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Europe
Turkish workers a mistake, claims former German chancellor
2004-11-25
Helmut Schmidt, the former German chancellor, has inflamed the country's debate on immigration by saying that multiculturalism can only work under authoritarian regimes, and that bringing millions of Turkish guest workers to Germany was a mistake. "The concept of multiculturalism is difficult to make fit with a democratic society," he told the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. He added that it had been a mistake that during "the early 1960s we brought guest workers from foreign cultures into the country". Mr Schmidt, 85, who was the Social Democratic chancellor from 1974 until 1982, said that the problems resulting from the influx of mostly Turkish Gastarbeiter, or guest workers, had been neglected in Germany and the rest of Europe. They could be overcome only by authoritarian governments, he added, naming Singapore as an example.
Yeah. Hitler would have known what to do. Or Stalin. Both made delicious, um, cakes with the human ingredients they inherited. You only find integration in non-authoritarian states. And we don't want integration. We want multicultutalism. Apartheid needs authoritarianism...
Yet many would suggest that Mr Schmidt himself was at least partly to blame for the problems he was raising.
I'd guess he realizes that...
Safter Cinar, a spokesman for Berlin and Brandenburg's Turkish Association, said that bringing people into Germany was not the mistake, but refusing to call it immigration and failing to implement the necessary policies was. He said these errors were made during Mr Schmidt's chancellorship. "When he is talking about mistakes, he is talking about his own mistakes," Mr Cinar said. "They did not bring in the Gastarbeiter because they were feeling generous, it was an economic necessity. "They may argue it was a mistake in 1973 when they put a halt on more Gastarbeiter coming in and another in 1974 when they allowed wives and families to join those who were here. It would have been possible, and legally feasible, to reduce numbers, to send back those who no longer had work. "But if they are allowed to bring their families, that is immigration - and they didn't develop policies for that. And this was when Mr Schmidt was chancellor."
Posted by:Bulldog

#15  phil_b: This is contary to my experience and I'd like to see some evidence to back up the claim.

The Asian bulletin board on Yahoo appears to default to Singapore. There are a lot of complaints from local ethnic Chinese that Chinese nationals are being imported en masse for menial jobs. For many locals, the issue isn't the ethnic composition of imported labor - they want it stopped, period.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-11-26 12:02:06 AM  

#14  Sad but true, Kalle. This is I think the essence of the British reluctance to sign on to the EU project. In the Lockean Anglo-American political culture, the state does not exist above and before the individual. It is the individual who, by bestowing his consent, creates the state, not v-v. Profoundly contrary to EU thinking, ideology, culture, m.o.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-25 11:24:29 PM  

#13  lex, the reason European nations are not following the American path of laissez-faire integration is that Europeans consider the individual as a citizen, to be governed and given privileges -- while Americans think of individuals as ends in themselves, who tolerate government for the sake of securing their rights.

Think about this: are you a _subject_ of the State from birth to death, or is the government _your_ temporary delegate?
Posted by: Kalle (kafir forever)   2004-11-25 7:46:57 PM  

#12  In my personal experience, skilled Indians and Europeans had no difficulty in getting Singaporean Permanent Residence.

large numbers are unskilled Chinese nationals - This is contary to my experience and I'd like to see some evidence to back up the claim.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-11-25 4:24:07 PM  

#11  [Only the West] invites foreigners of other skin colors and religions to change the very composition of society. ...Europe is finding out what unlimited immigration coupled with the welfare state means for the preservation of their culture

Emphasis on the welfare state here. America's success in assimilation waves of immigrants who were strikingly different from the majority (first quakers and other Prot. dissenters, then Irish Catholics, then jews and asians and latinos) derives largely from the combination of a) great economic opportunities for the skilled and ambitious and b) the absence of a welfare teat to nourish the unskilled and/or lazy.

The Europeans are screwed in this matter by their fundamentally corporatist approach to different ethnic and religious minorities. Rather than provide incentives for (and eliminate barriers against) individual entrepreneurship-- which is the tried and true immigrant path to integration and a stake in the larger society-- the euros still think in terms of groups rather than individuals, ie in terms of political entities that require co-optation by the state rather than self-standing economic actors. There's little difference between the corporatism of Mussolini and Hitler and the recent proposals by Sarkozy in France for separate Muslim institutions that are infiltrated and directed by the state. This is the corporatist mentality that underlines Herr Schmidt's unfortunate remarks. Sigh.

