I guess sixty-five years is long enough for Germans to get over the guilt and start talking trash about religious minorities again. That seems about right. You’d have to be over eighty years old to have had any shot in actually participating, even indirectly, in the Holocaust. It’s safe to go back in the water.
Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at “the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country… We kidded ourselves a while, we said: ‘They won’t stay, sometime they will be gone’, but this isn’t reality.
“And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other… has failed, utterly failed.”
No doubt she is responding to public opinion. Most of those foreign workers were Turks and, therefore, Muslims. Their cheap labor was welcome but their customs and beliefs were not enjoyable, apparently. Economic times get tough and the same old shit starts happening. It’s happening here, too. People need to stay vigilant.
Actually most of the foreign workers in the 60′ and 70’s were Italians, Spanish and Portugese, which were often called guest workers because they also had a limited visa. Though that wave of foreign workes did not include Muslims. The first group of so called guest workes is now well integrated in most places. The Turks came later and I think most of them integrated quite well. The problem in many places have been Albanians, with a higher percentage of their group being involved in crimes and drugs, at least were I am. In general refugees from the Balkans seem to have had a bigger problem integrating than many others.
This Muslim thing is relatively new, because religion used to be something private.
Merkel’s become a teabagger? Great!! And I thought countries on the European right generally were supposed to be better behaved then ours. I guess not.
Merkel also said:
BBC News – Merkel says German multicultural society has failed
I mean this is a problem – how can people integrate if they do not speak the language.
People who want to live in the US, don’t they have to learn English, to be able to find a job?
You know there are problems and we can close our eye and pretend they are not there or we can look at the problems and try to find solutions.
No, you don’t have to earn English to get a job in the United States and that has never been the case. What happens is that your kids learn the language in school and they are bilingual, and then the grandkids forget the mother tongue. It’s been done over and over (by the Germans, the Dutch, the Chinese, the Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Latinos) and the only time some politician says ‘Learn English’ is when they are appealing to bigots, plain and simple.
But you know what? No president of ours has ever said anything remotely like what Merkel said. Her statement is the ultimate un-American statement. To say they’ve failed utterly to be a multiethnic country is to repudiate their post-war history and to stop trying because the goal isn’t worthy.
Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ Holocaust Guilt Has Expired
I don’t read it that way. To me it means that they finally acknowledge that not everything is fine and that the way it has been done has not been successful, time to find NEW solutions on how to integrate.
I firmly believe that you can only solve problems that one acknowleges – and only then can you find new and better ways. And the truth is, integration has not been as good as it might be.
About the language – thats interesting, what kind of work do immigrants do, who do not speak English? I can not think of many jobs here that could be done, without knowing the local language.
So what do you recommend Merkel should do? Shut her eyes to reality and do and say nothing.
The Chinese built the railroads. The Italians built our cathedrals and buildings of all types. The Welsh and Scandinavians worked in our mines. Latinos pick our crops and do our landscaping. Many Koreans run corner stores with nothing more than a rudimentary grasp of English. There are plenty of jobs that don’t require any kind of fluency, and there always has been. We’re a nation of immigrants, and only the first wave (and to some degree, the Irish) were fluent in English when they got here.
Of course you have to acknowledge a problem to fix it. But she’s saying that the whole idea was a mistake. She says, “Oh, we thought they would stay a while and then leave.” That seems to be an acknowledgement on her part that conservatives never even tried, which may be at the root of the problem. And she wasn’t talking about the Italians.
Germany is a highly industrialized nation with high levels of education. They are not raising their kids to clean sheets in hotels. They either learn the value of being a modern first-world state (which requires cheap labor from abroad) or they revert back to being obsessed with racial and cultural purity.
Your title is completely over the top, BooMan. It’s almost a slur.
I agree!!!
Well, holy cow, isn’t there a difference between one asshat saying asshatty things, and institutionalized, approved abuse of a minority people?
I guess by this measure, America has forgotten slavery and is going back to lynchings because of Glenn Beck.
OK, maybe that wasn’t such a good example… but if the German police stood by while people, say threw rocks at schoolkids, it might just make your case here.
Institutionalized bigotry (like ours against glbt’s) is always heinous.
Its GOOD to speak against it… but this may be overreacting.
Okay, the title is hyperbolic. Here’s what I mean. Up to now, it has been taboo to say anything like what Merkel said, certainly by a head of state, but also in most of polite society. Apparently, those days are over.
Some realities:
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When the European Union started with six nations it became attractive for cheap labor to move from the Meditteranean countries north to the Benelux, France and Germany. Indeed the laborers came from Spain, Italy and later from Morocco and Turkey. The industrials of mass labor production in textiles, electronics and shoes still was too expensive. The production moved to Eastern Europe and North African countries. Jobs were lost and the immigrant laborer became dependent on social welfare. The immigration policy was never adjusted and permitted family members, brides to be and relatives to join laborer families in the EU. In the USA with the green card, immigration policy is pretty tight with strict rules. Once a family member committed a felony, the whole family was expelled to the old country. These sanctions were never applied in the EU and in a quick manner, city suburbs changed color, language and culture seen in shops, business and houses of worship. Higher crime rates like petty thievery became more common and a nuisance because these misdeamors were not prosecuted. It’s become a wave across Europe and the far-right parties exploit the misgivings of the people. It’s not the corporation who profited from cheap labor that carries the burden of social welfare for the unemployed. The laborers from Spain did return to their home country when it joined the EU. This cycle will continue and repeat itself. That’s why the socialist and labor parties in The Netherlands failed in the last election cycle. The Dutch Christian Democrats lost have of their voters who moved mainly to the right to the liberal conservatives VVD of prime minister Rutte and the PVV party of Geert Wilders.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
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The German people wear guilt for the atrocities of the second World War. I don’t like to use the word holocaust because it’s being used for political purpose and has become a tool for Israel to continue the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I prefer to use the word Shoah to depict the atrocities of the Nazi regime in its policy to exterminate the Jewish people across the European continent.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."