Becoming a Source
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Categories: Modern, Not an expert

Becoming a Source

A small stone rainway building with two tracks, a peaked roof, and an awning of corrugated iron
A country Bahnhof in southern Germany (Herbertingen, Spring 2014). Photo by author.

On Sunday the 13th Germany announced that it was imposing customs inspections on the border with Austria in response to the flood of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and the horn of Africa and the reluctance of countries to the south and east to accept them. On the morning of Monday 14 September I took a bus to from Innsbruck to Munich via the narrow pass through Seefeld and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and on the evening of 19 September I returned the same way. In both cases the bus rolled across the border without stopping, and the only requirement was booking a ticket and, I think, showing one piece of photo ID. While I have not taken a train since then, ÖBB is still booking tickets across the border, and those normally do not require any form of identification at all. I wish future historians good luck in understanding what is actually happening.

While I keep this blog focused on ancient history and modern research where I have some reason to think that my opinions are worth more than average, it seemed fitting to record this dog which failed to bark. I am a migrant too.

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4 thoughts on “Becoming a Source

  1. Pavel Vaverka says:

    Thank You for official propaganda, that Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic etc. are source of evil (and not stupid foreign policy of France, GB, USA in North Africa, Middle East) in immigration crisis. Many refugees do not want to live here. And you know why? Miserable jobs, even worse wages (middle class is dying here too), corrupt politicians, damaged environment and so on… These countries aren’t goal of immigrants, they want to live in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, they know, where life would be good.

    You should visit sometime, I’ll take you to some Restaurants, Universities, just for comparsion between West and East Europe.

    1. Sean Manning says:

      Dear Pavel,

      You seem to be reading things into my post which I don’t think I wrote. I can’t speak to anything which is happening in Slovenia or Hungary by experience and I try to keep my opinion about Canadian (or other countries’) foreign policies off this blog. All I can speak to from experience is that at one border crossing between Germany and Austria on two different days, there was no sign of the customs inspection which news reports claimed had been imposed.

      I have visited in Poland and Russia briefly, although I won’t claim that spending a few days with mostly foreign academics gives me much insight into life in either country.

  2. Pavel Vaverka says:

    I understand, You don’t have enough informations for judging situation here and there, but that official statement is really humiliating insult to reality of Eastern European countries (for an example in Germany, food, goods from drugstore etc. is 25-30% cheaper than in here, and we have four times lesser average pay-3/4 of our population don’t have wage).You surely do not want to live and work here). I just want to justify a little bit our situation in East Europe, it’s quite interesting to read offiicial and media statements from Germany, Austria about us, our opinions aren’t surely in their media. So take my writtings just for an opinion from evil Eastern Europe, You don’t have to agree with me, or judging this situation only by me. You surely have more troubles than thinkinig about immigration crisis, it’s cause, solutions, consequences.

    1. Sean Manning says:

      To be honest, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia don’t get mentioned at all in the sources on the refugee crisis which I read (although British sources like to talk about Polish immigrants to the UK). So I certainly did not want to say anything positive or negative about them. But the refugee crisis is not something which any responsible Canadian, or anyone living in the EU, can honourably ignore.

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