Flight, refuge, migration

Many schools in Germany are still struggling with the task of integrating refugees. In our interview, migration researcher Aladin El-Mafaalani explains why this is, and what could be improved.

All children are supposed to have equal educational opportunities – that sounds good in theory. In reality, however, many pupils of migrant origin experience discrimination. A number of initiatives in Berlin are committed to changing this.

Arriving in a new country with a different culture and language confronts all refugees with a challenge. To make their arrival easier, libraries in Germany offer many different services and so contribute to a culture of welcoming.

The obstacles to university-level art studies are considerable. With special programmes, art academies in Berlin and Leipzig support artists who have fled from conflict zones, and in doing so place reliance on unconventional perspectives in their instruction approaches.
 

New picture books from German publishers introduce children to themes relating to refugees, war and xenophobia.

“Who are these Germans?” This is the question Firas Alshater asks on his Youtube channel called Zukar. Check out this interview with the Syrian filmmaker who lives in Berlin and find out his views on acceptance, on what a home country and humour means to him.

“Bring more diversity into the media” is the motto of the New German Media Makers. In an interview, their Deputy Chairman, Chadi Bahouth, explains why the perspective of immigrants gets the short end of the stick in media coverage and how the association wants to change this.

Pizza, cappuccino, doner kebab – it is hard to imagine Germany these days without any foreign cuisines. Maren Möhring, a cultural historian, tells us whether food can bridge the gap between different cultures.

A group of men and women from Brandenburg refused to watch idly as people die in the Mediterranean. With their ship Sea-Watch, the helpers rescue refugees from the deadly trap.

Several politically committed films take a nuanced look at those people for whom the flight into the unknown is often the only alternative to marginalization, violence or death in their own homelands.

They establish magazines, make films and organize festivals: many refugees make an active contribution to the cultural scene in Germany.

How persecuted and displaced writers in Germany fight for a new life in literature – and how much strength and luck this requires.

Major cities are cultural contact zones and transit spaces, places of uncertainty and the foreign. The dynamism of change arising from this constitutes the essence of urbanity and is what lends metropolises their stability and attractiveness in the first place.

Refugees in Germany have founded numerous organizations through which they struggle to achieve recognition of their rights. Their activities are invariably based on the call for more independence through networking.
 

What about all those tens of thousands of Syrians, Eritreans and Iraqis who don’t end up bobbing lifeless in the Mediterranean or steered at gunpoint back to the southern shore? Where do they wind up? A reflection on the situation by Canadian journalist Doug Saunders.