Category: Germany

With an estimated number of at least 2.1 million Turks in Germany, they form the largest ethnic minority. The vast majority are found in what used to be West Germany. Berlin, Frankfurt,Hamburg, Rhine-Ruhr (Cologne, Duisburg and Dortmund) have large Turkish communities. The state with the largest Turkish population is North Rhine-Westphalia.

Educating Thilo Sarrazin

The multiculturalism debate in Germany is ignoring the glaring flaws in our education system

Aylin Selçuk
The Guardian

‘If you don’t like it here, why don’t you go back to your own country? We Germans would love it, because we like you as much as a terminal illness.” I get emails like this nearly every day. The reason why is that I recently decided to take legal action against Thilo Sarrazin. Sarrazin is a former head of the Bundesbank, a Social Democrat, and the author of a bestselling book, Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (“Germany is digging its own grave”), in which he claims that the poor intelligence of young German Muslims is dragging down the education system.

“I don’t have to accept anyone who rejects this country’s constitution, doesn’t ensure their children are properly educated, and only produces little headscarf-girls,” he writes. Since I filed my suit, the number of emails I receive has almost doubled: I am threatened, insulted and abused.

In the 70s, when he worked at the finance ministry, Sarrazin had the bright idea to sell off West Berlin to the GDR. This time around, he has it in for Berliners called Mehmet, Zeynep or Muhammad. They are supposed to come up with the solutions for the problems with a 50-year-old migration policy that has left many young Turks in Germany feeling unsure if they are Turkish or German. They are meant to realise on their own that they live in a “parallel society” and start adjusting themselves to the norm. That’s quite a big ask. Yet in Germany, “That man has a point …” seems to be the starting point for most discussions about Sarrazin’s book.

It’s unclear to me where most Germans get their impression of ethnic minorities from. They are, after all, just that: minorities. How many of those who feel threatened by us actually know someone of Turkish origin? Current statistics show that more than 60% of the population have no direct contact with these so-called foreigners. Moreover: how is such a small part of the population meant to be able to destroy the intelligence of a whole country?

In the whole debate people seem to have lost sight of the fact that Sarrazin’s argument rests on one of the most schoolchildish insults around: that Turkish people are stupid. “A large number of Arabs and Turks,” Sarrazin has said, “make no constructive contribution anywhere but the vegetable trade.” I find this personally insulting, not least because my own family’s story proves that this isn’t the case. When my grandparents came to Germany from Turkey, they couldn’t read or write. Today, my mother manages a bank branch in Berlin, while my father works as a journalist. When I was younger, they were so desperate for me to get a decent education that they moved to a more expensive part of Berlin so that I could get into a good Gymnasium, a secondary school with an emphasis on academic learning. I now study dental medicine at Berlin University.

The point I am trying to make is less about bigging up a personal achievement than about shifting attention to the area that I see as the real source of Germany’s social problem: education.

“Human dignity is untouchable”: this universal right is present both in basic German law and in the first article of the general declaration of human rights. You do not have to earn dignity; it is not a trait, like wisdom or beauty; you possess it from birth. The idea that every person is worthy because of their existence alone forms the very basis of the term “human dignity”.

Yet the German worldview that has emerged during the Sarrazin debate is quite different from this. It divides the population into the worthy and the worthless: those with a decent education, and those without. How the worthless are to be turned into worthy members of society – that is a question that has been conveniently left to one side in this debate. It’s worth remembering that not more than 5% of German students come from the so-called lower social classes.

To make things worse, Sarrazin has above all achieved one thing: Germany is changing from being a country that used to attract immigrants into one that makes ethnic minorities feel they would rather emigrate. Exclusion and confrontation with prejudice are becoming a feature of daily life for many of us; we are made to feel like second-class citizens, in spite of having an education and a career. Racist comments are made socially acceptable; double standards prevail for freedom of expression.