The American individualist/laissez-faire approach has the great benefit of being ruthlessly color-blind, which ensures that entrepreneurial strivers prosper and that resenters fail. Also, this breeds a commitment to meritocracy that enables succeeding generations to blend into the larger culture more easily. Pretty simple, really, yet for some reason the euros are incapable of learning from 300 years of repeated American success with this concept.
Posted by: lex   2004-11-25 3:19:34 PM  

#10  The bottom line here is that the color-blind immigration policies of the West are quite unique. No other region of the world invites foreigners of other skin colors and religions to change the very composition of society. (I think it is unhealthy to admit too many people at once - Germany might end up becoming Turkish rather than the Turks becoming German). Europe is finding out what unlimited immigration coupled with the welfare state means for the preservation of their culture. Multiculturalism coupled with immigration is nothing more than the colonization of the West by another name.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-11-25 2:25:27 PM  

#9  Singapore claims to import foreigners on the basis of specialized talents. But the reality is that large numbers are unskilled Chinese nationals brought in to pad the proportion of ethnic Chinese in the country. Singapore's objectives are quite distinct from Germany's - Germany imported Turks to fill a labor gap irrespective of culture or religion, whereas Singapore is attempting to preserve the domination of ethnic Chinese in Singapore's political scene and economy.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-11-25 2:19:51 PM  

#8  PF: Aris et alia: the situation in Singapore is a lot more complex than that; keep in mind it started out as a mainly Chinese city in a newly independent country where the Chinese were a hated minority group.

Hate is too strong a word. Resented is more like it.

PF: I wouldn't be suprised to learn that a great many of their immigrants are Chinese-descended people escaping discrimination from elsewhere in SE Asia.

That much is correct. The benefits for the ethnic Chinese refugees are clear. What's in it for the Singaporean government? This is part of a strategy to preserve or increase the proportion of ethnic Chinese in the country. Singapore is also deliberately admitting large numbers of Chinese nationals into the country to preserve its ethnic balance, despite the higher birth rates of its Malay Muslim ethnic minority.

By contrast, Germany is deliberately introducing people from another religion into the country. This is a very different proposition from what is happening in Singapore. If Germany were to try to redress the imbalance, it would have to start importing Eastern European, Filipino or Hispanic immigrants into the country.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2004-11-25 2:10:51 PM  

#7  My neck still hurts
Posted by: P.J. Carlissimo   2004-11-25 10:48:40 AM  

#6  We have many different cultures living in the same society and we have to do that with mutual respect."

Word, man. It's all about 'spect. I've got a family to feed.
Posted by: Latrell Sprewell   2004-11-25 10:40:10 AM  

#5  Aris et alia: the situation in Singapore is a lot more complex than that; keep in mind it started out as a mainly Chinese city in a newly independent country where the Chinese were a hated minority group.

I wouldn't be suprised to learn that a great many of their immigrants are Chinese-descended people escaping discrimination from elsewhere in SE Asia.
Posted by: Phil Fraering   2004-11-25 10:32:50 AM  

#4  I've got no problem with foreign workers who assimilate
Posted by: Frank G   2004-11-25 10:22:52 AM  

#3  Anywhere else, and this would be merely inteligent discussion of demographics, and easily processed.
Here, it is disturbing if only because of the history. Kinda like when a white, conservative southerner like me weighs in on racial issues here in the U.S.

My sympathies, TGA, for all the Ignorant comments (including mine!) you are about to recieve.

Posted by: N Guard   2004-11-25 10:20:03 AM  

#2  This a gratuitous slur against a country that has a very large immigrant population

It's only a slur if you think "authoritarian" to be an insult. Which I do, but am not sure Singapore does.

"The PAP prohibits public discussion of sensitive racial and religious issues "
"...any public assembly of more than five people must receive police approval."
Posted by: Aris Katsaris   2004-11-25 10:11:04 AM  

#1  authoritarian governments, he added, naming Singapore as an example This a gratuitous slur against a country that has a very large immigrant population - fully 33% of the population and a very succesful immigration policy. Singapore actually wants its immigrants and actively seeks out those who it feels will benefit the country.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-11-25 6:32:15 AM  

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