Justice for Armin Laschet!

Armin Laschet, the Union’s candidate for chancellor, is a welcoming culture par excellence. He may be a sleeper-car campaigner, often messing up and not setting any issues. But in those dramatic years of 2015 and 2016, when more than a million people, mostly from Syria, came to Germany either via the Mediterranean Sea or on foot via Turkey and the Balkans to seek protection here, Laschet stood firmly by Angela Merkel’s side .

He did not waver or hesitate, but supported the Chancellor in her decision to keep Germany’s borders open for people in need. To this day, Laschet is of the opinion that Merkel acted correctly back then.

Even with the current drama in Afghanistan, Laschet’s demands sound as reasonable as they are humane. Now is the “hour of rescue”, he says and promotes an airlift through which “as many local staff as possible” should be flown out. In addition to local workers and German citizens, many other threatened people, in particular women – mayors, students, employees of NGOs, would have to be rescued and found refuge in Germany. That must be done “quickly and unbureaucratically”.

Laschet relies on “on-site help”

However, Laschet also says, mistakes that were made in 2015 should be avoided this time. What that means? Here, too, Laschet is specific: the European Union and the international community must ensure that the refugees in neighboring countries are cared for much more decisively than they did then. Laschet relies on “local help” both through financial means and through the delivery of goods and infrastructure support.

Most of the refugees from Afghanistan live in Pakistan (around 1.4 million) and Iran (780,000 people). The road to Europe is too long and arduous for most of them, and many borders are closed. The likelihood that there will be refugee movements similar to those in 2015 is very low.

Nevertheless, this is exactly what many Germans fear. Almost two thirds worry about a situation like six years ago. This was the result of a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey on behalf of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. According to this, even 38.8 percent of the Greens voters fear that many refugees will come to Germany again.

The AfD is in the starting blocks

One can assume that Laschet can assess the mood in the population. His remark that the mistakes of 2015 should not be repeated was probably aimed at calming the minds, especially since the AfD is in the starting blocks to make political capital out of people’s fears.

It is all the more astonishing what reactions Laschet has triggered with his sentence among political opponents and in parts of the media – including in the Tagesspiegel. Ralf Stegner of the SPD writes on Twitter that this is a “political and moral declaration of bankruptcy that will prepare the ground for the next anti-foreigner election campaign of the right-wing extremist AfD” – and he adds: “Ugh!”

In “Die Zeit” it says: “2015 must not be repeated, which translates as: ‘You can’t get in with us.’ This should be the central message of the Christian Democratic candidate for chancellor at the moment of complete failure in foreign policy. ”

Heartless and cynical?

The commentator of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” says: “Anyone who says that 2015 cannot be repeated, says: We can only afford this humanity once.” The commentator on “Spiegel-Online” interprets the sentence in a similar way: “, 2015 may Don’t repeat yourself ‘, you understand that, even if you only speak German moderately well. It simply means: We wish you had never come. “That is” heartless and cynical “.

There is a lot to criticize about Laschet and his election campaign. The accusation that he is making deals with xenophobes and refugee opponents is not one of them.