When migrants spoil the joke

摘要

Bavaria has long taken pride in being different from other Teutonic places: warm, flamboyant and hostile to anybody who tries to incorporate the region into a bigger, centralised realm-from Charlemagne in the eighth century to Otto von Bismarck in the 19th. At certain times, including most of the past few decades, its idiosyncrasy was a harmless cultural joke; at others, it has had real political consequences. This week felt like a moment of transition from the former situation to the latter, as the migration crisis threatened to balloon out of control not just in the Balkans but in the continent's German-speaking centre.