Germany After the EU and the Russian Scenario - future of the European Union and Poland

Australia?

?? Thread topic, please:-)

Because Sarazin has been mentioned frequently here, it is worth pointing out that he comitted several factual errors in his books. There are numerous articles that highlight his mistakes and simplifications, e.g. a very long one here: (The following is just a short quotation giving some examples)

"Sarrazin, for example, writes that Germany's population will be 20 million in 2100. Yet demographers estimate that there will be 46 million Germans in 2100.
[...]

neration men with Turkish backgrounds marry German women, a percentage that increases in future generations.

The entire article can be found here:
spiegel.de/international/germany/the-man-who-divided-germany-why-sarrazin-s-integration-demagoguery-has-many-followers-a-715876-3.html]http:

The next page of the article debunks his statements about genetics, Jewiish and immigrant genes and so on. It makes for an interesting read, but since it would make my post to long I'll refrain from citing them.

[spiegel.de/international/germany/the-man-who-divided-germany-why-sarrazin-s-integration-demagoguery-has-many-followers-a-715876-4.html

It is true that Sarazzin did a lot to highlight several problems with migration to Germany and he deserves credit for opening a debate about this. But like many people with a good cause, he radicalized himself with time and included topics in his books about which he lacked the proper knowledge to analyze them, and furthermore did not properly analyze the data and statistics he used. His credibility suffered greatly from this, which is why almost no one takes notice anymore when he voices his opinion anymore.

Please read rule#11 on copy-paste

Many, many thanks there, Tacitus! But then, I'm not surprised. The revisionist is solely concerned with revisionism, seldom with facts.

You see, Maf? Blind faith in the opposing side for opposition's sake can be a dangerous thing:-)

Is there any real indication that there is debate? I'm certainly not invested in Sarrazin and am glad to know mistakes he's made... But then people like Lyzko run and pretend that everything's fine and there are no problems whatsoever.

I'm not interested in ending all immigration to Europe but I am in favor of better policy than GErmany has at present (which is terrible in many ways).


A better indication of integration is percentage of women that marry German men. Any figures there?

Ahemm, kindly refrain from putting words in my mouth! I never denied that there are problems, merely that hateful aka bigotted rhetoric helps nobody!
Sure, Sarazzin's arguments are no different from any other racist, adopting prejudicial statements to support inconclusive theories:-)

Hoecke, even Petry, maintain they're not racist, they're merely looking out for their country's best interests. Those are the best? What then are the worst?

Where did that debate go?

How does Turksih academic performance stack up against native GErman performance?

@mafketis


Germany has in many ways changed its' approach to immigration integration, especially towards refugees. There is now great effort taken to offer refugees education, and German lessons are now mandatory for the new arrivals. So far it seems that this new approach could work out.


I haven't found any statistic on a quick search, and I suspect that it will be difficult to find any reliable data, since there are a lot of factors to consider (e.g. second-generation German-Turks who only have a german passport and so on). From my personal experience though, the son of my former landlord married a Turkish women a few years ago. Her other sisters are also married to Germans.


We have in Germany the problem that in more than almost any other OSCE country, the performance of children in school depends on their parentage. There is still a low number of worker-class children who enter university, even among German-born parents. The same counts for Turkish-born children. One major step to improve this is the establishment of daycares that take care of children the whole day long (whereas previously kindergarten were only open for half a day) so that children can learn and practice their German properly.

That assumes they want to....

Sarazzin's adopting a similar tack much as with the US academic theorist Murray, attempting to "prove" that the African-American gene pool has more limited brain power than that of an corresponding Caucasian, male or female. Sarazzin pits Turks against ethnic Germans in a rather eugenicist manner in an attempt to frighten the ordinary German (as with Hispanics and Blacks here in the States) that their country's being overrun by dark hordes who multiply like jack rabbits and threaten the host culture aka "Leitkultur".

All pretty pernicious stuff, if you ask me.

Of course they do.

One hopes they do.

Children are rarely the problem. The main problem is that they cannotg practice their German at home with their parents.

brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2016/05/23/inside-syrian-refugee-schools-syrian-children-in-germany

As in many such industrialized nations with multi-lingual immigrants:-)

Here in the States, particularly gateway cities such as New York, numerous Russian, Chinese, Hispanic immigrants have lived for sometimes over twenty years, yet still don't really know English:-) Many are citizens too, with passport, their own home, car and permanent employment.

That's nothing to smile about.

And Germany finds it harder to get immigrants to speak a language with less prestige than English...

Oho, don't kid yourself! German is THE prestige language of Europe now because of the German-speaking countries, especially the FRG, which is the engine driving the continent momentarily:-)

Not only has German always been immensely practical, but during the Cold War, it was the language which connected East and West. Russian too, of course. It's also a popular second language in Asia, after and even along with, English.

Who's the one living in Poland? After, Germany FINALLY AFTER 7 FRICKIN' YEARS had to give Poles free access to the German labor market (and which they were still against) experts were predicting a big rash of German language learning.... nope. Nada.

