Rarely has a man influenced the German public discourse as much as Sarrazin has done with his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany Does Itself In”). In just two weeks, Germany has been hit by three waves of debate stemming from the tome.
Criticism bordering on revulsion dominated the first wave of the reaction. Politicians and opinion leaders condemned Sarrazin almost unanimously.
But then it slowly became apparent that many citizens agreed with Sarrazin.
Odd the way that keeps happening.
h/t Larry.
Immigration of non-western peoples is an important issue and has been badly managed.
The first strategy was the 1960’s postmodern cultural relativism – that patronizing smarm taught in first year anthropology – that all peoples and their beliefs and behaviour are equally valid and valuable, must never be compared, are essentially sacred creations to be preserved intact – and that all immigrants should be allowed to live, each as a distinct society, each with their intact sets of beliefs – in the new country.
This is known as multiculturalism. It’s a disaster. In Canada, it was set up by the Liberals as a cynical attempt to ensure that all these newcomers would vote Liberal.
It sets up newcomers as frozen blocs, surrounded by other frozen blocs. Each unable and unwilling to interact with and collaborate with others. They become isolated, dependent on government welfare and a huge underground black market and often criminal economy. They cannot integrate for two reasons.
One – they are defined by cultural relativism as ‘final products’; sealed in time; sacred creations. The govt does not expect them to adapt and change and instead, spends all its time and money on programs to enable them to ‘stay frozen’ and isolate.
Two- the current society, brainwashed into cultural relativism, does not expect them to integrate and adapt. Indeed, it walks on eggshells to accomodate ‘special needs’ of these distinct groups.
And three – the elites in government, our civil service bureaucracy, treat each cultural group as isolate and non-adaptable.
What I would like to ask of these immigrants to our society is two sets of questions.
First I’d ask: ‘what is it that makes you unique as a people’?
Then – I’d ask: ‘Now tell me, what do you have in common with all other peoples’. That’s the key question. What do you have in common with other people?
We spend all our time and money focusing on their differences and do not expect, do not demand, that these newcomers (and ourselves) focus more importantly on what we all have in common.
If they cannot answer that second question, I’d then ask them: ‘Then why have you moved here’?
Again, Australia has it right. They have an Australian values certificate that all visa and immigrant entrants must sign, acknowledging the basic values of Australia, ie, what Australians have in common: the rule of law, gender equality, democracy…and the English language. I think that insistence on commonality is vital.
By the way – I think that a basic answer to that second question is that we are all human beings, that we all have the capacity to reason and learn; that we all have the capacity to interact and collaborate with others. Anything less than this type of answer – and they should leave.
this looks like the beginning of what Steyn predicted in America Alone,
He predicted a popular upheaval against policies imposed by politically correct elites.He also predicted it would probably get ugly
The man who divided Germany — I thought that was Stalin (1945).
“In Canada, it was set up by the Liberals as a cynical attempt to ensure that all these newcomers would vote Liberal.”
True,ET,and it was Brian Mulroney who exacerbated the situation by increasing the numbers of immigrants from Muslim and other Third World Countries in hope they could be coerced into voting Conservative.
Let’s give credit where it’s due.
Germany was divided the day the first mosque was built. Just because some refused to recognize the danger then, did not make it any less so.
On that day a wedge was set and pointed at the heart of the society, so that with each successive wave of Islamic immigration the wedge was driven deeper by the force of its weight in numbers.
We are all in the same boat, just with different levels of water filling our hulls as we sink.
I believe that ET has made a persuasive point and I have nothing to add other then I am in agreement.
Well said ET.
Now if you could condense that into a 20 second sound bite; perhaps the folks can digest it between news of Drake’s marriage to N.Minaj, and L.Lohan’s energy drink addiction.
Man…L.Lohan is fine!!!!
There’s a silent majority that is going to become more and more vocal. Calling someone racist is no longer effective in silencing them. Now that Obama is president, the left has rendered the term meaningless. They did this by branding anyone opposed to Democrat policies as racist. The word no longer has any currency. (Kind of like the US dollar!)
