Multi-culturalism in Germany has 'utterly failed', claims Chancellor Merkel

Nom Chompsky

Nom Chompsky

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First it was the French that banned the burka and now Germany has woken up to the fact their social engineering policies have been a failure. It's not a big surprise, as highlighted by the report, that European attitudes are changing towards being more right-leaning... if you see people from other countries refusing to integrate or worse, pushing their culture on your country's culture, then of course one is going to take a hard-line attitude towards immigration.

Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society has 'utterly failed', according to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Merkel’s comments have added fuel to a debate across Europe over immigration and Islam, issues which are particularly dividing her conservative camp.

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel said allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating had not worked in a country that is home to some four million Muslims.


Her comments are of particular relevance to Britain, which has also seen a huge growth in its multi-cultural society in recent years.

'This (multicultural) approach has failed, utterly failed,' Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin.

Merkel faces pressure from within her CDU to take a tougher line on immigrants who don't show a willingness to adapt to German society and her comments appeared intended to pacify her critics.

She said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and repeated her usual line that they should learn German in order to get by in school and have opportunities on the labour market.

Ms Merkel's comments follow a recent think-tank survey that found more than a third of Germans believe the country is being ‘overrun’ by immigrants.

The study, by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, also noted that far-right attitudes were not isolated at the extremes of German society, but ‘to a worrying degree at the centre of (it)’.

According to reports, about 30 percent of Germans aged five years and younger have at least one parent who was born abroad and about 20 percent of its population had immigrant roots.

‘We are a country which at the beginning of the 1960s actually brought guest workers to Germany,’ Ms Merkel said.

‘Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will have disappeared again one day.

‘That's not the reality. This (multicultural) approach - saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other - this approach has failed, utterly failed.’

‘We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here,’ she added.

‘That would do great damage to our country. Companies will go elsewhere because they won't find the people to work here anymore.
‘That means that the demand for integration is one of our key tasks for the times to come.

‘At the same time, it must be a trademark of Germany to be a country which gives people in our country an opportunity.’

A Hindu statesman has responded to the remarks by calling on Merkel to show more tolerance to ‘outsiders’.

Rajan Zed said that instead of branding multiculturalism a failure, Merkel and other German leaders must seek to create a society founded on peace and trust despite different traditions and beliefs.

Zed, who is the President of the Universal Society of Hinduism, also quoted Leviticus 19:33-34, adding: ‘When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you.’

The debate over foreigners in Germany has shifted since former central banker Thilo Sarrazin published a book accusing Muslim immigrants of lowering the intelligence of German society.

Sarrazin was censured for his views and dismissed from the Bundesbank, but his book proved highly popular and polls showed a majority of Germans agreed with the thrust of his arguments.

Merkel has tried to accommodate both sides of the debate, talking tough on integration but also telling Germans that they must accept that mosques have become part of their landscape.

In a weekend newspaper interview, Merkel's Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) raised the possibility of lowering barriers to entry for some foreign workers in order to fight the lack of skilled workers in Europe's largest economy.

'For a few years, more people have been leaving our country than entering it,' she told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. 'Wherever it is possible, we must lower the entry hurdles for those who bring the country forward.'

The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) says Germany lacks about 400,000 skilled workers.

Yet Horst Seehofer, chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU's sister party, has rejected any relaxation of immigration laws and said last week there was no room in Germany for more people from 'alien cultures'.
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Daily Mail
 
A political party with a religion mentioned in the title shouldn't really be handling multi-cultural issues IMO.
 
blunomore said:
So you automatically assume because they are Christaian, they will be intolerant and biased ?
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Religion is the single biggest enabler of racism that I have seen. Its certainly not an "automatic" assumption, but a highly probable one based on all humanities history.
 
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I think Germany has done more than most countries to accommodate other cultures, and I don't see Germany being the cause of the "failure". I have been Germany a few times, and you can see clearly that some immigrants simply does not want to integrate into German society, choosing instead to create little islands of Islam, or what ever there religion/culture is, in stead of becoming German, which is why you immigrated there in the first place.