German has almost no prestige in Poland anymore. Had Gemany followed the UK's lead in 2004 then German might be challenging English as lingua franca of the EU but... nope. Own goal all because they wanted to keep the dirty Poles out of their labor market.

I know of a German teacher who can't get work in GDANSK. That's how many bridges GErmany burned with Poland.

Achtung baby, you are spot on

"Polish becomes England's second language"

theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/30/polish-becomes-englands-second-language

it really isn't, you know.

@rozumiemnic
Exactly. There are large German companies, in Germany, who hold their meetings in English now.

And as for French...

I would agree THE prestige language of Europe and the rest of the world is English.

It's very strange. Germany is THE economic power in the EU (completely lopsided with not challengers whatsoever) but the Germany has NO cultural relevance or soft power*. It's all brute economic force.

To be sure, I wish it were different. But that's the real way things are at present. Try to go around different countries in Europe speaking German and see what kind of reception you get. Indifference at best and outright hostility as the norm.

This is not a healthy situation for the EU and Germany largely has itself to blame.

*apparently a cause of concern in Germany itself

With good reason though, as evidenced by the UK. In hindsight it is very obvious that this the smart way to do. Germany was suffering from high unemployment at the time, and letting in competition from Eastern Europe probably would have turned poorer Germans against the EU and foreigners. When the restriction was lifted, Germany needed more workers and we have seen a large number of Poles emigrating to Germany in the last few years. And Germany remains a very attractive destination for Poles.

thenews.pl/1/12/Artykul/285368,Germany-most-popular-destination-for-Poles-seeking-work

Currently many European citizens from Eastern Europe are emigrating to Germany. 2015 saw 147.910 Poles arriving in Germany. (Even more arrived from Rumania with 174.000)

zeit.de/politik/ausland/2016-07/eu-buerger-migration-nach-deutschland-rekordhoch-rumaenien-osteuropa


Firstly, German seems to be quite popular in Poland.

goethe.de/en/uun/akt/20512365.html

In fact there has been a noticeable increase in interest for German language classes:

monitor.icef.com/2015/04/german-language-study-on-the-rise-worldwide

Let's not kid ourself, there is no way German could supplant English as the leading language in Europe, even if a few millions more could speak it. English is the language everybody speaks, and this won't change. Let's just hope that Chinese won't usurp English as world language, because that would be far more difficult to learn for Europeans ;


I think this is your bias speaking here. Germany has due historically reasons focuesd on its' soft power over the years, and analyzer acknowledge the extent of this.

thelocal.de/20131121/germany-number-one-for-soft-power

yes like VW/Skoda for example have now moved away from German and are now operating in English.

Then Germany can go fvck itself and keep all its precious refugees to itself. When it starts showing concern to other EU countries maybe they'll return the favor and not one second before.


Name three GErman TV series people in Europe watch, name three German popular singers people listen to, name three GErman authors who are popular outside of Germany (or Austria/Switzerland).

No. Soft. Power.

You are aware that Berlin is (along with London) the main reason why Poland was admitted so early to the EU in the first place right, when other countries like France were against EU enlargement? And that Germany remains the top destination for Poles so I am not sure what your outrage is all about. The German labour market was not ready for that many new arrivals back then, plain and simple. And apparantly, neither was the UK. Strangely the Brexiteers like to complain that the EU forced them to take in all the Polish immigrants even though it would have been entirely within London's power to prevent it.

That being said I am very happy that so many Poles are working in Germany. There are in general hard-working. well integrated, and unlike e.g. those from Rumania und Bulgaria, are less likely to abuse our social security system.

Here is also interesting article about Germany and soft power:

economist.com/news/europe/21663257-once-language-schiller-and-goethe-then-hitler-german-hip-again-sprechen-sie-power

This article also shows how Germany uses soft power in the Baltic states.

ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/51412

Lyzko said something about how importan German is, but I can tell you that being in an academic environment dealing with languages in Poland.... German has become a niche language (though I remember when it rivalled English in popularity). I'm rather fond of German myself but I can't blame European youth for turning away from it.

The further point is that Germany has no cultural power, it's all brute economic force and your links about Germany's soft power are either before the Merkel Wave of Pseudo-Refugees or are about micro-endeavors (tied to economics) and don't translate into real soft power.

Finally, Germany couldn't afford Poish employees in 2004, fine. Poland can't afford German refugees in 2017. And Greece can't afford German austerity.

So you just ignore all the verifiable evidence I have shown you (more demand for German language courses) because of your personal impression? That is not very academic of you.


We might have a different understanding what the term "soft power" means. I am using the definition as stated in the article of the Economist. Economic influence is for me part of soft power, whereas military capabiillities are hard power. The way things are handled within the EU certainly don't qualify as hard power, they are done by votes and debates. The only time a country acted blunt and rash recently was when Poland tried to prevent the reelection of Tusk against the wishes of all other member states.


It is Greek austerity and I don't think this is related to the topic at hand. Well maybe except as an example as to why the blatant attempt of Greece to blackmail its' creditors back in 2015 was doomed to fail against the united consensus of the other Euro members.

I wouldn't say no cultural power, but the cultural influence rapidly diminished after 2004.