu unterscheiden, wird ihm die Einwanderung zum Vorteil gereichen.
Mir scheint ziemlich gleichgültig, wer das Land regiert. Deutschlands Regierung wird stets das nationale Selbstverständnis repräsentieren: viereckig – praktisch – zuverlässig. Dass es neuerdings eine ernstzunehmende Rechtspartei gibt, zwingt die Mitte-Parteien, denen es Jahrzehnte lang zu gut ging, sich mehr anzustrengen.
Dieses Deutschland ist ähnlich wie die Schweiz ein für Auslandskorrespondenten schlechtes Land (Ich war eine Zeitlang Korrespondent in der Schweiz), weil es nicht genug gravierende Probleme gibt. Ein Grossteil der von Deutschen empfundenen Probleme sind in Wirklichkeit europäische, die entweder die EU oder die Eurozone betreffen.
Das gilt für die illegale Einwanderung ebenso wie für Putins Drohungen und die Reformträgheit südlicher Mitgliedsländer. Doch diese Probleme manifestieren sich vor allem ausserhalb Deutschlands: Putins Aggressivität in Polen und im Baltikum; die Flüchtlingskrise in Italien und Griechenland; die Reformschwäche in den jeweiligen Ländern. Der politische Islam und der davon abgeleitete Terror betreffen Deutschland ebenso wie andere Länder in Europa und Übersee.
Daher zeigt die Deutsche Rundschau wenig Interesse an deutschen Themen und Befindlichkeiten. Für diese Themen gibt es reichlich andere Medien, für die jedes Abgeordneten-Fehlverhalten, jede Kanzlerinnen-Reise und jede Provinz-Wahl wichtige Ereignisse sind.
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Incubator Refugee Camp
Some 21 million people worldwide are currently displaced outside their country, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR. An unknown but large number of them are located in camps, the largest being Dadaab in Kenya hosting more than 300,000 mostly Somali refugees. Bethlehem's Deheishe camp, administered by the UN agency for Palestinians UNRWA since 1949, is arguably the world’s oldest such camp, still housing 13,000 people – as many as when I first visited it in 1960. The same time worn cinder blocks, the same sad faces.
Like Deheishe, more camps than we would like to know have become permanent homes to generations, three in the case of the Palestinians. Yarmouk, the Palestinian camp in Damascus, developed into a town by itself with over 100,000 inhabitants and played an important role in the Syrian civil war which reduced its population to about 20,000. Worldwide, there is an estimated total of 700 refugees camps. In addition to the 20 million external refugees there are about 38-40 million internally “displaced” people, says the UNHCR.
The Syrian Case
Syrian refugees alone are currently sheltered in 57 camps in Near East and Europe, including transit camps on the Greek islands but excluding those in North Africa. Syria, in 2015, had an estimated population of 23 million. Of these, roughly 4.8 million are currently considered external refugees. Deducting these plus the estimated 450,000 war casualties reduces the remaining population of Syria to 17,7 million which means that 27 percent of all Syrians are currently external refugees.
It can be argued that during the five war years the remaining population in the country continued its natural demographic growth, thereby increasing the percentage of those Syrians still living in Syria. But this argument does not hold because the externally displaced Syrians also continued to grow and, as we will see, at a faster rate than the domestic population.
Population dynamics in refugee camps
It is generally believed that more than 50 percent of Syria’s refugees are living outside camps, especially those in neighboring countries. Still, the 4.8 million currently registered by UNHCR are entitled to assistance where necessary and available. How life in refugee camps changes reproductive behavior shows the case of Syrians in Jordan: “Birth rate soars in Jordan refugee camp as husbands discourage wives from using contraception. While Syrian men are keen to repopulate their homeland, women are facing difficult decisions on family planning”. On average, 70 babies are born per month in the camp and of the 639,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, whether in camps or not, 16,000 women and girls are pregnant, according to UNFPA, the UN’s Population Fund. The crude birth rate (CBR) in Azraq is 40 (meaning the number of live births per 1,000 people per year), compared to 23.5 in Syria in 2012, and 24.5 in Jordan, according to Dr Shible Sahbani, UNFPA’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Jordan.
