Turkey does not want Germany to cherry-pick migrants

Upon an invitation from the Goethe Institute, I recently attended a conference focusing on the relations between the German Foreign Ministry and various foundations. 

While the foundations are keen to underline their sensitivity over their independence and their wish to not be told what to do by the state, the two sides agree nevertheless on the need to have a dialogue.

The conference made me nostalgic for the days when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) cared about fostering dialogue between the government and civil society. The party used to hold meetings with civil society representatives on a number of issues. Nowadays, such meetings are held on a less frequent basis, their participants are mostly pro-government groups, and it is more like a monologue than a dialogue.

The name of the conference at the Goethe Institute was "The Road Towards a Foreign Policy of Societies ? the strategic dialogue between foundations and the Federal Foreign Office." I thus heard many of the speakers make reference to Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, a German political scientist and politician who referred to the policy of societies rather than the policy of states in the 1960s.

Dahrendorf would have been tremendously disappointed if he had lived to see how many governments today build - or talk about building - walls on their borders to stop influxes of refugees. I don't know if it would come as a relief, but in the end it is one of Dahrendorf's compatriots, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has come up with a policy that is more "welcoming" of the refugees. Never mind that her policy is based more on pragmatic realism than the values on which Dahrendorf based his outlook when he spoke about the policy of societies.

Indeed, Merkel...