Interview on TIDE.Radio

Thomas Steinbrecher in conversation with Bernd Liske on January 30, 2024: The proposals of Friedrich Merz and the causes of the migration crisis

TIDE.Radio has been available in Hamburg via antenna and cable since 2004, as a live stream on the internet since 2008, and on DAB+ since 2018. It is now the most active community radio station in Germany. Thomas Steinbrecher hosts the "Hot Cup" program every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:15 a.m.

On January 30th, he spoke with me about the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's motion on the migration crisis, which they had introduced in the Bundestag on January 29th and passed with the votes of the AfD. A discussion of this motion is impossible without a deeper examination of the causes of the migration flows. According to the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's motions, these flows are primarily driven by the Syrian civil war, which Russia has instigated, and also by refugees being sent across the Belarusian border by Putin. In addition, there are more than a million people as a consequence of Russia's war of aggression, which violates international law.

In our discussion, I demonstrate that these claims are untenable and delve deeper into the reasons for fleeing Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine, as well as the scale and costs for Germany. I also present some interesting facts, particularly regarding the wars in Syria and Ukraine. We then discuss whether the proposal itself has any relevant substance and why it will ultimately fail because it doesn't attempt to address the problem comprehensively enough. We also examine its proximity to the federal elections. My thesis in this context is that the federal elections are a referendum on the path to war, and the migration debate aims to distract from this.

First NOTE: My numerous "uhs" and somewhat long-winded speech certainly demonstrate that the perhaps just about tenable claim that I can occasionally write one or two words meaningfully side by side does not equate to being able to pronounce them fluently one after the other. I debated for a while whether I should subject you to my weakness—in case you want to delve into the conversation and your patience is considerable. However, I address some important points, so I decided to go ahead: Knowledge is more important than distracting extraneous details.

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