A guest contribution by Thilo Schneider
Let’s assume the following, dreamlike vision: There would be a country where you get 40.000,- € per month. Just like that. Just because you are there and can breathe independently. In addition to this nice income, you would also get the cost of housing, free high-tech medical care, heating costs and electrical appliances for daily use. Besides, you would have the right that if you manage to do so, you would be allowed to catch up with your entire family with all the zip and zip. You might even expect to be addressed by the authorities in your language and not have to learn the local language. And that’s not all! If you’re smart about it, you could get that €40,000 a month several times over. The only condition: you must reach this country alive. Kind of.
Hand on heart: would you go for it? Gather up your ID documents, strap on your backpack and start walking? Even if the way could be life-threatening? Would the attraction of this target be big enough for you? If you answer “yes” to this question, then you know why people from Niger and Afghanistan, for example, are making their way to Germany.
In Niger, Afghanistan or Burundi, the average annual income is less than €500. So if you hear in Niger, Afghanistan or Burundi that what you earn in a year with hard work is paid in a month for free in Germany, then it would be quite possible that Germany becomes a dream destination for you.
Of course, no one told you that the same Coke you pay €0.28 for in Kabul, €0.73 in Gitega and €1.20 in Niamey costs €1.49 (for commercial sales) in Berlin, or that the liter of diesel you pay €0.61 for in Kabul, €1.41 in Gitega and €0.99 in Niamey costs €1.85 here.
In Somalia, there is an official minimum wage of €320.15 per month, not counting draconian working hours. There our can of Coke costs 0,53 €, the meal in a good restaurant for two people about 16,- €. The rent in a two-room apartment in a suburb hits on this salary with 53, – €, the additional costs with about 40, – €. Even here 500, – € are lifelong and achievement-free breath premium together with full health insurance protection and “assumption of the rent by the office” at least not uninteresting.
The calculation now goes in such a way that the German income through the citizen’s income is set against the Somali expenditure through consumption. The 200, – €, which our “Angekommener” (ZDF language regulation) transfers home, are there a grasp into the treasure chest, here they are missing to the new citizen at all corners and ends. Unless, see above, he is schizophrenic and here with multiple identities. Then this is also reasonably fun.
The 8,000 seafarers who are now stranded on Lampedusa – I know I’m making an assumption here, I haven’t interviewed a single one – have therefore not made their way to Europe because of the stimulating climate and the good food. Nor have they come to Europe for altruistic reasons to replenish the gene pool or rebuild Ukraine, but presumably with the hope of a fully financed life along with “free” dentures (as Friedrich Merz so unhappily remarked and deliberately misunderstood).
The people, by the way, are the best of the best, which the respective village provided with money and good wishes and sent on their way. Toughest. Those who have traveled a few thousand kilometers on foot, by bicycle, in buses, boats or on animals. And have survived it. They are there now, don’t speak a peep of German or at least English, are functionally illiterate in the majority, but know how to get by literally.
Let’s move on to the prize question: how can we integrate these people? And how excited will they be to share a room with four people in some gym or moldy refugee shelter? What prospects do they have here, other than being shaken down against their will by a gray-haired trulla from the Catholic country women or a DmD, a “dork with a bun”? They imagined the “arrival” just as differently as we did. You remember the “families with children” whose head is a brain surgeon or at least some kind of skilled worker? But even that doesn’t work anymore, with the begging. Meanwhile, the happily arrived are simply thrown off the bus in front of the gyms and then left to their own devices, money is available from the ATM in front, have a nice day, simsalabim.
I wonder what it would be like if those funding the store here emigrated to Somalia, Mali, or Burundi and worked out of their home offices or covered roofs from there. On German revenues and Somali or Malian expenditures. By our standards, a ridiculously low cost of living as a pull factor. How long would that go well and how long would it take for prices there to be brought into line with those in this country?
However, even such an emigration would not be without risk: Africans do not like white Europeans in their home countries very much – to put it nicely.
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Guest posts always reflect the author’s opinion, not mine. I value my readers as adults and want to offer them different points of view so they can form their own opinions.
Thilo Schneider, born 1966, freelance author and cabaret artist on the side, LKR member since 2021, FDP refugee and winner of various poetry slams, lives, loves and suffers near Aschaffenburg. More articles by Thilo Schneider can be found here at www.politticker.de. The following book has been published in the Achgut-Edition: The Dark Side of the Mittelschicht, Achgut-Edition, 224 pages, 22 euros.
Image: ShutterstockMore from Thilo Schneider at reitschuster.de