Even “desirable foreigners” with a successful career or a promising CV will emigrate to other EU countries or the US. The media are jointly responsible for this. By going along with a publisher’s marketing strategy, they have shown that inciting hatred can lead to financial gain. Well done, Thilo Sarrazin.

• This article first appeared in the anthology Manifest der Vielen: Deutschland erfindet sich neu

via Educating Thilo Sarrazin | Aylin Selçuk | Comment is free | The Guardian.

March 25, 2011
Louie Gohmert Invokes Holocaust While Railing Against Debt

Nick Wing

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) attempted to deliver a dire warning about debt and deficits during a House floor address Friday. While doing so, however, he managed to spin a cautionary historical tale linking the current trend of spending to the Holocaust.

After claiming that ignoring what he depicted as the current budget crisis would cause Congress to “lose the country,” Gohmert delved into his analysis of post-World War I Germany.

“And ultimately, as the country’s economy collapsed, they became so desperate, they were willing to elect a little guy with a mustache who began to blame those of Jewish origin, leading to the worst holocaust in the history of mankind,” Gohmert said. “What opened the door for this barbarian to take over such a proud country and lead them into this unthinkable, horrible crime against humanity?”

The congressman continued: “Over six million Jewish people were killed, exterminated. Economic problems, spending too much, owing too much, trying to print money to make it up didn’t work, so they got desperate.”

While certainly an extreme reach back into history, the Texas lawmaker is familiar with predicting apocalyptic circumstances for legislation he disagrees with.

According to Gohmert, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was going to threaten America’s very existence, while the passage of a 2009 hate crimes bill was supposed to lead to the legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, bestiality and perhaps even Naziism.

www.huffingtonpost.com. 11.03.2011

March 12, 2011
Merkel Ally Assails Turkey on Human Rights

By JUDY DEMPSEY

BERLIN — Horst Seehofer, the leader of the governing Christian Social Union party in Bavaria and a key ally in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government, on Wednesday issued a strong attack against Turkey’s human rights record and warned Ankara not to interfere in the integration debate taking place in Germany.

At the same time, Mr. Seehofer, who is opposed to Turkey’s becoming a member of the European Union, called on immigrants to “sign up to German values,” including the adoption of the German language, fueling further the debate on how to integrate many of the four million Muslims and highlighting the rift in German-Turkish relations.

With two important regional elections taking place this month, analysts said some prominent members of Mrs. Merkel’s conservative bloc were using the integration issue to win votes, despite warnings from Lutheran bishops and Turkish community leaders against singling out Muslims.

“This is about drumming up support during the regional elections,” said Michael Maier, editor of the German-Turkish news agency. “It is also about the conservatives trying to create some sort of profile, which at the moment they lack.”

Mr. Seehofer cited a speech that the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, made last month in Düsseldorf to an estimated crowd of 11,000 Turkish residents in which he said Turks should integrate, but not assimilate, into German culture.

Speaking in Passau, southern Bavaria, on Ash Wednesday — the one day of the year when German politicians traditionally attack their political opponents without hesitation — Mr. Seehofer said Mr. Erdogan had no right to criticize Germany’s dominant way of life given what is happening in Turkey.

“A country that disregards the human rights of women as much as Turkey does, that on its own territory renders life difficult for Christians, from such a prime minister we do not need lessons about how to deal with religious minorities in our countries,” Mr. Seehofer said.

Mr. Erdogan’s Düsseldorf speech has since been become the subject of much debate among conservatives, including the new interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, who is also a member of the Christian Social Union.

During his first day in office last week, Mr. Friedrich said Islam was not part of the German culture and repeated that immigrants, especially Muslims living in Germany, should make German their first language.

Mr. Seehofer, however, took the debate further on Wednesday when he said those who wanted to stay in Germany should be ready to sign up to German values. He proposed a change to the Bavarian Constitution so that the authorities in the state would be under obligation to help with the integration process but that minorities, too, should be prepared to actively support the integration process. Any change to the Constitution would require a referendum.

via Merkel Ally Assails Turkey on Human Rights – NYTimes.com.