The problem as I see it, is that especially Islam/Muslim people, immigrate to other countries, and then start to force their believes and values onto that country, instead of integrating with that culture. Islam / Muslim is a way of life, and culture is tightly integrated with their believe, thus making it almost impossible to not clash with existing cultures and religions.
 
w1z4rd said:
Religion is the single biggest enabler of racism that I have seen. Its certainly not an "automatic" assumption, but a highly probable one based on all humanities history.
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They sure seem like they tried to do the right thing and they deserve credit for that.
 
Another problem with the approach of this multi-culturalism is the complete and utter ignorance of the fact that cultures do clash. It just seems to me that the majority religious group is forcing the minority group to change their beliefs if they are to exist in the country. There's nothing multi-cultural about that.
 
Fudzy said:
Another problem with the approach of this multi-culturalism is the complete and utter ignorance of the fact that cultures do clash. It just seems to me that the majority religious group is forcing the minority group to change their beliefs if they are to exist in the country. There's nothing multi-cultural about that.
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I don't think Germany had a problem with the believe (Islam / Muslim), but more with the fact the people did not try to integrate into German society as a whole. They would form their own little communities (like China Town, etc). Germany's stance, is that if you want to immigrate to Germany, then you must become German (which does not imply that you have to give up your religion). As simple as that.
 
@fudzy,

What about islamic countries?

In Germany the muslims at least have the freedom to complain. In any
Muslim country the minority groups don't even have that freedom.

Why should western forward thinking countries try and accommodate islam,
When islamic countries can't show the same tollerance in their countries.

And if the western countries don't tollerate muslims, muslims form terrorist groups
Bombing innocent civilians. If these muslims love their culture so much why did they leave
Their islamic home country ?
 
DigitalSoldier said:
@fudzy,

What about islamic countries?

In Germany the muslims at least have the freedom to complain. In any
Muslim country the minority groups don't even have that freedom.

Why should western forward thinking countries try and accommodate islam,
When islamic countries can't show the same tollerance in their countries.

And if the western countries don't tollerate muslims, muslims form terrorist groups
Bombing innocent civilians. If these muslims love their culture so much why did they leave
Their islamic home country ?
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A lot of Islamic countries are the definition of cultural intolerance even towards people and groups in their own religion. I don't think Germany and the rest of the 'Western' world want to be seen the same way do they?

As for your last comment, the bombing had more to do with the countries involvement in the Iraq invasion than anything else IIRC.
 
Nod said:
I don't think Germany had a problem with the believe (Islam / Muslim), but more with the fact the people did not try to integrate into German society as a whole. They would form their own little communities (like China Town, etc). Germany's stance, is that if you want to immigrate to Germany, then you must become German (which does not imply that you have to give up your religion). As simple as that.
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The problem is that they've made it about religion not place of origin. Chinatowns are tolerated the world over but it seems being of another religion is more of an issue here.
 
Fudzy said:
The problem is that they've made it about religion not place of origin. Chinatowns are tolerated the world over but it seems being of another religion is more of an issue here.
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I have not experienced in Germany that they care so much about the religion. Maybe because of how the immigrants can't separate their culture from their religion, that is how it has turned out.
 
Once upon a time the whole idea of multiculturalism was to accommodate plurality, not eliminate it. Surely people are entitled to have their own cultural communities & islands such as Islamtown, Chinatown, Afrikanerburg, Zuluville, Little Italy, &c, &c? I mean, who's planet is this after all?

What gets up one's nose with modern interpretations of multiculturalism is that the whole society has to lean over backwards, deny their own culture and accommodate themselves to every minority - example of multiculti-gone-loopy is the recent EU ruling that Italy has to take down crucifixes in schools just in case some non-Christians are offended. This is outrageous. When I go to a majority or historically Islamic country I don't expect them to push all things muslim into the private sphere, and when I go to India I don't mind Hindus doing their thing in public, and when in a Buddhist country I don't mind Buddhist things all over the place, I put on a kippa when I enter a synagogue even though I'm not Jewish ... it's what one expects. When in Rome, &c.

