RARELY has a politician adhered so unwaveringly to principles when his or her political survival itself is possibly at stake. But Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has proven herself to be of stronger mettle than most. On Thursday at a news conference in Berlin, she robustly defended her open-door refugee policy that has seen Germany take in more than one million asylum-seekers in 2015, mostly from war-ravaged Syria. Even as she described the recent attacks in her country and across Europe as “shocking, depressing and terrifying”, she insisted that Germany’s stance must continue to be based on humanity and compassion and that those committing acts of terrorism wanted to create divisions in society based on differences in culture and religions.

Ms Merkel’s steadfastness is commendable, as is her long view of the situation — particularly given the circumstances in which she has expressed them. Europe has been rocked by a series of terrorist incidents in the last few months. In Germany itself, the last two weeks have been particularly harrowing with four attacks in different parts of the country; the perpetrators in at least three, according to German police, were either asylum seekers or refugees inspired by Islamist ideology. Since then, the xenophobic, racist impulses that have long been on the boil — and which gained further traction when waves of desperate asylum seekers began to arrive on European shores in 2015 — have found more takers. The revulsion and fear among the public has also given ammunition to Ms Merkel’s political opposition as well as some of her own party colleagues to denounce her policies. Nevertheless, Ms Merkel has stood her ground. Earlier, she countered the massive anti-migrant protests that erupted in the wake of her welcoming attitude to refugees, with her determined ‘wir schaffen das’ (we can manage it) mantra, even while acknowledging the challenges that the influx posed. She continues to demonstrate that a true leader is guided by principles that are not held hostage to political expediency or narrow populist sentiment.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2016