Take me to Germany

“Where is Germany? We don’t want to stay in Hungary. We know the economy here. We left Syria for a better place to work and educate our children. We want to join our families in Germany.” Many who are still waiting in a train station in Hungary are saying these things. Many refugees, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Kosovo, fear what their fate will look like in the coming days and months as they wander the border of Hungary, as they left their homes because of the civil war in Syria. The European Union has failed to control the daily wave of refugees entering the continent. Their laws require that once an “illegal” person arrives on their soil, this person must be taken to the nearest U.N. office to be identified. But the influx of refugees has brought the system to a halt.
The refugees say: “No more trucks,” and “No more plastic boats.” A young male college student said: “Even Barbie’s boats are safer than the ones we are provided with. This is a tragedy!”
After the disaster a few weeks ago when 71 migrants’ decomposed bodies were discovered in an abandoned truck near the Hungarian border, refugees fear trucks the same way they would fear gas chambers. Last week, the picture of the Syrian three-year-old Aylan found on a Turkish beach went viral. The Wall Street Journal wrote that “his final journey was supposed to end in sanctuary in Europe; instead it claimed his life and highlighted the plight of desperate people caught in the gravest refugee crisis since World War II.” Since Hungary’s officials have prohibited trains from taking the refugees to Germany, thousands of men and women carrying children on their backs find themselves with no other choice than to walk to Austria, more than 155 miles away. In addition, Hungary has been clear about the country’s attitudes towards immigrants by erecting a razor-wire fence all along its border and Serbia’s. The new laws announced that damaging the fence or crossing it illegally is punishable by up to three years in prison.
Now, talks about refugees and policies are increasing in number in wealthy countries that are considered best suited to intervene and accept the immigrants. “Please don’t come. Why do you have to go from Turkey to Europe? Turkey is a safe country. Stay there. It’s risky to come,” Viktor Mihály Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary said. Many civilians feel invaded with the immigrants crossing borders illegally. They fear for their safety and are unsure about the effects of immigration. Many are preoccupied with how to conserve their original national identity with new immigrants inhabiting their country. Some Eastern European politicians, with the most conservative Christian faiths, have started a blame game of who is responsible to avoid carrying the weight of the problem independently. Orbán believes that the immigrants are not Europe’s problem but Germany’s alone. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, responded by saying: “The Geneva Convention does not apply only to Germany but also to every state,” reminding her colleagues that the international treaty requires countries to take refugees fleeing war.
Not only concerned with the preservation of Europe’s ancient cultures, Orbán said that Europe’s Christian roots are also threatened by the arrival of the vast Muslims. Many Eastern Christian European nations share Orbán’s fear, and continue to be unwelcoming to asylum-seekers. Slovakia, specifically, only accepts refugees of Christian faith. “For a Christian, it shouldn’t matter what race, religion and nationality the person in need represents,” European Council President Donald Tusk said, as a response to Orbán’s earlier comments. Pope Francis, made an international call on Vatican Radio asking his fellow Catholics to act according to the Holy Bible. “The gospel calls us to be close to the smallest and to those who have been abandoned,” the Pope said, and he asks the most efforts from bishops all around Europe especially.
Mark Amstutz, professor of political science at Wheaton College explained that Christians have the duty to love and care about everybody without having a preferences of nationality. He said: “Compassion and love are central to caring for refugees but they are insufficient to provide policy guidance to governmental organizations.”