“Inexplicably”

In the course of an article discussing what happened in Cologne on New Year’s Eve – and its aftermath, The Economist writes:

Inexplicably, Cologne’s police initially reported “relaxed” festivities.

Inexplicably? I wonder. We do not yet know for sure why Wolfgang Albers, Cologne’s police chief, (who was later suspended) did what he did, but you don’t have to have tipped over into paranoia to find—even in the absence of any politicized ‘conspiracy’ on (allegedly) Swedish lines—explanations for why Albers might have been so unwilling to release details of events difficult to fit into the happy narrative of the Wilkommenskultur that the city’s mayor had been so actively promoting. 

Besides, as Pope Francis, weighing in yet again on the topic of immigration, has just explained:

“Public opinion also needs to be correctly formed….”

Meanwhile The Economist concludes:

In retrospect it is clear that Mrs Merkel’s hopeful New Year’s address coincided with the appearance of immigration’s dark side on German streets, and that her warnings have not been heeded. Some refugees have not respected German rules and traditions. Germans are divided. Germany’s neighbours, from Hungary and Poland to Switzerland and Denmark, have sneered at Mrs Merkel’s “welcome culture”. It now looks tenuous even at home.

So Germany’s uncouth neighbors have “sneered” have they? I mainly have heard disagreement—sometimes strong disagreement—but that’s not quite the same thing.

But I do remember quite a bit of bien pensant, well, sneering in Hungary’s direction last autumn after its prime minister, Viktor Orban, had the effrontery to object to what he referred to as Angela Merkel’s “moral imperialism”. 

Subsequent events have proved Orban quite wrong, of course.