Germany wakes up
to failed ideal of
multiculturalism
Angela Merkel reflects popular opinion in her emphasis on the need
for integration, writesDEREK
SCALLY in Berlin
GERMANY’S IMMIGRATION debate is heating up, with
a new plan announced to find out how many immigrants have failed to
complete obligatory integration and language
courses.
The news came as Chancellor Angela Merkel rowed into the debate at
the weekend with an attack on the record of German
multiculturalism.
Germany’s federal interior ministry wants to know how many people
have failed to start and failed to complete obligatory integration
courses, which are regulated by the country’s 16 federal states.
“We want to find out what has happened to people who haven’t
participated in these courses, obligatory since 2005, or who have
not successfully completed the courses,” said a ministry
spokesperson.
Preliminary figures quoted by Der
Spiegel suggest that just 3.8 per cent of migrants failed
to finish the course. “The federal states have tools at their
disposal – to cut social welfare or end residency – and we want to
see what the states have done in this respect.”
Dr Merkel said at the weekend that the
multicultural ideal of “living side by side and being thrilled for
each other” had “failed, failed
utterly”.
The German leader knows she is walking a political tightrope, with
her support in free fall.
Dr Merkel’s remarks were greeted with enthusiasm by many in her
Christian Democratic Union (CDU), particularly right-wingers. They
have accused her of neglecting them and have threatened to break
away to form a new party to the right of the CDU.
The German leader knows that taking too extreme a position on
integration risks repelling the moderate middle-class voters the
CDU is chasing to keep ahead in the polls. Thus her weekend speech
– beyond her widely reported “failed utterly” verdict on
multiculturalism – was remarkably moderate.
The German leader agreed it was important to place greater
integration demands on immigrants, she said, but it was wrong to
close Germany to skilled workers it urgently needs.
“Four million Muslims live in this country and
these people are staying,” she said.
Dr Merkel criticised “people who act as if Germany hasn’t changed
since 1949”, an apparent rebuke to CDU right-wingers who refuse to
acknowledge that Germany has been a country of migration for 40
years since the arrival of the first Turkish and Italian
gastarbeiter. “Refusing to accept reality has never been a good
thing,” she said.
Dr Merkel went further, backing President Christian Wulff who said
Germany’s Muslim community had de facto made Islam a part of German
society alongside its Judeo-Christian heritage.
“He said [Islam] is a part of Germany and it is,” said Dr Merkel,
to decidedly less enthusiastic support from party delegates on
Saturday.
This debate will be fuelled further when Mr Wulff begins a five-day
visit to Turkey this morning. So far Germany’s integration debate
has been moderate compared to that of its European neighbours. But
there are extreme voices to be heard too.
Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer, head of the CSU, sister party of
the CDU, said Germany had “no need” for migrants from “alien
cultures” such as Turkey and Arab countries because of their
“integration difficulties”.
He was applauded and condemned equally for calling on the
authorities to “get tougher on those who refuse to integrate”.
Germany’s integration debate was sparked by a bestselling book’s
claim that Muslim migrants, for cultural and religious reasons,
were unable or unwilling to integrate into German society.
That claim has forced a debate on integration and
struck a nerve among ordinary Germans: a poll for national
television at the weekend found that just 8 per cent of Germans
believe migrants living among them are
well-integrated.
The other side of Germany’s integration debate is
the labour market, and a claim at the weekend that Germany lacks
400,000 skilled workers due to immigration
restrictions.
Labour minister Ursula von der Leyen has promised to ease the
restrictions for migrants with in-demand qualifications.
Mr Seehofer contradicted her yesterday, saying that voters “don’t
want Germany to become the world’s social welfare office”.
It’s clear that the emotional debate over migration will play a
dominant role in regional elections next year, polls which could
well decide Angela Merkel’s political future in Berlin. Weeks later
looms the May deadline for Germany to open its labour market to
Poland, the Czech Republic and other eastern EU neighbours.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/1018/1224281341024.html
