If the dialogue between complaining residents and displaced refugees is not moderated at an early stage, conflicts are inevitable. This is shown by the dispute over the planned new asylum accommodation in Vierkirchen.
Nimby is the abbreviation for the phenomenon that can be observed in the Vierkirchen district of Pasenbach, short for: Not in my backyard. – Not in my backyard. What is meant is the attitude of the residents who loudly claim that they have “nothing against foreigners” but still don’t want any refugees as neighbors, who, from their point of view, ultimately cause “noise, odor nuisance and garbage”. The refugees should be housed somewhere else, not here, where “peace and quiet” was hoped for. This Saint Florian principle is now delaying the construction of an urgently needed alternative to the existing container settlement.
The plaintiffs claim “not to be racists”, although they use classic narratives of group-focused enmity, as the sad and unrelated anecdote about the “blonde who had to be rescued from the African” shows. Such arguments even make the plaintiff’s lawyer sweat, who quickly asserts that this is only about building rights.
Mayor Harald Dirlenbach (SPD) is also rightly upset about the complainants – but he hasn’t exactly covered himself with fame in the civil dialogue with his landlord manner. Regardless of whether the mayor should have informed local residents better years ago, now would be the time to moderate a dialogue between refugees and locals. It is shocking that the community is currently unable to name a contact person who actually keeps in touch with the refugees in the container settlement.
Even against the background of the human tragedy that is said to have taken place around the fire in the accommodation in 2020, social work in such a place must not be interrupted. Representatives still rely too much on the commitment of the helper groups. What the mayor must be aware of: if the asylum seekers have to move to the quarters 400 meters away on the other side of the S-Bahn line, they will already be faced with hostile neighbors – unlike before, when they were housed in the immediate vicinity of the recycling center. The conflicts are programmed – and the question remains unanswered as to why the municipality of Vierkirchen is the only place in the district where residents are trying so hard, using all legal means, to prevent new accommodation. Ultimately, the municipality of Vierkirchen is also driving into the unknown according to the Nimby principle when it hardly notices how things are with the people in the container settlement and at the same time claims: “Xenophobia? No, we don’t have that here.”