Similar fertility trends have been observed in other refugee camps. “The fertility of Afghan women in refugee camps appears to be exceptionally high (13.8 in the North West Frontier Province) and at least 700,000 births have occurred in the camps since 1979. Official statistics indicate an average family size for registered Afghans of 6.2 persons, slightly below the maximum allowable figure of 7.”
P. Verwimp and J. Van Bavelof U. Sussex analyzed the reproductive behavior of Rwandan refugees. The authors find:
“that Rwandan Hutu refugees, at all ages, have given birth to more children than non-refugees
that, again amongst Rwandan Hutus, given high excess mortality during their stay in the refugee camps in Eastern Congo, the refugees compensate the loss of children by having more children that differential survival rates indicate
that parents may have been investing more in newborn boys than in girls, possibly in order to insure that at least one son would survive that the women who came to Rwanda for the first time only after the genocide, i.e. the daughters of the old caseload refugees, followed the same fertility strategy as their mothers. Yet, they eventually came to live under less adverse conditions. As a result, they had somewhat higher fecundity and natural fertility.
These findings support old-age security theories of reproductive behavior: refugee women had higher fertility but their children had lower survival chances.”
Generally speaking, it seems that only one group of people shows lower fertility when living in camps: nomads as observed, for instance, in South Sudan.
For sedentary populations, refugee camps offer conditions which totally differ from their customary life style but are not always negative. Advantages of well administered camps are: regular and reliable food supplies, health care, schooling and safety. It is for potential parents often less expensive and easier to raise children in camps than outside. Since the time families spend in camps is wasted, as far as preparations for old age are concerned; when it is impossible to accumulate savings for old age, raising children as human capital is a sensible strategy.
Why refugee camps tend to become permanent
Because of the intrinsically high refugee fertility in combination with the usually high share of fertile age adults and teens among refugees, camp populations tend to grow quickly. Unless external events lead to a closure of the camp – for instance peace permitting refugees to return home – camps will expand rather than shrink. The most notorious case is that of the Palestinians which have their own UN agency taking care of them, the UN Relief and Works Agency. “When UNRWA began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.”
Lessons learned from this and other extreme cases have forced the UN High Commissioner and aid agencies to rethink refugee camps:
"According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, by 1993 the average refugee crisis was lasting for nine years. A decade later, that had risen to 17 years. Long-term refugee life is becoming a new type of humanitarian phenomenon, driven by complex crises such as those in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia. Conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has prompted more than 450,000 citizens to flee to neighbouring countries, even as DRC deals with an influx of refugees from Burundi and Central African Republic. Fighting in Somalia has forced Somalis to seek shelter in Kenya, including in the Dadaab complex.
With generations now growing up as refugees, aid agencies need to provide structures, opportunities and inspiration within the restricted context of the camp. Organisations have to look at programming years down the line, at how to ensure new generations have necessary skills and education to get by outside a camp and, perhaps most crucially for those spending prolonged periods of time in exile, how to maintain hope."
In view of the tendency of the natural growth of refugee camp populations to outstrip the numbers of people leaving the camp, the Kenyan government is trying to close down Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp hosting Somalis and some South Sudanese. Already now, Dadaab is Kenya’s third largest agglomeration after Nairobi and Mombasa. Since Somalis are among the world’s most prolific populations, Kenyans are scared by the prospect of further unbridled growth of the camp population. By treating refugees harshly, the Kenyan administration has apparently started to force Somalis to return to their chaotic, war-torn homeland at a peak rate of 400 a day. At this very high rate it would take over two years to move all Somalis out.
Small countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Greece and Kenya are, in the short term, easily overwhelmed by an influx of refugees. In the long term, however, the high fertility of refugee populations can threaten the very existence of a country. Jordan, successor to the former Transjordania, absorbed a large share of Arab refugees called Palestinians. King Hussein and his son, the current King Abdullah II, who originally ruled over Transjordanian beduin tribes, discovered themselves to have become rulers of a Palestinian majority. This delicate situation – Palestinians show little loyalty to the Beduin monarchy – is now exacerbated by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Syrians threatening to become still another demographic time bomb crowding out the beduins unless peace returns to Syria and the camps are emptied. If the past civil war in Lebanon which lasted fifteen years serves as a benchmark, Syria’s war will continue for years before all stakeholders in the conflict and their militias are exhausted.