Just like the Ground Zero mosque, which most NY’ers oppose.
The issue isn’t race, it’s values.
dmorris – just another minor point. Mulroney is not a Conservative. He’s a ‘Progressive Conservative’. Note the word ‘progressive’; that means ‘Liberal’.
Indiana Homez – I wish I could condense it! I tend to ramble.
However the key points are that
cultures are not ‘final products’, are not ‘sacred creations’ but are open systems of belief and behaviour that adapt to new experiences.
And…
All people must be able to answer those two questions:
What makes your cultural group unique?
What do you, both as an individual and as a cultural group, have in common with others?
It’s the second question that is most important. What do you have in common with others? If you acknowledge commonality then you can move to adaptation, collaboration and integration.
re. ET @7:32 – this fetishizing of “culture”, so characteristic of the Left, is beyond stupid. (Interestingly, it’s also rather Naziesque; the Nazis thought in terms of the dichotomy between Culture and Civilization, Civilization being corrupt, ennervating, unnatural, cosmopolitan and, of course, Jewish.)
Think how many cultures have died out since mankind first began coming up with them – good thing too, otherwise we’d still be living in caves. In fact the move to caves undoubtedly had a devastating impact on the vibrant pre-cave “lifeways” (to use a gag-inducing term from Anthropology). Now that I consider it someone is probably owed compensation over that cultural “genocide”, and I hope it’s me.
I get that it’s kind of cool to think about people (BBC Documentary Voiceover): “behaving just as their ancestors did thousands of years ago”, and it’s sad when a language dies out; but it’s sad when a pet dies, too. Death is sad. Stagnation is evil.
“Man…L.Lohan is fine!!!!”
Yikes! Fine what? Gotta be sarcasm, just gotta be.
I could never understand those who would wish to rouse the German people to anger..
The German is a mighty ornery type when given the right circumstance..
Cultural advancement is obviously an enhancement of any society providing that it is positive and constructive.
Islam is a well known archaic and barbaric culture that serves no benefit to our already thriving western cultures. In fact it is absolutely anti-western by nature in values and creed. If that was not the case they would embrace our culture upon landing upon our shores like so many others have from differing European cultures through to the differing Asian cultures.
In fact Islam wars with all cultures globally and with itself internally amongst its own sub cultures. It is petty, jealous and violent. It is a totalitarian non secular ideology that permits no room for tolerance, only a limited tactical tolerance when opposing forces are overwhelmingly in control. It then bides it’s time to gain its strength through the only weapons it truly has – power through birthrate and voting bloc numbers, along with western apathy.
Islam has never had a roll in western advancement, and continues to bring nothing to the table aside from Shish kabobs, and more violence. It is a drag on our society to say the least, and will never assimilate by its nature. Instead we are forced to assimilate to Islam in our own lands in order to comply and make peace. That peace will be obtained with nothing short of full submission and enslavement to a backwater anti-western culture.
Well said ET.
I’m glad that finally there are some stirrings against the islamification of Europe although whether it will be possible to reverse the changes that have been started is unknown.
There seems to be a worldwide phenomenon now of the mass of people revolting against the self-styled elites – a sort of global Tea Party movement. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
I’m not sure how much of Der Spiegel’s writeup is accurate, but if Sarrazin is correctly quoted on race and intelligence he’s way off base, or is oversimplifying. The “experts” who Der Spiegel contacted to discuss heritability of intelligence are wrong; the genetic component of intelligence is about 50% regardless of whether someone is poor or rich. I’d be very surprised if sufficient malnutrition exists in Germany to produce decrements in IQ in poor children; one needs starvation of the magnitude that existed in Holland in 1945 to see this.
Also curious he doesn’t mention higher IQ’s of Ashkenazi Jews which weigh in at 118 or so. There’s lots of compelling evidence to show that this IQ jump occurred in less than 1000 years. No-one gets upset when the subject of conversation is people who are more intelligent than average and this is probably the best way to go in this area.
