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Forums - General Discussion - Angela Merkel = Hitler II?

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country's immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.

Merkel weighed in for the first time in a blistering debate sparked by a central bank board member saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants.

"Multikulti", the concept that "we are now living side by side and are happy about it," does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin.

"This approach has failed, totally," she said, adding that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values.

"We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here," said the chancellor.

"Subsidising immigrants" isn't sufficient, Germany has the right to "make demands" on them, she added, such as mastering the language of Goethe and abandoning practices such as forced marriages.

Merkel spoke a week after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which they pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany's 2.5-million-strong Turkish community.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul, in a weekend interview, also urged the Turkish community living in Germany to master the language of their adopted country.

"When one doesn't speak the language of the country in which one lives that doesn't serve anyone, neither the person concerned, the country, nor the society," the Turkish president told the Suedeutsche Zeitung.

"That is why I tell them at every opportunity that they should learn German, and speak it fluently and without an accent. That should start at nurseries."

German President Christian Wulff was due for a five-day visit to Turkey and talks with the country's leaders on Monday.

The immigration debate has at times threatened to split Merkel's conservative party, and she made noises to both wings of the debate.

While saying that the government needed to encourage the training of Muslim clerics in Germany, Merkel said "Islam is part of Germany", echoeing the recent comments of Wulff, a liberal voice in the party.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, who represents the right-wing, recently said Germany did not "need more immigrants from different cultures like the Turks and Arabs" who are "more difficult" to integrate.

While warning against "immigration that weighs down on our social system", Merkel said Germany needed specialists from overseas to keep the pace of its economic development.

According to the head of the German chamber of commerce and industry, Hans Heinrich Driftmann, Germany is in urgent need of about 400,000 engineers and qualified workers, whose lack is knocking about one percent off the country's growth rate.

The integration of Muslims has been a hot button issue since August when a member of Germany's central bank sparked outrage by saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants with headscarves.

The banker, Thilo Sarrazin, has since resigned but his book on the subject -- "Germany Does Itself In" -- has flown off the shelves, and polls showed considerable sympathy for some of his views.

A recent study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank showed around one-third of Germans feel the country is being "over-run by foreigners" and the same percentage feel foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce.

Nearly 60 percent of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices "significantly curbed."

Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but "to a worrying degree at the centre of society," the think tank said in its report.

"Hardly eight weeks have passed since publication of Sarrazin's theory of decline, and the longer the debate continues to a lower level it falls," the weekly Der Spiegel commented Sunday.

 

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101017/wl_afp/germanymuslimreligionimmigration

 

Wow, Germany never learns, does it? Now I have no problem with the learning German part (I've always considered it stupid when immigrants don't know the language of their new country), though the whole "without an accent part" is going a little overboard.

However her statement "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here" is unacceptable comming from the leader of a nation that calls itself "secular". Is she gonna throw out German atheists? Buddists? Does she not understand the concept of freedom of religion, or the separation between Chruch and State?



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

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Right ... Giving an honest assessment of a problem that is emerging in many western nations is the equivalent of being one of the worst mass murderers in history.



To be fair you could conduct that same poll in the UK or US and probably get a similar response. People are ignorant all over the world and political leaders are not exclusive of that. Having said that, I would also take what is quoted from Merkel with a pinch of salt as we all know media like to spin and are often loose with translation too. Not saying she isn't a pretty right wing Christian, but then so was Dubya.

BTW i'm a British Atheist with Irish catholic, Scottish protestant and Persian muslim routes so I hope I can come from a pretty neutral standpoint.

 

Also comparisons to Hitler... really thats pretty ignorant and insensitive on your part  too.



sapphi_snake said:

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country's immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.

An honest opinion of responsible politician, not sure why put equal sign between her and Adolf though (by any means he wasn't responsible politician)? But I could have told from the beginning it'd fail, the same goes for numerous other "multi-culutral" society projects. Multiculturalism is bollocks, learn your history.



Interesting info, misleading title.



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HappySqurriel said:

Right ... Giving an honest assessment of a problem that is emerging in many western nations is the equivalent of being one of the worst mass murderers in history.

Honest? One of the biggest problems in Western nations is forcing people to become Christian?



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

mai said:
sapphi_snake said:

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country's immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values.

An honest opinion of responsible politician, not sure why put equal sign between her and Adolf though (by any means he wasn't responsible politician)? But I could have told from the beginning it'd fail, the same goes for numerous other "multi-culutral" society projects. Multiculturalism is bollocks, learn your history.

I was reffering mainly to the "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here". Sorry, this has nothing to do with multi-culturalism. Is she gonna start throwing people out of Germany because they're not German?



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

sapphi_snake said:
HappySqurriel said:

Right ... Giving an honest assessment of a problem that is emerging in many western nations is the equivalent of being one of the worst mass murderers in history.

Honest? One of the biggest problems in Western nations is forcing people to become Christian?


I don't think you understand what was being said ...

Most western developed nations and their citizens, including those that are very secular in nature, share a set of values which were established centuries ago when these countries were (effectively) Christian countries. When people say that a Muslim immigrant (or any immigrant for that matter) needs to adopt Christian values they don't mean that these individuals need to convert, they mean that they have to adopt the prevailing values of the country they moved to.



HappySqurriel said:
sapphi_snake said:
HappySqurriel said:

Right ... Giving an honest assessment of a problem that is emerging in many western nations is the equivalent of being one of the worst mass murderers in history.

Honest? One of the biggest problems in Western nations is forcing people to become Christian?


I don't think you understand what was being said ...

Most western developed nations and their citizens, including those that are very secular in nature, share a set of values which were established centuries ago when these countries were (effectively) Christian countries. When people say that a Muslim immigrant (or any immigrant for that matter) needs to adopt Christian values they don't mean that these individuals need to convert, they mean that they have to adopt the prevailing values of the country they moved to.

Those values were in many instances borrowed by Christians from the ethics developed by the Greek philosophers. Also, values like freedom of religion, and secularism, have nothing to do with Christianity. None of the values Western nations currently hold can be attributed to Chrstianity. Some of them may coincide, but Christianity itself took values, as I said, from Greek philosophers.

And amongst the "non-Christian" values she called out was forced marriage, which was practiced in Western countries up until a century ago, and has nothing to do with religion. You certainly can't say that marrying whom you want is a "Christian value".

Either she worded what she wanted to say badly, or she's a right wind religious nut (most likely scenario IMHO).



"I don't understand how someone could like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but not like Twilight!!!"

"Last book I read was Brokeback Mountain, I just don't have the patience for them unless it's softcore porn."

                                                                               (The Voice of a Generation and Seece)

"If you cant stand the sound of your own voice than dont become a singer !!!!!"

                                                                               (pizzahut451)

lol you have no clue what you're talking about.

Christian values = Western values such as: no forced marriages (as written in the text) and equality for women. You could even count freedom of religion towards these values.

 

She doesn't want anyone to become Christian with that statement.