Even if peace arrives it may not be possible for refugees to return to Syria: if the Assad regime prevails, returning Sunni refugees will be considered potential “terrorists” risking persecution and death. A similar fate expects young men who dodged military service. Which means millions could be forced to remain outside Syria. The world would, of course, continue calling them and their offspring “refugees” just as the grandchildren and grand-grandchildren of the first Palestinians leaving what became Israel are still considered “refugees” entitled to be served by aid agencies. Still, after the fighting ends in Syria, countries hosting refugees will hurry to close down camps; aid agencies will focus on new humanitarian issues, and many Syrians will be left on their own, seeking a livelihood outside Syria and burdened with many children.
The same holds true of the 300,000 Somalis hosted in Dadaab camp which Kenya tries to "repatriate" with financial support from the United Nations. .If the one million Somalis living as refugees in neighboring countries decided to return to Somalia, they would considerably increase the population still living in the country, estimated at 8 million. However, many if not most of the refugees would not dare to return because of the continuing presence of the Islamist radical militias they fled from. If Dadaab is closed down, many would refuse to be repatriated and prefer to vanish in Kenya or flee to neighboring Ethiopia which already hosts a quarter million Somalis.
To sum up: hosting refugees in camps over an extended period may not be a good idea: by encouraging procreation, large families could result that might not be sustainable under less favorable conditions, without humanitarian support.
Heinrich von Loesch
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Georgetown University is a private university in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher education in the United States. It is located in Washington's historic Georgetown neighborhood.
The descendants of slaves sold by Georgetown University are calling on the school to create a billion-dollar “Reconciliation Fund,” after the school apologized for its role in the slave trade and promised several (much cheaper) efforts to make up for it.
photo: commons - wikimedia
In 1838, Georgetown sold off 272 slaves in order to pay its debts, selling them for $115,000 (over $3 million in today’s money). In recent years, the school has faced demands from activists who want it to atone for its actions almost 180 years ago.
A week ago, following the release of a report on the matter, Georgetown president John DeGioia announced Georgetown would offer a special admissions preference for any descendants of the 272 slaves the school sold. He also promised to build an on-campus memorial and renamed two buildings, one after a slave sold by the school and another after a woman who founded a local school for black girls.
The school’s decision to confront the more sordid parts of its past won praise from some quarters, though several black writerscriticized the move as hopelessly insufficient.
“We appreciate the gestures of a proposed memorial to our enslaved ancestors on Georgetown’s campus and President John DeGioia’s visits with some descendants, but recommendations developed without the meaningful participation of descendants can only be seen as preliminary,” descendant Sandra Green Thomas said in a Thursday statement.
Thomas and other descendants have a much bolder vision than just extracting an apology from Georgetown. They want to set up a billion-dollar, national foundation that would be a leader in “the issue of truth and reconciliation.”
Advocates say the foundation isn’t a matter of reparations, because the foundation would ideally benefit the whole country.
“Our vision is not about reparations,” said Joseph Stewart, another advocate for the descendants. “It’s not about getting anything that just benefits descendants. It’s about having an opportunity to have a common good.” Despite the bold plans, it’s not entirely clear what the huge foundation would actually do.
The descendants say they’ve managed to raise $115,000 (matching the un-inflated original sales price of the slaves), but they need Georgetown’s money and backing to make the ten-figure foundation a reality.
While Georgetown is a wealthy university, a foundation of that size would be a massive commitment. As of 2015, the school’s endowment was $1.5 billion, substantially smaller than comparable top 25 schools such as Notre Dame, Duke University, and second-tier Ivies such as Brown University.
Both Georgetown and the Maryland province of the Jesuit religious order, which operates the school, have responded with cautious statements that say they are open to working with the descendants but don’t offer any specific support to the planned foundation.
Se il sommerso vale in totale il 13 per cento del Pil italiano, in agricoltura il lavoro irregolare supera il 18 per cento. A trarne altissimi profitti è il sistema del caporalato. Che va contrastato non solo per ragioni etiche, ma perché l’integrazione è presupposto per lo sviluppo del territorio.