Personally I think the French burqa ban is petty and wrong. But very much worse is the police-enforced ban most Islamic countries have on changing one's religion, and in some there's severe repression of anything non-Mohammedan. I wish the European countries had the guts to demand reciprocity. Live and let live is a two-way street, and for too long the West has bent over too far. Of course they musn't fall into the tit-for-tat narrowness, but they sure should bring other pressures to bear on repressive and closed societies.
 
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DigitalSoldier said:
@fudzy,

What about islamic countries?

In Germany the muslims at least have the freedom to complain. In any
Muslim country the minority groups don't even have that freedom.

Why should western forward thinking countries try and accommodate islam,
When islamic countries can't show the same tollerance in their countries.
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This is such a stupid argument. What is the point of criticising a group's perceived faults if you're just going to emulate them out of pique.
 
Arthur said:
What gets up one's nose with modern interpretations of multiculturalism is that the whole society has to lean over backwards, deny their own culture and accommodate themselves to every minority - example of multiculti-gone-loopy is the recent EU ruling that Italy has to take down crucifixes in schools just in case some non-Christians are offended. This is outrageous. When I go to a majority or historically Islamic country I don't expect them to push all things muslim into the private sphere, and when I go to India I don't mind Hindus doing their thing in public, and when in a Buddhist country I don't mind Buddhist things all over the place, I put on a kippa when I enter a synagogue even though I'm not Jewish ... it's what one expects. When in Rome, &c.

Personally I think the French burqa ban is petty and wrong. But very much worse is the police-enforced ban most Islamic countries have on changing one's religion, and in some there's severe repression of anything non-Mohammedan. I wish the European countries had the guts to demand reciprocity. Live and let live is a two-way street, and for too long the West has bent over too far. Of course they musn't fall into the tit-for-tat narrowness, but they sure should bring other pressures to bear on repressive and closed societies.
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Well said. When you immigrate into a country you must accept their way of life and integrate. Loony guilt ridden liberals see that as "intolerance"....
 
grayston said:
This is such a stupid argument. What is the point of criticising a group's perceived faults if you're just going to emulate them out of pique.
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This is going to happen unless immigrants become more willing to integrate with the societies that they have chosen to live in. Like it or not, if East is not willing to adjust to West, West will eventually adopt the same stance. You can't expect Western societies to sit back and twiddle their thumbs while their culture is subsumed by immigrants who seem to be there for nothing more than money and reject the customs of their new host nation.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but if Western voters decide that they no longer want Eastern immigrants, that wrong will become their right by law.
 
The_Assimilator said:
This is going to happen unless immigrants become more willing to integrate with the societies that they have chosen to live in. Like it or not, if East is not willing to adjust to West, West will eventually adopt the same stance. You can't expect Western societies to sit back and twiddle their thumbs while their culture is subsumed by immigrants who seem to be there for nothing more than money and reject the customs of their new host nation.
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Why the hell not? What's so great about Western society anyway? What, really, is wrong with having brown people and a mosque in your neighbourhood? Especially seeing as Muslims have been living in Europe and building mosques there for quite a long time, and it's never been a problem before.

We're in the middle of a financial crisis even worse than the one that followed 9/11. The West is desperately casting around for scapegoats, and people who either a) look different or b) come from somewhere else are natural and easy scapegoat material. It's the way humans have done it for thousands of years: outsiders are suspicious.

The reason Europe is attractive is because Europeans have realised that this natural human instinct is counter-productive in modern society, so they don't support it. You're allowed to be different in Europe. The only proviso that makes any sense is that you should be able to speak the language of the country that you move to. And the only reason for that is that people integrate much better when they speak the same language.

If you can't agree to that, then I'm afraid you're just a blond, blow-dried, baby-faced intolerant little git called Geert Wilders...
 
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