Chancellor's assertion that onus is on new arrivals to do more to
integrate into German society stirs anti-immigration debate
Matthew Weaver and agencies
Monday October 18 2010
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/angela-merkel-german-multiculturalism-failed
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has courted growing anti-
immigrant opinion in Germany by claiming the country's attempts to
create a multicultural society have "utterly failed".
Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democratic
Union party, Merkel said the idea of people from different cultural
backgrounds living happily "side by side" did not work.
She said the onus was on immigrants to do more to integrate into
German society.
"This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel
told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin, yesterday.
Her remarks will stir a debate about immigration in a country which is
home to around 4 million Muslims.
Last week, Horst Seehofer, the premier of Bavaria and a member of the
Christian Social Union ? part of Merkel's ruling coalition ? called
for a halt to Turkish and Arabic immigration [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/11/germany-immigration-horst-seehofer"
title="called for a halt to Turkish and Arabic immigration].
In the past, Merkel has tried to straddle both sides of the argument
by talking tough on integration but also calling for an acceptance of
mosques.
But she faces pressure from within the CDU to take a harder line on
immigrants who show resistance to being integrated into German
society.
Yesterday's speech is widely seen as a lurch to the right designed to
placate that element in her party.
Merkel said too little had been required of immigrants in the past and
repeated her argument that they should learn German in order to cope
in school and take advantage of opportunities in the labour market.
The row over foreigners in Germany has shifted since former central
banker Thilo Sarrazin published a highly-controversial book [http://
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/02/germany-central-bank-decide-sack-thilo-sarrazin"
title="Thilo Sarrazin] in which he accused Muslim immigrants of
lowering the intelligence of German society.
Sarrazin was censured for his views and dismissed from the Bundesbank,
but his book proved popular and polls showed Germans were sympathetic
with the thrust of his arguments.
One recent poll showed one-third of Germans believed the country was
"overrun by foreigners" [http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/do/07504.pdf"
title="almost a third of Germans believed the country was "overrun by
foreigners">one-third of Germans believed the country was "overrun by
foreigners].
It also found 55% of Germans believed that Arabs are "unpleasant
people" [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/europe/14iht-
germany.html?_r=1" title="55% of Germans believed that MuslimsArabs
are "unpleasant people,"">55% of Germans believed that Arabs are
"unpleasant people], compared with the 44% who held the opinion seven
years ago.
In her speech, Merkel said the education of unemployed Germans should
take priority over recruiting workers from abroad, while noting that
Germany could not get by without skilled foreign workers.
The chancellor's remarks appear to confirm a suspicion that she has
sympathy with Sarrazin's anti-immigrant rhetoric. On Friday, he
declared: "Multiculturalism is dead".
Other members of Merkel's government disagree. In a weekend newspaper
interview, her 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) has said Germany
lacks about 400,000 skilled workers.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2010
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