March 10, 2011
DOLLAR-YUAN CURRENCY WAR

By Fred Schmid

[This article published in: isw report 83/84 “China crisis as a chance” is translated from the German on the Internet,

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The Institute of Social-Economic Research is in Munich.]

The Yuan is completely undervalued and therefore harms the US economy. That is the aggressive reproach of the US government.

As long as US citizens could indulge their consumer orgy financed by China’s credit, the US economy flourished somewhat and the Yuan exchange rate was hardly a theme. A scapegoat for the misery is now sought in the crisis with the highest US unemployment in decades. The “manipulated” and “artificially under-valued” Yuan price is the reason for the Chinese export success destroying jobs in the US and making difficult US exports to China.

First of all, no one can be certain or prove whether a currency is under- or over-valued because there is no objective criterion or standard. Even exchange rates that supposedly are freely formed on the market are politically manipulated by interventions of states, state debt acceptance and fixing key interest rates. These exchange rates are distorted by market forces and by potent financial speculator5s who speculate on a devaluing or upgrading of the currency. Currency speculation is the main business of the financial fraudsters today.

Since the fall of 2008, the Yuan price has been bound in a firm relation to the dollar and neither upgraded nor devalued. When exchange rates deteriorate in trade for the US, this means firstly the productivity-development of the US economy has worsened compared to China. China cannot be punished for that. Whether the foreign trade situation would improve substantially for the US with an upgrading of the Yuan is doubtful. The export miracle hoped for by the US did not occur during a first upgrading phase between July 2005 and June 2006. Although the Renminbi rose 21 percent compared to the dollar, the US balance of payments deficit in trade with China hit a record high in this time period at 39 percent. (The Yuan was upgraded around 58% between January 1994 and the end of 2010.)

With the beginning of the financial crisis, the Chinese government suspended the gradual adjustment. Its currency should not fall in the turbulences of the financial crisis which at the start hit the export industry hard and cost millions of jobs. 67,000 businesses of the export industry declared bankruptcy. Therefore the Chinese government saw no need for additional action in the matter of upgrading. The Yuan was firmly coupled to the US dollar at a rate of 6.83.

The value of the Yuan is not the cause for the US trade and balance of payments deficits. The reasons are the high state indebtedness (armaments/wars and tax gifts to the rich) and the indebtedness of private households caused by stagnating or declining real incomes of the masses (income distribution in favor of profits and interest income). In the words of Stephen Roach, Asian president of Morgan Stanley, “If the US (state and private households) continues to save, the US will be less dependent on financing by Chinese savers. American consumers would no longer overspend and buy cheap Chinese goods. Which came first, the surplus or the deficit? Did the Chinese development strategy force Americans to blow their savings? Or did American greed, living beyond their means, force the Chinese to supply them with cheap capital and bargain-priced goods?” (HB. 4/14/2010). Over 60 percent of the articles offered by the largest US discounter Walmart come from China. The products are voluntarily acquired by Americans. If China did not offer them, other cheap producers would quickly take over this role. The US has a trade deficit with 90 countries. The US must accuse all these countries of currency manipulation as in the case of China. Investors in developing countries urged a firm dollar-bond early on. They wanted to prevent profits transferred from their countries from losing value.

The essential reason for the imbalances in US trade is that the American economy is no longer competitive in relation to these 90 countries. In the course of militarization (imperial overstretch, “Homeland Security” mania) and financialization, the US economy increasingly became a waste economy with rising deficits in infrastructure and education. In addition, a process of de-industrialization has been carried out in the US in the last decades. US transnational corporations have largely shifted their production sites abroad, above all to China. Stephan Roach explains: “US corporations produce cheaply in China and thus their profits, stock prices and the wealth of many shareholders are blown up. This was basically an upward spiral for Americans driven by virtual purchasing power” (HB, 4/14/2010). What previously was a manifestation of the imperial power and strength of the US, namely living at the expense of the rest of the world, now suddenly changes into weakening and consumption of the economic substance.

