Merkel does a big 180 on "refugees", Muslim headgear

Amazing news from Essen, Germany, where Angela Merkel's governing Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is holding a party congress this week. Chancellor Merkel announced last week that she would be running for a fourth four-year term in an election expected next September. But first she must be chosen to lead her party for another two-year term.

German public opinion polls and lamestream media assure Frau Merkel that she's a shoo-in, in spite of widespread grumbling about her "Willkomenskultur" policy, under which millions of "refugees" and asylum-seekers, most of them Muslims, have been admitted to Das Vaterland, where they have committed numerous acts of rape, terrorism, and general ingratitude.

Frau Merkel is a political survivor, not foolish enough to trust the polls and the media. In a speech today, she announced that she would take steps to prevent a repeat of last year's huge influx of Muslim invaders. And... wait for it... she advocated banning burqas and niqabs -- the full-face veils used by some Muslim women -- "where possible".

She told the CDU congress that her immediate priority is to make sure a crisis-shaken Europe doesn't get any weaker. Germany will continue to take in people in genuine need of protection, she said, but her government has moved to toughen asylum rules and declare several countries "safe", meaning that people coming from those places can't expect to get refugee status and all the cash and other benefits that go with it. Furthermore, Frau Merkel told delegates, "parallel societies" won't be tolerated. "In communication between people, which is of course essential to our living together, we have to show our faces, so the full veil should be forbidden wherever legally possible."

Isn't it strange that Angela Merkel can say things like that and be applauded, yet when Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders says the same things, he gets called a racist! But hey, the lower house of the Dutch parliament voted just a few days ago to ban Islamic headgear, as has also been done by France and Belgium, so it would appear that Frau Merkel is simply catching up. The USA and (especially) Canada may take somewhat longer.

Further reading: "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?", WWW 28/7/10.