The fact that this type of discussion is taking place in Germany in which anything to do with genetic superiority has been verboten for over 50 years is very interesting. Then, bringing up the same topics in Canada can get one hauled before the HRC star chamber.
I can understand the fear and loathing in the Bundesbank with one of their own getting unplugged from the matrix. After all they have bought a seat on the EU inner council and their directors must carry out EU diktat – which promotes Islamist immigration to speed up the cultural homoginization needed to make the EU politboro rulers over one Euro boaderless state. Tradition, language, custom must dissolve with national borders and sovereignty. What better way to smash millennia-old cohesive cultural custom, than with a virtual invasion of people with tradition and custom which is totally incompatible with the culture you are trying to euthanize.
Move fast boys, one got out of the EU stock pens on ya, he’s waking the other sheep up to the plan – move fast, stomp him before he rats you out!
knight99 @ 8:32 nails it.Muzzies and their “religion” have ALL WAYS been against anything Western.And will continue to be so.
It is sorta of ironic though that it took a German to point that out.
So we’ll let the Germans and the radical Islamists go at it, and take on the winners … if any. No, I guess we’ll have to take Germany’s side for once, first time for everything, after all they gave us Bach and Mozart (sort of) and Beethoven, and a few other good things, so I guess we owe them. But wait, Islam gave us zero, didn’t they?
“…But wait, Islam gave us zero, didn’t they?” Ironically apt, wouldn’t you say? Could one say “Islam has given us naught”?
Peter & Dave,
Given free choice between Mohammad and Adolf, it’s Mr. H in a squeaker. (Mind you, my first choice is “kill them both and let God sort it out”, but I’m assuming that’s not on the table.) Attitude toward Jews is a nonfactor; remember, Adolf and the Mufti conferred quite chummily on the “Jewish problem.” Looking at the Spiegel story, I reckon lots of Germans are having the same quibble.
Regards,
Ric
Entrenched Elites are on the run everywhere.
The internet has a lot to do with it as we are seeing the collapse of the current hierarchy from it equalizing of information disemination.
Posted by: Dave in Pa>
Islam would take credit for the first moon landing given the chance. The fact is the known concept of “zero” in mathematics predates the rise of Islam by nearly a millennia if not longer. There is still argument as to whether or not it was first used in ancient Babylon, (the closest the Muslims will ever get to the claim by regional default), but the concept most likely developed in India.
Beyond a doubt Islam itself is not responsible for the “zero”, nor are they responsible for anything of value in western culture, besides endless war.
Leave it to a german to take a swipe at the jews in country being over-run by unassimilated muslims.
They deserve to be colonized. If this is the guy you expect to save Germany, you may as well move to Australia.
Note: don’t see machete. I hadn’t read anything on it and me and a friend of mine went to see it to get away from the wives and… oh, boy.
If you take m.moor and gore’s life’s work and apply it to mexican illigal immigration, then turn up the volumn, you get machete. After seeing it, I wanted to deport the ruddy ass who made it to the worst prison in mexico.
A bloody long article.
Let us see now.
Leaving aside Sarrazin’s intentions, likes and dislikes and conclusions, the “journalists” are supposedly trying to show how wrong the chap is.
In Part 3: “Unproven Assertions and Bogus Correlations” the authors pretend to give argument that disproves what Sarrazin writes about.
An unknown teacher from Neukölln clearly states that Sarazzin is “basically right”, the sense one get’s is that his main fault is lies in that writes what he thinks. The teacher’s students are “almost all” from Turkey and the Middle East and “almost all have previous conviction”.
Now what would be “unproven and bogus” if Sarazzin cited perhaps the same school?
The “journalists” write that what the guy wrote is “accurate”, “it is true”, “it is undeniable”, “it is also true”.
In the paragraph “Highly contestable” the “journalists” write that there will be Sarazzin’s 20 million and unknown demographers 49 million Germans in 2100, both have 50/50 chance to be right/wrong, though very few people today will hang around and care to see who is right. Predictions and parameters for predictions are predetermined and determined on ones preferences.