“GET TOUGH ON CHINA”

The production transfers to China have led to exporting industrial goods with low or medium technological standards by US or other western corporations from China to the US. US high-tech products that China would like to import are subject to the politically-defined US embargo. 20 product categories are blocked for export to China. In 2001, 18.3% of Chinese high-tech imports came from the US. Through the restrictions of the Bush administration, this share fell to eight percent in 2008 (chd, 3/6/2010).

In the US, the debate around the Yuan among economists is very controversial. While Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman accuses China of keeping the Yuan price artificially low and urges “getting tough on China,” Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell does not agree. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz urges loosening high-tech restrictions to facilitate a more even trade balance (cf. chd, 3/22/2010). The economist Peter Schiff, well-known for his exact prediction of the 2008 crisis, writes: “It is all a PR-maneuver that our leaders could `get tough’ with the Chinese. They know very well where their bread is buttered. They depend on the Chinese buying our debts and providing our citizens with cheap products that our unproductive economy cannot produce. When China buys our debts, it uses its own savings. To purchase a trillion dollars in US Treasury bonds, the Federal Reserve must increase our money supply a corresponding amount leading to a sharp decline of the dollar” (chd, 3/20/2010). Schiff warned that a falling dollar would lead to consumer prices rising by leaps and bounds, to quickly soaring interest rates and to a collapse of US living standards. This would mean the end of Krugman’s “Get tough on China” policy, he added. Other experts point out that China has contributed enormously to the revival of the global economy and not only finances US debts and supplies US consumers with cheap consumer goods. Finally China has reduced its balance of payments surplus in the last three years by rapidly increasing imports. It decreased imports more slowly than exports in the crisis year 2009.

The reproach of currency manipulation is not new and is always raised by Americans against states when they are at as competitive disadvantage in trade policy. In 1971 the US government accused Germany and Japan of currency manipulation and forced them to upgrade their currencies. On August 15, 1971 President Nixon put a temporary surcharge on imports. The remark of Nixon’s Treasury secretary John Connally, full of arrogance of power, was the monetary motto of the superpower: “The dollar is our currency but your problem.” In the 1980s when the US had gigantic deficits in trade with Japan, Washington forced the Asian power to drastically upgrade the Yen in the 1985 Plaza agreement. The US balance of trade did not improve as a result. Billions in speculations streamed to Japan and pumped up the trade- and real estate bubbles until they burst and gave the country its “lost decade.”

China will not fall in the same trap as Japan at that time. Washington wants to force Peking to abrupt upgrading through sanctions and a trade war if necessary. The past concessions of the Chinese leadership are not enough for the US government. China recently suspended the dollar bond just before the G20 summit in June 2010 in Toronto. Since then, it couples its currency to a basket of currencies that better reflects trade relations. The Euro will be given more weight in setting the Yuan price. The Yuan was slightly upgraded three percent from July to the mid-November G20 summit in Seoul but that was not enough for the US government.

On September 29, 2010 the US House of Representatives passed a bill against “currency manipulation” directed first of all against China. It can first become law after passage by the Senate and President Obama’s signature. Afterwards penal duties and other sanctions will take effect quasi-automatically. The American Chamber of Commerce in China representing 1200 firms appealed to the Senate to kill the bill. As reasons, it said significant US job growth would probably not be generated by the law and American exporters would be hurt. “Censuring China will not help the US economy. This legislation could cost American jobs,” the president of the Chamber of Commerce, John D. Watkins, declared (quoted according to chd 10/1/2010).

