The Birkenstock Dream
This evening we are watching a movie we know that we have seen before, but which is less than fully memorable to us since so much of it is subtitled. It is the 2022 film called The Swimmers, and it is a real story about two Syrian girls that are trained Olympic swimmers. It tells the harrowing tale of their escape from war-torn Damascus, leaving their family behind for the time being, flying into Istanbul, busing down to the southern Turkish coast for tons of money, where they pay more outrageous amounts to take a leaky, overcrowded rubber raft across the sea to the Greek island of Lesbos. From there they realize that they are just a few of thousands of similar refugees, many of whom never even made it that far. But, at least there they are resupplied with clothing including a selection of old shoes from which to choose. But those throwaway shoes didn’t include any Hokas or Birkenstocks (both of which are the base of the two pillars of the EU, France and Germany). They manage a ferry to the mainland and then scramble their way to the Hungarian border on sore feet, where they cross razor wire under the shroud of darkness only to be met by more opportunistic human smugglers who promise to get them into Germany, which is their goal. When they finally make it to Berlin they are met with years of potential waiting to be processed for immigration. And here’s the thing, this is in Germany, the country in Europe that is enlightened enough to be more accommodating than any other country in Europe, or perhaps the world, towards refugees.
The subject of refugees is a much bigger deal today than it has ever been. The total number of global refugees is now up to 108 million souls broken down as 63 million internally displaced people, 35 million refugees, and then 5 million each of asylum seekers and people in need of other types of protection. In the grand scheme of things, that is only a bit over 1% of the world’s population, but any way you look at it, there are a lot of people (in fact, an ever increasing number, it seems) who are on the move. Half of those people come from Syria, Afghanistan or Ukraine (I bet Gaza will be moving up into those ranks soon). And the worst part of those numbers is that over 43 million of those displaced persons are children. And the places that take the biggest share of those displaced people are Turkey, Iran, Colombia, Germany and Pakistan. Which of those catcher’s mitts would you choose to get caught by?
I imagine that when people watch movies like The Swimmers, they must come away thinking that Germans are a great bunch of people, perhaps ones that feel the need to make amends for their sins during the 20th Century. I mean, these are the people that make Birkenstocks and make us want to be better people, right? As for Iran, Colombia and Pakistan, they probably come away thinking that those countries just want to exploit these poor displaced people, right? And as for Turkey, they may just be once again at the crossroads of the world as its on the move. They are next to Syria, and therefore on the path from Afghanistan as well (notice the Afghans want nothing to do with Pakistan and Iran). And the Ukraine is just a quick swim across the Black Sea… Well, I suspect that what you are really seeing here is bad actors like Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and even Colombia (still recovering from its drug source image) figuring that being compassionate to refugees might help their image and will probably just dissolve into the general population. And Germany, ah yes, Germany, they are the shrewdest guys on the block. Did you know that Birkenstock is actually a recent IPO, or as we have come to know such companies….a sellout?
Germans have always been very analytical, exacting and practical. I am sure that their demographers have figured out more realistically than most what the future holds for us all. Unlike places like Japan that can’t get over their xenophobia and their superiority complex, places like France, that are too busy worrying about what wine to order at the cafe this afternoon and how to be sure to get fresh croissants and baguettes every morning as they don their Hokas for a morning walk, and the Anglophile countries like the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, who are boy scouts still wearing the uncomfortable shoes that want everyone to have an equal say in terms of sensitive issues like immigration, Germany is different. They are clinical and pragmatic. They see what’s coming around the bend on the railroad tracks. And what’s coming is actually already here. Birth rates are falling fast and population growth is stagnating as improved healthcare is extending longevity of the existing population. Germans see that not only do they need population growth to keep their economy growing a bit longer, but they also see that automation and AI are not going to move fast enough to eliminate the need for a fair sized working class population. They are playing the long game that understands that to maximize their own lifestyle (think nice cork insoles) and perpetuate their economic dominance while everyone else (including the USA, China, Japan, France, UK and even Russia) break themselves on the back of trying to avoid immigration, they will take in the wretched and the outcast and do what the US learned to do centuries ago, improve and bolster their citizenry with hard-working people with the ambition to get a piece of the Birkenstock Dream. Who wouldn’t want comfortable feet?
If someone arrived on Earth from outer space and wanted to get a sense of what models of economic governance worked the best, it would be inevitable that they would conclude that the role model for success would have to be the United States, at least in the 20th Century. If their analysts were to summarize the elements for success, they would suggest quite quickly that those key ingredients are democracy, capitalism, consumerism, a touch of benign imperialism, and a whole lot of enlightened immigration. If their outer space superiors asked for justification for the role of immigration, they would quickly point to the broader example of nature. Nature understands that healthy growth is always a result of maximized diversity and inclusion. Duh!
The hard part is to understand how such an obvious conclusion could be missed by successful and intelligent people. The only conclusion our alien analysts could make is that they were being forced by their belief in the democratic process to allow divergent views that might not properly balance the long term needs with the short term wants. All that said and done, the lessons those aliens would likely take home with them for use on their own planet would be that democracy is the only governance model worth a damn, capitalism works best when democracy prevails, and the cardinal requirement for that whole complex to function without a paddleball in its hip pocket is diversity, diversity, diversity and open immigration. And on the way to boarding their rocketship back home, those alien analysts would likely stop at the gift shop and buy both a pair of Birkenstocks and a share of Birkenstock. I mean, it’s a long trip home and there’s nothing more annoying than sore feet…and you might as well buy a lottery ticket just in case…