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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 13-Oct-2010
13-Oct-10 News -- Xenophobia grows in Germany towards Turks, Arabs and Jews

Web Log - October, 2010

13-Oct-10 News -- Xenophobia grows in Germany towards Turks, Arabs and Jews

A German politician wants to ban Turkish and Arab immigrants

German politician says that Turkish and Arab immigrants should be banned

An international row was triggered on Saturday by a leading German politician who said that Turkish and Arab immigrants were unable to integrate into German society and should no longer be accepted, according to the Guardian.

Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria, said in an interview, "It's clear that immigrants from other cultural circles like Turkey, and Arab countries have more difficulties. From that I draw the conclusion that we don't need any additional foreign workers from other cultures." With regard to immigrants who already live in Germany, he said that Germany should "get tough on those who refuse to integrate."

Outraged Turkish groups and politicians in Germany have demanded an apology from Seehofer, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

Seehofer's party is part of Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coaliation, and Der Spiegel quoted Merkel defending Seehofer: "It was a comment focused on skilled workers. We remain a homeland for many people and hope they feel comfortable in Germany. Germany is and remains a cosmopolitan country."

Merkel may have felt compelled to defend Seehofer for a different reason - that the views he expressed are becoming increasingly popular.

Deutschland schafft sich ab

Deutschland schafft sich ab

This has become clear in the last two months, when Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the board of the Bundesbank (Germany's central bank), published a book called "Deutschland schafft sich ab" (Germany eradicates itself). This book was condemned by many politicians as containing racist remarks directed against Jews, Turks and Arabs, according to Spiegel.

Some quotes are: "The Turks are taking over Germany exactly as the Kosovars took over Kosovo: via a higher birth rate. I wouldn't mind if it were Jews from Eastern Europe with a 15 percent higher IQ than the German population." "A large number of Arabs and Turks in (Berlin) ... have no productive function other than in the fruit and vegetable trade." "All Jews share a certain gene, all Basques have certain genes that make them different from other people." "I don't want the country of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be largely Muslim, or that Turkish or Arabic will be spoken in large areas, that women will wear headscarves and the daily rhythm is set by the call of the muezzin. If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient."

Merkel criticized Sarrazin's book, and Sarrazin was forced to resign from the Bundesbank board at the end of September. However, his book has been extremely popular, and is going into additional printings.

Sarrazin feels that he's been vindicated. While still at Bundesbank, he received thousands of calls, letters and e-mail messages, and he bragged, "It's 99 percent support and letters of congratulation."

Many people are becoming alarmed that people in the German mainstream are returning to the xenophobia of the 1930s Nazi era, according to DAPD Nachrichtenagentur A recent poll by the the Friedrich Ebert foundation (PDF German) found that an increasing (though still minority) number of Germans want a "Führer" who would "govern with a hard hand for the good of Germany," and that about 1/3 of the people want to "send foreigners back home" to avoid the danger of German being "overrun."

In addition, 58% say that "religious practices for Muslims in Germany should be seriously limited," and this rises to 75% for people from the former East Germany.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, unfortunately none of this is a surprise. The survivors of WW II saw how xenophobia leads to wars of extermination, and as long as they were in charge, xenophobic tendencies have been kept to a minimum. That's why we would have seen very few of these tendencies in the 1990s. But now we see it growing in all its forms, with respect to Muslims, Jews and Roma Gypsies in Europe, and with respect to Muslims, Brazilians and Mexicans in America. The path to world war is becoming clearer and clearer.

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 13-Oct-10 News -- Xenophobia grows in Germany towards Turks, Arabs and Jews thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (13-Oct-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 13-Oct-2010 13-Oct-10 News -- Xenophobia grows in Germany towards Turks, Arabs and Jews

German politician says that Turkish and Arab immigrants should be banned

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 13-Oct-2010
13-Oct-10 News -- Xenophobia grows in Germany towards Turks, Arabs and Jews