CURRENCIES AS WEAPONS

Now and then the monetary skirmish between the US and China threatens to change suddenly into a world currency war. The US has a trade deficit problem with many countries, with the export powers Germany6, Japan and not only with China. They urge these countries to do more in expanding their domestic markets and thus equalize their trade balances and reduce the imbalances in world trade. At the same time the US manipulated its currency downwards when the US Federal Reserve after the G20 summit announced and implemented buying $600 billion in US Treasury bonds in the next six months. This measure is tantamount to starting up the money printing machine.

A cheapening or devaluation of the dollar will make difficult exports to the US and will favor US exports. For want of mass purchasing power on the domestic market, all capitalist metropolis countries want to export out of the crisis and compensate their weak domestic demand through greater exports on the world markets. Only Germany was successful with this strategy. Since there will be no global import vacuum any more4 like the United Consumer States of America, the trade conflicts intensify and the danger of a devaluation-race threatens like the worldwide economic crisis 80 years ago.

Presently the US is mired in a credit crunch like Greece and Ireland – only in other dimensions and with other options. Annually it must fork out $500 billion for its gigantic debt mountain. The US state debt-maker now has an additional problem. Its most reliable and largest creditor turns off its money-pump. For a year Peking has not purchased any US bonds. Within a year, the Chinese reduced their portfolio in treasuries from $938 billion (at the end of September 2009) to $884 billion (at the end of September 2010), that is $54 billion (GT 11/17/2010; chd 5/19/2010). Previously from 2008 to the fall of 2009, they purchased $17 billion of state bonds every month. We can o9nly puzzle over the motives of the Chinese. Firstly they buy Euros and other currencies for reasons of risk-scattering to partly offset the dollar decline. That is also the reason for the fluctuations in holdings of Treasuries on the backdrop of a downward trend. Secondly, it seems to be a certain answer to the China-bashing driven by the US government for a year in the question of Yuan upgrading. In the meantime, China has become confident enough to strike back with the weapon of the economy. The USA again tries to make a virtue out of its money-distress and recoin it to its advantage.

With the additional dollar flood, the upgrading pressure on the currencies of threshold countries increases which could again limit their export-capability to the US. More “hot money” sloshes around on their stock- and real estate markets. The danger of bubbles in these countries increases. Like the Japanese Yen, the dollar becomes the profitable source for carry-traders, golden times for US and international financial capital. If the bubbles on the stock exchanges and real estate markets of threshold countries burst, these countries pay for the US debt policy.

The dollar flood brings the advantage for the US that its foreign debts are devalued as the dollar is devalued. Greece and Ireland would be afraid to balance their deficits with Euros they print themselves. Everything is allowed the powerful.

March 8, 2011
Netanyahu’s rightist policies impede Israel’s integration into new regional order

Netanyahu is ostensibly willing to talk with the Palestinians, but he offers them nothing beyond the future recognition – laden with preconditions – of a Palestinian state.

Haaretz Editorial

Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to the political turmoil in Arab states with renewed entrenchment in his right-wing views. In his address to the Knesset last week the prime minister warned that the regional instability could last for years, patted himself on the back for opposing the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and spoke in favor of a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley as part of a future agreement with the Palestinians, to keep Iran from “walking into” the West Bank.

Netanyahu described himself as being disappointed by the refusal of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate. Netanyahu is ostensibly willing to talk with the Palestinians, but he offers them nothing beyond the future recognition – laden with preconditions – of a Palestinian state. He is not open to a change in the territorial status quo, and insists on going ahead with the expansion of the settlements, which undermines the chances for compromise.

Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to American Jewish leaders in Jerusalem on Feb. 16, 2011. / Photo by: Emil Salman

In such circumstances it is understandable that the international community views Netanyahu’s talk of peace as empty words meant to buy time in order to perpetuate the right’s control of the government and to bolster the settlement enterprise. The U.S. veto prevented the harsh condemnation of the settlements by the UN Security Council, but the voting underlined Israel’s growing isolation.

