The Manchurian Kanzlerin

As Europe continues to stand paralyzed  in the face of the inrushing human tide, all an observer Stateside can do, is to wonder why they let it come about.

A percipient essay in today’s Die Zeit -- a prominent newspaper, and long among the cheerleaders of the Gutmenschen narrative, but at last having second thoughts -- analyzes the psychology of the Kuschel-klatscher:

Ich und mein Syrer

Nach dem ersten Begeisterungsschock herrscht eine merkwürdige Angespanntheit in Deutschland. Das hat einen Grund: Die Flüchtlinge sind immer noch da.

Von Nina Pauer

http://www.zeit.de/2015/41/fluechtlinge-hilfe-deutschland-integration

As for what motivates Merkel, it is anybody’s guess.   In her public appearances, she continues to offer calm and lucidly worded defense of a disasterous policy, with no intimation that she might ever change her mind.   (One must at least admire her composure, in the face of increasingly strident public criticism, and anguished appeals from her own party ranks.)  Personally, I suspect that her background as a pastor’s daughter may be in play;  but many are much less charitable.   Some posit an Atlanticist Conspiracy, and claim that she is taking orders from her American masters.  (If so, someone should alert those American masters.  Why the US should desire its European allies to descend into chaos, is never explained.)  

The most exotic of the Verschwörungs-theorien  is that the DDR-born Chancelloress, under the code-name “Erika”,  was an agent of the Stasi (indeed, a great many East Germans were, to one extent or another) and that -- wait for it -- she is still faithfully carrying out a long-ago-hatched Communist plan for the destruction of the West.

(Such, mutatis mutandis, is the plot of the classic Cold War novel, twice filmed, The Manchurian Candidate.  The eponymous protagonist is a sleeper agent -- though unwitting -- and his controller is his imperious Mutti  who, come to think of it, looks a lot like Angela Merkel.)

“Wir schaffen das …  Wir schaffen das … “

Well.  It is tempting to pursue that plotline satirically, as we have done with so much else.  But this is all too real, and inching towards tragedy (while, impassive on Olympus, the gods look on).    So if you’re hankering for some good old conspiracy-mongering, I refer you instead (though my heart is not in it) to our extensive files on …

The Riemann Conspiracy

(I earlier observed, that the self-satirizing antics of the Republican Presidential candidates  put credentialed satirists such as ourself  out of work.   But neither can we satirize a tragedy.)

[Update 18 Nov 2015]  Terror and Satire:  a contrary view.
http://www.focus.de/kultur/kino_tv/terrorismus-satire-in-terrorzeiten-ist-alles-erlaubt_id_5093192.html