Renewed debate on immigration erupts over meaning of Germanness

publiziert: Sonntag, 5. Nov 2000 / 17:11 Uhr

Berlin - Walk down pretty much any street in Berlin, and you'll likely find a vertical, rotating spit of meat that's one of Germany's fast-food staples. It's not bratwurst, doesn't come with sauerkraut or potato salad, and doesn't need to be devoured with the accompaniment of a hearty brew.

It's called a doner, and it has nothing to do with the country that gave the world Beethoven and Wagner, Goethe and Nietzsche. The lamb-meat sandwich comes from the more than 2 million Turks in Germany, the largest group of the 7.3 million foreigners making up nearly 10 percent of the population. While many foreign influences have flowed seamlessly into the German mainstream, conservatives have ignited a political battle _ and are meeting Monday to decide whether to push it further _ over what it means to be German and fit in with a culture that has a horrible history of prejudice against perceived outsiders. The renewed debate also comes as Germany is dealing with that legacy again in a renewed wave of neo-Nazi violence. The discussion isn't new, but was reignited after a comment by a leading conservative last month that foreigners should learn German "Leitkultur," or "majority culture," part of the Christian Democrats' discussions about whether to make immigration a theme in the 2002 elections. The party is reeling from the financial scandal sparked by ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and after several personnel shake-ups is still trying to find an issue that will help it back into the Chancellery. Christian Democratic parliament leader Friedrich Merz's remark sparked a firestorm of angry rebuttals by liberals, Jewish leaders and members of the immigrant community _ along with launching a conflict even within the party. The conservative leadership was to discuss their immigration policy at a regularly scheduled meeting Monday. Immigration is always a sensitive issue in Germany, which still doesn't officially see itself as a "country of immigrants" _ despite the large foreigner population and generous asylum policies enacted partially a result of guilt over World War II. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats have talked about implementing the country's first immigration law before the next election, and a commission is to make proposals by the middle of next year. Other Christian Democrats have rallied to Merz's side, including new party Secretary-General Laurenz Meyer, who made a comment that could only be controversial in light of Germany's persisting self-doubt: "I am proud to be a German." Leitkultur "isn't connected to Deutschland Ueber Alles," the nationalistic refrain from a now-banned verse of the national anthem, said Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy parliament leader of the Christian Democrats. Rather, he said in a Saturday radio interview that it referred to the "majority culture in Germany," and not "German majority culture." Even President Johannes Rau, a Social Democrat, has called on foreigners to learn German so that all people living here can understand each other and break down the barriers that lead to divisiveness. But critics still argue that politicians shouldn't be telling people what kind of culture they should assimilate into. "German in the year 2000 means everything that exists in Germany," Cem Ozdemir, a Greens parliament member whose parents came here from Turkey in the 1960s and is an outspoken liberal on immigration, said in a telephone interview Sunday from Istanbul. "It is roast pork, and at the same time it is doner. You cannot divide it anymore and say, `This is typical German culture."'
Germany also needs 200,000 to 250,000 foreigners a year in order to bolster the work force, particularly in high-tech industry, a leading German economics institute said over the weekend. That's a hard pill to swallow in a country that has just recently managed to push unemployment below 10 percent. "I don't have the impression that this debate will bring our society further," Schroeder said Sunday at a meeting of the public workers' union in Leipzig.

(news.ch)

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