If I walked those streets while calmly smoking a cigarette and not recording, I doubt someone would have thrown a glass bottle at me. Recording is what triggered most of the interactions. If no video, just a stroll in an ugly city center. So, not the same reality/outcome. It’s incredible how easy things are when one is not an ***hole to others.
If you didn’t notice, Mr. Youtuber broke at least two laws in Germany: i) not getting consent to record people, ii) not helping someone he clearly described as overdosing. The fun thing here is that possession of small quantities of crack is not a crime in Germany, part of those harm reduction policies for drug addicts. What is not legal is the consumption of drugs in public areas such as the streets of city center nearby the train station. It would be interesting to learn who who has more troubles with the law in Germany, Mr. Youtube or addicts consuming in public spaces.
If you jump from your seat to moralize about drug addicts…take it easy, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Youtuber has more problems than drug addicts because privacy laws in Germany. I guess the next chapter in this story is someone from Germany reporting the video. Video is removed from the easy-access internet. Mr. Youtuber complains about freedom of expression dead in Europe. Cross-cultural understanding does not happen. Mr. Youtuber bitches about being cancelled, fails completely at understanding Germany all while moralizing about life in Germany.
Well, I’m just aping previous similar threads on EF back in the day. It’s all down to perception. If you don’t like furriners (self-irony notwithstanding) then you will be screeching about ‘influxes’ and ‘invasions’. If you are bothered by anything from incorrect recycling disposal to drug running on a station platform then you’ll be hyper-ventilating about crime on every corner.
I’ve seen ‘dodgy’ and lived/worked in some rough areas around the world, and didn’t really get the impression that it was particularly down to migrants. Johnny Furriner is just the favourite whipping boy of the media. Just my own experience.
I think we tend to focus on different aspects of this video: for you privacy, aggression of locals triggered via behaviour of the author, the actual storyline of the video (i.e. a person in danger etc.) seem important.
To me personally the footage is interesting in general terms, I don’t care about the author or specifics of the plot. There’s a city full of graffiti, suffering drug addicts, low life migrants.
And we know (or perhaps you’d disagree) that mass migration is ruining France, Germany, Austria, Denmark (which radicalized and started to fight it a while ago), Sweden etc. you name it. In brief, a bunch of folks is coming a part from them isn’t going to work, a part of them is going to join a gang, a part from them would end on the streets as a victim, and probably a minority of them would succeed. I am not against migration but take Australia for example, competition among skilled immigrants is fierce, I personally would barely have any chances there, but I believe it’s the kind of useful migration Europe needs, the rest is very harmful?
How soon Switzerland will cease to being an island of safety and prosperity?
Also, the recording for profit in youtube is working in Germany without a work permit…damned immigrants and their law-breaking!!! Fine, let’s overlook the law-breaking of the poor tourist who can’t afford a Mercedis-Benz (sic) in spite of being a “successful youtuber”. That part around 3m30s was hilarious.
So, is mass immigration ruining France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden?
Certainly, not helping, lots of suffering. It can and must be better. But, is it something that is compromising safety and prosperity of everyone? I can talk about France and Italy which I know a bit more. Cities are ugly, but a bit outside on the country side…it’s really hard to find nicer places around the world.
Back to Switzerland, yes drug addicts are a problem. But, I see a higher risk to safety and prosperity coming from the managerial class. The poor sods addicted to crack can’t screw the lives of thousands of people. One crack addict can’t make 10k people jobless, managers can do that. Politicians can also screw millions of people at once.
How come it does not? If there’re districts police is afraid of entering (France, Sweden), if there’re streets females would be afraid walking at night (France, Germany), if there’s a need for soldier patrols guarding streets and main parts of cities (France), if the medical system is abused to the extent locals cannot access it in a normal way (Austria) etc.? While I want clean, well-doing, well-taken care of, peaceful European places to live in, just like Swiss towns? =)
Since 1-2 years ago mainstream opinions and politics have changed. The 2015 policy of Chancellor Merkel is seen as a mistake. Borders controls have changed. These days, Germany is criticized for not taking refugees from Afghanistan. Italy is regarded badly for making the life people smugglers in the Mediterranean more difficult. The pendulum keeps moving towards more border controls, at least for a while. Sad, but those addicts on the streets won’t be around for long.
While life in cities can improve. It will never be like <5k people towns, they’re cities, messy by nature.
Yes that was a different time
I remember too well
The basic idea was good but drug addicts came from all over Europe and wider to turn it into a horrible place
Around 40% of the Swiss population are migrants and it is well controlled
Compare with US where less than 6% are illegal migrants and they throw fits over that although most of them are well established have regular jobs and pay their taxes
It is hard to Compare a % of legal migrants as in the US aside from red Indians they are all migrants
I’ll try to think of it as a thing of the past but it seems migrant waves keep pushing their way into Europe en masse, for example there’s an on-going conflict between Germany & Poland with Germany pushing illegals back to Poland (with Poland arguing that those may be captured deep in the country hence not necessarily coming via Poland)
What Chancellor Merkel did in Germany was foolish. Filters for immigration work more or less in Switzerland even without a points system like other countries.
Thanks for the comment on optimism, now comes the despair. I’d worry more about people not coming to Switzerland than mass immigration.
Why? The population voted for more money for retirees, VAT went up. Same thing may happen again within 5-10 years, more money! The farmer lobby has a strong grip of Switzerland politics. They can also vote to get more subsidies while killing other economic activities. The potential outcome is that Switzerland loses competitiveness and therefore less attractive to immigrants. The Ponzi scheme…errrr, retirement system would face great challenges.
So, what do you think is the greater risk? Mass immigration that upends life around here? A gradual decay in competitiveness that leads to lower immigration and the problems that come with it?
I think it just seems that way because Switzerland processes them quickly and efficiently compared to other EU nations. Look how quickly they created an S permit when the Ukrainians started fleeing back in 2022.
It’s also harder (but not impossible) to get by as an undocumented person here. You need a permit to get a flat, healthcare, job, etc. It’s pretty joined-up.
It’s also fair because Swiss and non-Swiss alike need docs to cover most of the same stuff.
As a Brit, I can imagine if they tried to pull off an ID policy, registering with the local community and other ‘Swiss’ norms in the UK, people would be clutching at their pearls complaining about civil liberties. Here, it just works for everyone.
Nothing new, “We asked for workers. We got people instead.” was written in 1965.
What you want and plan for is not exactly what you get. You wanted workers, but you got people with their own dreams, ideas, needs and problems.
The foolishness from 2015 is that the ratio of problems to workers was too high. No one stopped to think that the population from a war ravaged place might have slightly higher mental problems than people from places not impacted by war.
So, not so nice to say…we wanted workers, but we got refugees with PTSD instead.
Are you sure? I was in Vancouver recently and the experience is shocking after Switzerland. There are only few districts where it’s pleasant to be outside. Everywhere else is filled with homeless junkies. They are everywhere, at the corner of every street, they are using the buses to move from one part of the city to the other. They are in the public library. If you not used to it, you feel like in the zombie movie. I don’t think their number is decreasing.
At the individual level yes. People with addiction at that level may be dead by 40YO. Maybe a bit more, but not much. In the case of Germany, if border is better controlled, the problems will end themselves sooner than later.
The other side of the Atlantic is a whole different story. Can’t blame the immigrants for that, it’s the “locals”.