Photo: www.manfredonianews.it
Forza lavoro in larga parte extracomunitaria
La manodopera straniera offre notevoli opportunità, ancora oggi sottovalutate. Tuttavia, l’immigrato non integrato nella società alimenta fatalmente il sommerso e catalizza il lavoro nero. Secondo l’Istat, l’economia sommersa frutta ben 206 miliardi di euro, il 13 per cento del Pil: dato preoccupante se si considera anche il mancato contributo al pagamento dei servizi pubblici. In agricoltura, il numero totale di occupati è in larga parte costituito da extracomunitari. In aumento in tutta Italia, nel settore la presenza di stranieri è raddoppiata in soli dieci anni, e non vi è zona della penisola in cui si sia registrata una flessione.
Grafico 1 – Lavoratori Stranieri in Agricoltura in Italia
Fonte: Inea 2013
Il lavoro degli immigrati in agricoltura è dunque economicamente rilevante. Ma quasi il 18 per cento di loro è irregolare – il dato più alto di tutti i settori. Ciò principalmente perché le imprese agricole, che già beneficiano di leggi semplificate, hanno necessità di un incremento in manodopera per poche settimane l’anno e quindi ricorrono a lavoratori stagionali, spesso stranieri e irregolari. Lavoro nero significa sfruttamento, violazione di diritti fondamentali, danno per l’erario e linfa per la criminalità che gestisce il sommerso.
L’economia del caporalato
Alcuni dati aiutano a inquadrare il fenomeno degli stranieri irregolari in agricoltura. In Puglia e Calabria, per esempio, permangono realtà di braccianti immigrati sottopagati: agli extracomunitari irregolari si applica il pagamento “a cottimo”, che li spinge ad accettare paghe fino a 3 euro l’ora, per dodici-sedici ore di lavoro al giorno. Una situazione non solo eticamente inaccettabile, ma economicamente inefficiente: da un lato non si premia la qualità del lavoro, dall’altro si frena l’integrazione, volano di sviluppo economico.
Al centro di tutto c’è il fenomeno del caporalato, un “sistema di reclutamento della manodopera attuato nel Meridione a opera dei caporali”, secondo la definizione dei dizionari – ed è preoccupante il legame fra caporalato e Meridione. Un esempio significativo: nel ghetto di Rignano Scalo, a circa 20 chilometri da Foggia, si stima che durante l’estate siano presenti 2mila-2.500 braccianti africani. Lo strumento su cui si fonda il caporalato è il trasporto sul luogo di lavoro, in assenza di un sistema di trasporto pubblico o privato alternativo: per usufruirne l’immigrato deve accettare di trasferire al caporale 5 euro del suo già misero guadagno giornaliero. In media, dunque, il ricavo giornaliero del lavoratore è di soli 18 euro netti
Facciamo l’esempio di una superficie di circa 27mila ettari coltivata a pomodoro: nel 2014, la produzione territoriale complessiva è stata di circa 9 milioni di cassoni da tre quintali (quelli utilizzati per il trasporto del pomodoro). Ogni lavoratore migrante raccoglie mediamente un cassone all’ora, con un dato medio giornaliero di dieci cassoni, il che equivale a circa 900mila giornate lavorative. Il periodo di raccolta del pomodoro dura sostanzialmente due mesi (giugno-luglio) e per ogni giornata di raccolta abbiamo almeno 10-15 mila lavoratori, quasi esclusivamente migranti, in parte non regolari.
Il caporale prende da 1 a 2 euro a cassone, a seconda del livello di produttività del campo, per una mole di illeciti legati alla sola raccolta fra i 9 e i 18 milioni di euro. Se aggiungiamo che per 60 giorni (900mila giornate) il caporale riscuote 5 euro per ogni viaggio verso il luogo di lavoro, totalizziamo altri 9 milioni di euro. In più, i caporali gestiscono il ghetto e riscuotono circa 200 euro al mese a testa per l’alloggio: per la sola Rignano si stimano altri 500mila euro. I caporali speculano anche sul pasto che forniscono, con circa 2-3 euro di rincaro medio: considerando circa 15mila migranti al giorno per 60 giorni di lavoro significa altri 2,7 milioni di euro. Inoltre il caporale può lucrare sulla ricarica elettrica di ogni telefono cellulare (circa 3 euro a ricarica): con una stima media di una ricarica ogni due giorni, si desume un ulteriore ricavo di un milione di euro.