The “journalists” write that Sarazzin’s estimate of annual immigration from Africa and Middle East is wrong though they seem to have no idea what it would be, looks like running interference. That a greater number of Turks left Germany then came to, does not amount to a counter argument to the number of people from Africa and Middle East. Both comments on the part of the “journalists” are half truths in so far that they don’t offer anything to the contrary.
In the paragraph “Foreign criminals?” the “journalists” write that twenty percent of violent crime in Berlin was done by young punks that happen to be Turks and Arabs and that it is not true. Did they look what was the evidence for that? They went to a political scientist to check it out; well the political as opposed to social or some such would look at the politics of the evidence and perhaps “homogenize” them.
Anyway, “journalists” are loosing credibility by the hour; in this case they are trying to justify criminality of certain people so as to make some feel warm and fuzzy.
“Leave it to a german to take a swipe at the jews in country being over-run by unassimilated muslims.”
Jason: The book is about the failed integration of Islamic immigrants. What you read is just Der Spiegel trying to smear him with a no-context quote he made in an interview.
Lev @ 12:32
It is illegal in many west European countries for the police to track crime (e.g.rape perp, rape victim, or other violent offernce, property offence, etc) by ethnic or ‘religious’grouping. Or even for others to try to fill in the knowledge blank by compiling relevant deduced statistics.
Neat politically correct trick.
If you refuse to measure it, then ergo it does not exist!
“just another minor point. Mulroney is not a Conservative. He’s a ‘Progressive Conservative’.”
So true,ET. Good point.
Pakis comprise 3% of the population in Britain and one in three of children born in Britain with genetic disorders…are of Paki descent…
is it OK,is it safe to state this fact without running foul of the state’s hawse ?
i’m locking my front door now….
“Entrenched Elites are on the run everywhere.”
“The internet has a lot to do with it as we are seeing the collapse of the current hierarchy from it equalizing of information disemination.”
Gord Turk
Cannot say it any better!…Give Gord a cigar…Take the rest of the day off my wise friend.
The internet is the new holy grail for freedom. Watch the elites try to grab it from us, its their last chance:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/obama-administration-seeks-emergency-control-of-the-internet/
// my neighbourhood Grunewald is not exactly famous for its thriving Turkish community – indeed many of its elderly German residents would probably be itching to call the police if they saw a young Muslim-looking man roving the streets.
Of course, the name Thilo Sarrazin has been on everybody’s lips in our sedate and resolutely conservative ‘hood lately. Attacking the alleged unwillingness of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society, the disgraced Bundesbank board member has become a kind of martyr, a supposed truth-teller; a hero in the struggle against suffocating political correctness apparently on the rise in Germany. But we know that the story is a little more complex than that, don’t we?
Sarrazin’s controversial book, Deutschland schafft sich ab – Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, or “Abolishing Germany – How we’re putting our country at jeopardy,” tries to use statistics to make a variety of contradictory arguments.
But in the end it is not clear whether he is trying to tell us something about intelligence and race, about education and finance, or about the science of Germany’s national decline. Frankly, it’s not unlike the jumble of latent xenophobia often found down at your local pub. //
There will be no control of immigration from Muslim countries until either Quebec revolts in order to protect its culture or immigration choice is taken away from Quebec (good luck with that politically). Quebec currently gives preference to immigrants who have French as a first, second or third language which means we are getting more and more from Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon. Still most Muslim immigrants go to Toronto, so Ontario is a bit part of the problem, too.
No, the “Progressive” in “progressive Conservative” does not mean “Liberal”. The Progressive Party was an early twentieth century farmer-based party, quite distinct from the Liberals. It was an odd mix of non-Marxist socialism, radicalism and anything-that-works pragmatism. Easy to mock today, and in retrospect clearly wrong about many things, but a reasonable bet at the time, and they contributed a great deal to politics. They eventually merged with the Conservatives to form the Progressive Conservatives, except in Manitoba where they merged with the Liberals to form the Liberal Progressives, who were greatly successful for a generation or so.