3 Points –
1 – Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the Bundesbank’s board, proclaimed that because of the country’s shrinking population, immigrants and the underclass are having too many children, and the well-educated native Germans too few. He argued that Biologically, culturally and professionally Germany is dumbing down.
2 – Germany isn’t doing enough to bring immigrants into the social and economic mainstream.
3 – For several decades Germany expected workers from Turkey and elsewhere to leave like polite guests. It then had the idea of multi-kulti – that they could live in Germany without fully belonging to it. Recently Germans, or at least the political class, had begun to accept that Germany is an “immigration country” with a responsibility to integrate immigrants fully into national life.
2 Questions?
How should Germany proceed with multi-kulti?
How did Sarrazin come to this conclusion as an economist, when there is evidence that the German economy is doing very well?
1 Point –
Germany’s economy is doing very well currently, and German businesses longs for more immigration as long as the new immigrants have useful skills. The government is working on a law that would make it easier for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants in Germany with professional qualifications to have them recognised so that they can contribute more to the economy and complete meaningful jobs.
I think that the reaction to the immigrants is quite a dichotomy from the immigration situation in the U.S., where many simply want all immigrants to be removed, and refuse to see the potential benefits in skilled foreigners.
I think this is a very politically charged article and although there is an immigrant population problem in Germany, Chancellor Merkel has recognized that Germany has a responsibility to integrate immigrants into national life. She is developing a national integration to better education and employment.
I think it is important to note that the disparity of education and economic equality can not exclusively be lamed on the immigrant populations from a German perspective. It openly says in the article that the “native German” population never expected the immigrants to stay in Germany as long as they have, and I do not think it would be wrong to speculate that throughout the years this provided those immigrants with diminished opportunities seeing as they were not considered full citizens. It would be unfair for other Germans to blame these immigrants for social and economic situations that have been forced upon them.
Germany needs to proceed with caution. If they react too fast one way or the other it can cause massive issues for the citizens or the immigrants. Both options have pros and cons and the only way to solve it is to tread lightly.