In Washington, a gaffe can be said to occur when an influential person tells the truth.
In Germany, a similar sensibility prevails. A ruckus has been brewing up since last year when Thilo Sarrazin (pictured below), a board member of the Bundesbank, expressed unkind (but accurate) assessments about Germany’s Muslim immigrant population: “A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose number has grown through bad policies, have no productive function other than as fruit and vegetable vendors,” Sarrazin remarked to the magazine Lettre International.
He further stated that a majority of Arabs and Turks reject the authority of the German state. Muslim children, he said, do poorly in school and bring down the educational level of the country, unlike other immigrant groups which integrate within a generation. Sarrazin is fine with Vietnamese, Indians, etc. who get with the program of education, speaking German and having a job.
But the dust-up is just getting started. Sarrazin’s new book is being published this week, titled “Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (“Germany Does Away With Itself”).
New Book Plunges Germany into Immigration Debate, Der Spiegel, August, 25, 2010
This week, though, the Social Democrat (SPD) seems to have outdone himself. German media outlets, including SPIEGEL, have published excerpts of his soon-to-be-published book on Germany’s supposed demise. As Sarrazin makes abundantly clear, that demise comes as a result of immigration. The bluntness with which he presents his ideas has kicked off a debate in Germany, and within the center-left SPD, as to whether Sarrazin has crossed the line into racism and whether he should be censured.
In the excerpts that have been published, Sarrazin writes that Germany’s Muslim immigrant families have profited from social welfare payments to a far greater degree than they have contributed to German prosperity. He also has raised the spectre of the country’s Muslim population, due to what he claims are much higher birth rates among immigrants, soon overtaking that of the country’s “autochthonous” population — a term roughly synonymous with “indigenous.”
“If the fertility rate of German autochthons remains at the level it has been at for the past 40 years, then in the course of the next three or four generations, the number of the Germans will sink to 20 million,” he writes in the book. “And, incidentally, it is absolutely realistic that the Muslim population, through a combination of a higher birth rate and continuation of immigration, could grow by 2100 to 35 million.” In another passage, he writes: “I don’t want the country of my grandchildren and great grandchildren to be largely Muslim, or that Turkish or Arabic will be spoken in large areas, that women will wear headscarves and the daily rhythm is set by the call of the muezzin. If I want to experience that, I can just take a vacation in the Orient.”
In another passage, Sarrazin seems to suggest that Muslim immigrants would rather work under the table than legally. Through the language used in his polemics, Sarrazin appears to be aiming to push the highly divisive debate over immigration and integration closer to that of right-wing populists elsewhere in Europe, like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands.
It looks like a fine debate is shaping up between the people who admit the truth about Muslim immigration and those who believe in multiculturalism uber alles.
This just in…
Sarrazin unveils book as condemnation continues to rain in, Deutsche Welle, August 30, 2010
At least 150 people protested outside the book launch in the capital. Author and sociologist Necla Kelek spoke before Sarrazin, defending him and calling for the book’s issues to be discussed properly.
Controversy erupted after excerpts from the book were published in the mass circulation daily Bild last week. The author then gave a series of publicity interviews, during which he said Muslims denigrate European society due to their lower intelligence, and said that “all Jews share a particular gene.”
Advance orders have sent the book at the top of German sales charts.
Thilo Sarrazin says that Muslim immigration does not provide a benefit for German society but is instead a total negative. He knew the flack that comes from such opinions but pushed forward anyway by writing a book that was sure to be controversial. Hopefully the self-outing of a banker against the looming catastrophe of immigration-created Eurabia will stiffen the spines of others to speak out more forcefully about preserving European civilization.
Ausgezeichnet!
