Diesen Text habe ich auf Einladung der Deutschen Botschaft Washington und der dortigen Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung am Mittwoch, den 15. November 2006, vor dem „Human Rights Caucus“ im amerikanischen Kongress vorgetragen. (Zum Rückübersetzen fehlt mir leider die Geduld.)
Testimony before Congressional Human Rights Caucus, Washington, November 15.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
the issue of national identity and belonging – who we are as a nation and what keeps us together – has always been a crucial and delicate one in Germany.
It has been delicate for ethnic Germans during the postwar era for obvious reasons.
And it is also a pretty tough one for those who migrated to Germany in the last decades. There is a lot of talk about integration in Germany today. The word is often used as if it was a self-evident term. The foreigners, the „Ausländer“, the migrants, the muslims, the Turks are told they’re supposed to better integrate into German society.
This concept is hardly ever questioned anymore. And why should it be? It really sounds self-evident, doesn’t it? Well, of course, it isn’t. Because if you want someone to be better integrated, this supposes that you have a fairly clear idea of what he should integrate himself into.
Let me tell you a little story to show you how tricky and ironic these things can get in Europe, and in Germany especially…
Two years ago, after the Madrid bombings, there was an excited debate in Germany about the German muslim community and their loyalty towards the country, the constitution and its values. I interviewed a highly regarded turkish-german writer about these questions.
I asked him: „When was it that you first felt that you are a German?“ He said: „It was in the early nineties, in the world before the Schengen agreement, when we still had to show passports at the border to the Netherlands. I presented my brand new German passport to the dutch official. He was not able to pronounce my name right, and he made a joke about it to his colleague. I heard the word „Moffen“ – the dutch curse word for the bloody Germans. At first I was angry – but then I felt quite happy: Now you are finally one of them, I thought!“
This is just to give you an idea of the paradoxes of identity for migrants in Europe. What I am actually going to do is focus on the other side – on German politics‘ changing approach towards these issues and the consequences for the party system.
Things are finally changing rapidly in German politics around immigration and integration. In fact, I would argue, the changes around these issues reflect a rapid and – in some aspects – unsettling break-up of Germany’s party system. Let me give you a brief update.
For decades, the game was very clear and simple.
The Christian Democrats were presenting themselves as the anti-immigration party – restrictive on the number of immigrants, and expecting assimilation from the foreigners, once they were accepted. The CDU often campaigned and sometimes won on the anti-immigration ticket. They had a very successful referendum against double citizenship in Hessen. In North Rhine Westphalia they were campaigning with the rhyme „Kinder statt Inder“ – „(German) children instead of Indian immigrants“.
The Social Democrats were presenting themselves as more friendly and more open towards immigrants, especially towards workers from Turkey – who tended to be largely sympathetic to the SPD in elections. Still, the Social Democrats were reluctant in publicly accepting the fact that Germany was a country of immigration. They were in fact very anxious not to antagonize their voter base in the working class and the lower middle classes, which tended towards protectionism.
The Green Party was the only one to openly promote Germany as an immigration country. The Greens were the champions of progressive policy towards the migrants – accepting them as a permanent feature of german society, lobbying for their rights and praising their contibutions to German economy and culture.
In the Red/Green-coalition under chancellor Schröder, the Greens finally managed to prod the Social Democrats towards a new, more inclusive citizenship law, moving from ius sanguinis to ius soli, which was a major shift for Germany.
They were also the driving force behind the new immigration law – Zuwanderungsgesetz – which made it irreversibly clear that Germany was to be considered a country of immigration, although this law in the end did not result in an actual increase of migration to Germany.
All parties had their little inconsistencies, their delusions: In actual fact, the anti-immigrant CDU was responsible for the influx of guest workers, beginning in the 50’s. Yet they kept denying the fact that guest workers had become permanent residents, that these people were never going to go back, and that they needed a place in the social and cultural fabric of the country – in short: that they needed recognition and equal rights. The CDU was in the forefront of denying them recognition.
The Social Democrats and the Greens in turn never came to terms with the fact that successful integration depends not only on the openness of the receiving society, but also on the values and the aspirations of the migrants themselves. They sometimes gave the impression that integration was a natural process that would simply occur if you let people alone.
So, to sum it up:
The conservative delusion was that the problem of integration was going to be temporary – that it was going to vanish in time, because people would either assimilate or go home. The liberal delusion was that there was basically no problem at all, once you offered citizenship and equal rights to immigrants: migrants were going to enrich German society, make it more diverse, redeem the narrowness of postwar German identity.
That was roughly where the main parties were standing five years ago. September 11 did not really change the pattern, although it raised the awareness about radical islamists operating from Germany and Europe. German authorities began to look for partners in the islamic community to fight terrorism and alienation of young people. But the political discourse and the role the respective parties played in it remained basically unchanged.
It took dramatic events closer to home to change these attitudes. I already mentioned the Madrid bombings. Then there was the murder of Theo van Gogh, the London bombings, then the French riots, the cartoon crisis in Denmark. Germany, it seemed, was spared dramatic events like these.
But then a series of honour killings shocked the German public. Schools in immigrant neighbourhoods signalled SOS, because of language problems and violent incidents. The teacher body of the Rütli-School in Berlin-Neukölln wrote an Open letter to the Mayor, saying they could not take the disrespect and the harassment by their students any longer.
Another Berlin school made it into Al Jazeera’s headlines when it became known the school had made it mandatory to speak German even during lunch break and extracurricular activities. New numbers about school and labour market performance of third generation immigrants were very unsettling: 12 % of immigrant students finish school with Abitur – the High School Diploma that entitles them to got to college – as opposed to 33 % of Germans. Close to 40 % of foreigners in Berlin are jobless, as opposed to 17 % of Germans. 15 % of foreigners over 65 are on welfare, as opposed to 1,5 % of Germans.
