Lets make the refugee lager to be HISTORY of the past in Germany

The German Lager Mentality is an act of forceful execution and violation of human dignity

„Lets make the refugee lager to be HISTORY of the past in Germany“

The Lager control mentality of the German Asylum system has a long and dubious history with far reaching Consequences of isolation, stigmatization, persecution, exploitation, enslavement and domination of those people classified as either not directly useful or those that are outrightly unwanted.

Lager and control mentality

From the general point of view to the specific, the strategy is to isolate, stigmatise and then persecute the victims. From the various notorious Lagers under the National Socialists through the Lagers for Guest workers, the Lager and control mentality has been a consistent and perverse feature of the German system in dealing with those that are either considered not directly useful or those that are out rightly unwanted. It should be recalled that in the erstwhile DDR, many contract/guest workers were similarly kept in Lagers and even couples amongst them were separated to ensure they did not raise families. The story is told of some women guest workers who were sent home because they were pregnant and refused to abort the pregnancy. The rule was that you were either here to work as demanded by the state or sent out of here to ensure that not even family issues obstructs that requirement. You are either useful for our economy or you’re out. Through all these phases, the Lager and control mentality was sustained. And was it not this control mentality that was evident in the Nazi requirement of foreigners to obtain permission to have children? Interestingly disturbing to note how deep and ingrained the control mentality is in Germany-so little attitudinal changes in the many years that have gone by.

But why is it so?

Good question. It may not have been necessary beyond academic inquiry to re-visit this question now, if many of us are not currently re-living the hash realities and the bitter consequences of this mentality and its attendant system. When the darkest and bloodiest history of this country was forcefully prevailed upon in the mid-forties, the so-called Allied were determined to set up a system different from what they just defeated. But the new system was set up perfectly to accommodate and rehabilitate majority of the dramatis personae in the very regime they just defeated, blurring over all these with the Nuremberg Trials. So, the rehabilitation and continious presence of highly placed people under the National Socialists in basically all fields of endeavour also meant that there was enough room to accommodate some of the policies of the Nazi past in Germany. As the old culprits settled more comfortably into the new political system with their cohorts, the easier it became for them to re-lapse nearer into their old frame of mind. We should remember here that we are talking of the Lager and control mentality. And nowhere in the Western world is this more demonstrated than in Germany.

History records the restriction of movement placed on Jews and other foreigners in 1938 and the consequent fine for violation of such restriction. While world outrage and condemnation have since been rightly heaped on this and the more horrible crimes of the era, since 1982, this obnoxious restriction has been replicated on all asylum seekers in Germany in the form of the so-called Residenzpflicht. That for a refugee to leave his/her immediate District he/she needs a written permission from the Foreigner’s Office - or else a fine or possible jail term awaits him/her, upon police control as a startling reminder of that 1938 restriction. Now, what does it cost Germany (culturally or economically) if refugees or asylum seekers can move freely within the country like normal human beings? NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING!!! But it is the German Lager and control mentality that is at play here. Just to clarify this with one more example. Many studies by independent investigators have shown that it is much cheaper if refugees are accommodated in private housing. And even different governmental sources have acknowledged this. But the authorities baulked at this cost effective measure and rather continue to take pride in maintaining the humiliating Lager system; that defies human dignity and denies refugees privacy. The same is true of food coupons-the “Gutscheine”. It costs the government more than the value of the Gutscheine that is actually paid out. And with all the unwanted attention, humiliation and the problems associated with Gutscheine, one wonders why the authorities insist on using Gutscheine and not cash, which is cheaper, easier andmore dignified. It has to do with the Lager and control mentality-encrusted old habits!!

-We demand for the abolition of lagers.
-We demand deportation stop.
-Abolish the apartheid Residenzpflicht in Germany.

No compromise with a racist state – Join us to fight for a better world - Our struggle is your struggle

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• The declaration of The VOICE Refugee Conference 2010 in Jena: Reinforced resistance against institutionalised racism http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1909
• The VOICE Refugee Forum Network: On Colonial Injustice and the Continuity of Barbarity in Germany
• http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1279
  jw presse zu The VOICE Refugee Conference in Jena
  http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1901

Make Donation to support the Refugee Community in the lagers/camps in Germany! - Break the Isolation! Close all lagers! http://thevoiceforum.org/node/1851