Dalla semplice somma matematica si ricava che la quantità di denaro che ruota attorno al caporalato nel periodo della raccolta del pomodoro oscilla fra i 21 e i 30 milioni di euro. Dunque sui 27-36 milioni di euro di ricavo dalla raccolta, circa 6-7 milioni di euro sono intercettati dai braccianti, mentre oltre l’80 per cento alimenta l’economia sommersa, è profitto per il sistema del caporalato.
L’attenzione politica per contrastare il caporalato è forte, ma molto ancora resta da fare: l’integrazione è presupposto fondamentale per lo sviluppo del nostro territorio e la presa di coscienza dell’entità del fenomeno è il primo passo.
Sechs Uhr früh. Leichter Dunst liegt über dem Rollfeld, als Dieter M. genannt Abu Fadhil al-Almany und sein Begleiter Adnan al-Sahroui die Maschine startklar machen. In der Nacht hatten ihre Leute das “Gespäck”, wie sie es nennen, verstaut: ein grosses rundes Teil, das die Kabine fast ausfüllt und schwerer scheint als es aussieht. Auch jetzt ist der Airport noch unbewacht; vielleicht schläft der Nachtwächter oder ist betrunken, so genau weiss man das nicht hier in Prizren.
Die Männer haben auf den Pilotensitzen Platz genommen: der blonde Abu Fadhil, dem man seine deutsche Herkunft ansieht und der deswegen für den Pilotenschein ausgewählt wurde, und der Nordafrikaner Adnan. Bevor der Terminal von dem Lärm erwacht, ist die kleine Maschine schon zur Runway gerollt und hebt ab. Im Bogen geht es über die albanischen Berge und den Südzipfel von Montenegro hinaus aufs Meer. Keine Störung, die Maschine ist durch die Maschen der Luftüberwachung Albaniens und Montenegros geschlüpft. “Al hamdullillah” entspannt sich Abu Fadhil. “Wir haben es fast geschafft. In einer halben Stunde sind wir über Rom. Wir werden sie auslöschen, die Kuffar, drei Millionen von ihnen! Ein paar Jahrhunderte lang wird niemand mehr im Vatikan leben können!” “Und wir werden im Paradies sein”, meint Adnan,”ich freue mich auf die Houris. So lange Zeit schon fehlt mir eine Frau!”
Am Gargano vorbei schwenkend überfliegt Abu Fadhil jetzt das italienische Festland in westlicher Richtung, direkt auf Rom zu. Wieder keine Störung durch die Luftüberwachung. “Sie haben heute ihren Militärfeiertag in Rom. Die Luftwaffe fliegt Paradeformationen. Im Tower schauen alle Fernsehen und haben deshalb keine Zeit für Luftüberwachung. Schon sind wir über Rom – siehst Du über dem Smog das runde Dach? Das ist der Petersdom. Der Tempel der Kreuzfahrer. Mach Dich fertig, in dreissig Sekunden ziehst Du die Zündung und wir gehen ins Paradies ein, inshallah!”
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Abu Fadhil und seinen Kollege Adnan gibt es nicht. Ihren Flug auch nicht. Es gibt auch keinen Flughafen Prizren im Kosovo. Aber es könnte sie geben: islamistische Fanatiker, die sich in Ländern wie Kosovo frei bewegen können, die eine schmutzige Bombe bauen und über Europa abwerfen könnten: eine Sprengbombe umhüllt mit radioaktivem Material, in der Luft über einer Stadt gezündet und einen ganzen Landstrich radioaktiv verseuchend. Was das bedeutet, weiss man seit Tschernobyl und Fukushima. Ein Grund, Aufrufe des Zivilschutzes und zur Bevorratung für Notfälle nicht für überflüssigen Alarmismus zu halten. Europas Frieden könnte weniger sicher sein als man geneigt ist, zu glauben.