Netanyahu’s position causes even friendly leaders, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to turn her back to him. “You did nothing to advance peace,” Merkel told the prime minister when he called her to complain about Germany’s support for the Security Council resolution, according to a report by Barak Ravid in Friday’s Haaretz. Netanyahu promised Merkel that he will soon issue a new peace proposal, but the German chancellor was not inclined to believe him.

It is precisely during times of regional instability and uncertainty that Israel needs the support of the international community. But the Netanyahu government prefers to turn its back to the world and to barricade itself within Hebron and Beit El, Ofra and Yitzhar. Its policy is causing serious harm to Israel’s national interests and will only impede Israel’s integration into the new regional order that is taking shape. Netanyahu must heed the warnings of friendly leaders and put forth a practical peace plan – and not another attempt to use high-flown rhetoric to get the world off his back.

www.haaretz.com, 27.02.11

Merkel rebukes Israeli PM Netanyahu for failing to advance peace

Israeli paper reports that PM was told in fractious phone call: ‘You haven’t made a single step’

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem

Binyamin Netanyahu was rebuked after expressing disappointment that Germany voted for a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Photograph: Reuters

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has sternly rebuked the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, in an unusually fractious telephone call, according to media reports.

Netanyahu had done nothing to advance the peace process, Merkel said in a conversation this week, reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

The Israeli prime minister telephoned Merkel on Monday to say he was disappointed that Germany had voted for a UN security council resolution condemning settlements that was vetoed by the US.

According to a German official quoted by Haaretz, Merkel was furious. “How dare you?” she said. “You are the one who has disappointed us. You haven’t made a single step to advance peace.”

A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister said he could not confirm the report.

The quoted comments reflect growing impatience in Europe with the impasse in the Israeli-Palestinian talks and a belief that Israel is stalling or impeding progress. With the exception of the US last Friday’s resolution was backed by all the security council members including Britain, Germany and France.

Despite the resolution being carefully worded to reflect American policy on settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the US wielded its veto for the first time under Barack Obama’s presidency.

Reaction among Palestinians has been angry. Demonstrations have been held across the West Bank, in Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem.

Netanyahu told Merkel that he was planning a new initiative to be disclosed in the next few weeks. “I intend to make a new speech about the peace process in the next two to three weeks,” he was quoted as saying.

An Israeli government official confirmed that a fresh statement by Netanyahu on negotiations was in preparation but declined to say when it might be delivered.

During a visit to Israel this month the German chancellor warned that “the stalemate in negotiation is dangerous. There is no room for excuses.“

She dismissed the notion that Europe was becoming more hostile to Israel. “Europe will not turn its back on Israel and neither will the United States. We feel uncomfortable because things are not progressing. In an honest and straightforward manner I will tell you that you are missing an opportunity. History will not give you many more.“

At a joint press conference on Thursday with the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, Netanyahu said he expected Poland to be robust in defending Israel when it took over the presidency of the European Union on 1 July.

“We have two expectations: upgrading Israel’s standing in the EU and upgrading the truth,” he said. “Israel is fighting for its right to exist, to live in security and exist at all, against ceaseless waves of attacks.”

www.guardian.co.uk, 25 February 2011

February 27, 2011
Turkey holds first Holocaust memorial

Turkey has held its first-ever public ceremony commemorating the Holocaust at Istanbul’s biggest synagogue.

Members of Turkey’s foreign ministry were present along with the Mayor of Istanbul who sat next to Chief Rabbi Rav Isak Haleva. The ceremony was held as part of the UN General Assembly’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The global day of commemoration was established on Jan. 27 by the United Nations in 2005.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s message at the ceremony stated ;“It is natural result of our culture

of living together to share the pain that the Jewish community experienced in the past, as this reflects our tolerance for each other as a state and community.They Jewish people are part of our community and will remain as such.”

Photo: ESI

January 29, 2011