Young Turkish men are three times as likely to get in conflict with the law than their german counterparts. According to the latest demographic data, this is a growing problem: It is estimated that in 2010, 40 % of Germans will be migrants or children of immigrants.
In an ironic twist, now the Conservatives are the ones who have to deal with these dramatic new developments in the Grand Coalition. They took over the ministry of interior affairs, and they created a new office in the chancellery – the Staatsminister for Integration. So they will have to come up with workable solutions instead of the politics of denial that they have followed for so long. When Wolfgang Schäuble and Maria Böhmer came to their respective offices in November 2005, they were thinking of minor adjustments to previous Conservative policies. But in the year that followed, we have seen a complete reversal.
The French riots and the Danish cartoon crisis played an eminent role: If we continue down the path – this was the analysis – it is only a matter of time until this will happen here, too. I think this is correct, and I think you have to give Schäuble and Böhmer a lot of credit for the initiatives they undertook.
They made the integration of the largely turkish-muslim migrants a top priority. Within weeks of taking office they announced they were going to have two summits in the chancellery and the ministry of interior – one about integration, one about Islam.
The German muslim community – at least the organisations it has built so far – had thus far been treated with great reluctance and suspicion (rightly so, in many respects). But during the French riots and the Cartoon crisis, the muslim leaders in Germany took a very responsible stance. They criticized islamophobia and discrimination, but they stuck to non-violence and they were speaking as German citizens on the basis of constitutional rights and values.
When a German aid worker in Iraq was abducted, the chairman of the Central Council of German Muslims offered himself up for exchange. The German government decided it had to open talks with leaders of the muslim community instead of just talking about them and appealing to them through the media. They decided they needed a partner if they wanted to avoid the alienation between muslim communities and the authorities that was becoming obvious in so many of our neighbouring countries.
Schäuble and Böhmer followed a policy of open hands an tough questions combined. They invited delegations of muslim groups to high level talks – thereby giving them unprecedented visibility and the long refused recognition.
But in the talks they included fierce critics of these very groups and their attitudes towards women’s rights, secularism, the shariah and so forth. So in Germany, we ware now in the fortunate situation that our own Ayaan Hirsi Alis are not leaving the country frustrated. They are part of a process to define what a German Islam could be, culturally, socially and institutionally.
Turkish feminists Seyran Ates and Necla Kelek are contributers to the Deutsche Islam Konferenz – a newly created body of experts discussing the future of Islam in Germany with the minister of interior. This conference has 2 years time to come up with ideas for the incorporation of Islam into Germany’s social and legal framework. Religious leaders, social scientists, teachers, successful business figures with a migrant background, critics of Islam and moderate Islamists are all part of the experiment.
The hope is not to avoid confrontation and the clash of cultures that is already taking place, but rather to make it productive. The hope might not be in vain: When the Deutsche Oper in Berlin recently cancelled Mozart’s Idomeneo, the minister appealed to all participants of the Islam Konferenz to stand up against censorship and for freedom of speech. All Muslim organisations followed this appeal, all but one accepted the invitation to attend the opera when it is reopening the production of Idomeneo in December. I guess this has not been as widely reported over here as the cancelling of the play.
A visit to the Opera – including the interior minister (an observing protestant), muslim leaders and critics of islam – this would be unthinkable in any of our neighbouring countries. You may consider it a very german way of conflict resolution – believing in the redemptive power of culture. But maybe this is not the worst of german heritage.
Opening a real dialogue with the muslim community is a major achievement of the Conservatives. They are envied for this by their social democratic partners in government – and by their Green opponents.
While the Conservatives have turned to an outreach-policy, the Social Democrats seem to fall back on their old protectionism. Conservatives have launched an initiative to legalise longterm illegal immigrants and grant them access to the labour market.
Social Democrats have refused this, as they have also refused to lower the barriers for high skilled workers, students and immigrants who want to start up their own company. This stance is incompatible with their former policy of creating a Greencard-system for Germany. The Social democrats seem to be pretty confused that they are being passed by the CDU on the left and the right at the same moment.
The same goes for the Greens: They are stuck in an internal debate about the shortcomings of multiculturalism and how to adjust it to a tougher, more conflict-ridden world. They are right to be proud of their far-sightedness in the past. Immigration and intregration were major issues, and they were the first to see this. But now they are in danger of loosing these trademark issues to the pragmatic Conservatives an their new tough-love-policy.
One big question remains: If the Conservatives say goodbye to anti-immigrant, xenophobic policies once and for all, this is obviously good news at first sight. But it also opens up opportunities for new players on the political stage. All over Europe we have seen populist parties sprouting in the last decade. Anti-Immigrant sentiment has been their bread and butter – from the French Front National to the Italian Lega Nord to the Danish Folkeparti and to the Dutch Leefbar, founded by the charismatic Pim Fortuyn.
At the moment, I am pretty optimistic that we will not see this happening in Germany. Things are moving in the right direction, despite difficulties. But the supporter base of the big parties in Germany is shrinking, and so is their power to dominate and civilize political strife.
We have been spared a major terrorist attack. But only three months ago, an attempt to blow up two regional trains in Germany failed because of the technical ineptitude of the two terrorists involved.
A successful attack could change everything. That makes it even more important to press for better integration in Germany. And because we know from recent history that such an attack may also take place outside of Germany – there is a good reason why the world should care how we perform.
Thank you for your patience.