In 2015, Angela Merkel opened Germany’s doors. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians, fleeing bullets, bombs, and the grinding machinery of war, poured into Europe. For the politicians, it was a moral triumph. For the refugees, it was a nightmare disguised as hope.
ABD, a young man from Hama, recounts a journey that reads like a death sentence: fleeing a collapsing dictatorship, evading Assad’s checkpoints, crossing rebel-held territories where militants could end his life with a single RPG, and then navigating the shadowy networks of smugglers who treated human beings like cargo.
Forty-eight people packed onto a nine-meter boat designed for twelve. For hours, they floated in the open sea, a cocktail of fear, prayer, and disbelief. Many would not survive. Europe celebrated their arrival, applauding their survival while ignoring the gamble they had taken, and the gamble Europe itself had accepted. To open borders in such a fashion is to flirt with catastrophe, and the moral triumph cannot erase the risk.
The Paradox of Integration
Europe prides itself on humanitarianism, but generosity is not integration. ABD describes the painful calculus of survival: surrendering language, habits, cultural identity, even the rhythm of daily life, in exchange for security and opportunity. Seventy percent manage the basics: finding work, learning the language. But thirty percent don't.
Europe assumed it could teach newcomers to adopt its laws and values. But identity is not currency to be exchanged lightly. For many Syrians, the process of adaptation is a daily loss, a slow erasure of the self. For Europe, the cost is social tension, cultural friction, and in some cases, the quiet but persistent threat of ideological incompatibility. Humanitarianism is easy when the stakes are moral; it becomes complicated when the stakes are civilizational.
Islam and the European Experiment
ABD does not mince words. He argues that Islam, as a living political and cultural force, is structured to assert dominance, not simply coexist. German constitutional values - the inviolable dignity of the individual, secular governance, freedom of expression - clash with the vision of some believers who see Islam as a governing framework, not a private faith.
This is Europe’s uncomfortable truth: humanitarian rescue does not guarantee political or cultural compatibility. Merkel’s Germany acted from moral impulse, not strategic calculation. Europe underestimated the ideological consequences of such an influx. The experiment, humanity on a massive scale, did not account for the silent negotiations of faith, the compromises demanded by law and ideology, or the potential friction between constitutional values and deeply held beliefs. Europe’s moral courage has a twin: the dangerous uncertainty of long-term cultural integration.
Is This Even Compassion?
A decade has passed. Syria is not the same but neither is Europe untouched. ABD argues that those unwilling or unable to integrate should be sent home. Humanitarianism is not a lifetime contract; generosity has limits. Refuge, once extended, can calcify into dependency or resentment.
Europe spent hundreds of billions of euros on shelters, food, education, and social programs. Millions of lives were saved. And yet the question remains: at what cost? If the very act of mercy becomes permanent without accountability, if integration is assumed to be inevitable rather than earned, then Europe risks paying not just economically but socially, politically, and morally. The experiment of 2015 was brave. But it was also naive. And history will not forgive naivety when the consequences are as real as they are now.
Europe must face a harsh reality: compassion cannot override consequences, and generosity must come with boundaries. If it does not, the continent may find itself trapped in a moral paradox of its own making, where the cost of mercy becomes the burden of survival for the very society that extended it.
Stefan Tompson
Founder | Visegrad24
