ドイツ多文化共生の失敗：イギリス紙の論調
（1つ目）英テレグラフ紙の論調。
左派が展開した「それぞれの民族集団が独自性を保持しながら、互いに存在しあう」という主義の失敗だ。移民に現地語（英語）を学ばせるのではなく、役所業務に通訳と翻訳を提供することに予算を割いている。
（2つ目）がーディアン紙の論調
（3つ目）インディペンデント紙の論調
（4つ目）BBCの解説
最後の下線部。「そうはいうけど、外国人がドイツ語を学ぶ予算は削減されたんですよ」が痛い（笑）。
Multicultural mistakes
Telegraph View: Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was right to condemn multiculturalism as a failure.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8071854/Multicultural-mistakes.html
Published: 7:48PM BST 18 Oct 2010
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has provoked heated controversy with her declaration that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed". The "multikulti" concept, as the Germans call it, had led immigrants to believe that they need not integrate, learn the language or adopt the customs and practices of their new home. To some extent, the Germans have only themselves to blame, because they were less than welcoming to the millions of Turks and others who arrived under the Gastarbeiter scheme to help build the post-war economic miracle. Many were given a right to reside but denied full German citizenship – excluding them from certain jobs such as teaching. Most of the immigrants have settled; but in the eyes of many, they have not made much of an effort to become Germans.
The same is true in this country, if not more so. British tolerance of other people's ways, religions, cuisines, languages and dress has not always been matched by an equal willingness on the part of immigrants to subscribe to the value system of the host nation. That was principally the fault of the multiculturalist creed espoused by the Left, which encouraged different ethnic groups to do their own thing, meaning they became more estranged from mainstream society and from one another. In some parts of the country, this led to segregation and separation – the "parallel lives" identified by a report into the 2001 riots in several northern cities. Rather than insisting that immigrants learn English – which would be to their own benefit – millions of pounds have been spent providing interpreters and translating public service documents. This is a subject political leaders usually recoil from discussing – and Mrs Merkel may pay a price for doing so. But the alternative is to leave the debate exclusively to the extremists.
Liberal multiculturalism masks an old barbarism with a human face
Across Europe, the politics of the far right is infecting us all with the need for a 'reasonable' anti-immigration policy
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/immigration-policy-roma-rightwing-europe
Slavoj Zizek
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 October 2010 22.00 BST
The recent expulsion of Roma, or Gypsies, from France drew protests from all around Europe – from the liberal media but also from top politicians, and not only from those on the left. But the expulsions went ahead, and they are just the tip of a much larger iceberg of European politics.
A month ago, a book by Thilo Sarrazin, a bank executive who was considered politically close to the Social Democrats, caused an uproar in Germany. Its thesis is that German nationhood is threatened because too many immigrants are allowed to maintain their cultural identity. Although the book, titled Germany Does Away with Itself, was overwhelmingly condemned, its tremendous impact suggests that it touched a nerve.
Incidents like these have to be seen against the background of a long-term rearrangement of the political space in western and eastern Europe. Until recently, most European countries were dominated by two main parties that addressed the majority of the electorate: a right-of-centre party (Christian Democrat, liberal-conservative, people's) and a left-of-centre party (socialist, social-democratic), with smaller parties (ecologists, communists) addressing a narrower electorate.
Recent electoral results in the west as well as in the east signal the gradual emergence of a different polarity. There is now one predominant centrist party that stands for global capitalism, usually with a liberal cultural agenda (for example, tolerance towards abortion, gay rights, religious and ethnic minorities). Opposing this party is an increasingly strong anti-immigrant populist party which, on its fringes, is accompanied by overtly racist neofascist groups. The best example of this is Poland where, after the disappearance of the ex-communists, the main parties are the "anti-ideological" centrist liberal party of the prime minister Donald Tusk and the conservative Christian Law and Justice party of the Kaczynski brothers. Similar tendencies are discernible in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Hungary. How did we get here?
After decades of hope held out by the welfare state, when financial cuts were sold as temporary, and sustained by a promise that things would soon return to normal, we are entering a new epoch in which crisis – or, rather, a kind of economic state of emergency, with its attendant need for all sorts of austerity measures (cutting benefits, diminishing health and education services, making jobs more temporary) is permanent. Crisis is becoming a way of life.
After the disintegration of the communist regimes in 1990, we entered a new era in which the predominant form of the exercise of state power became a depoliticised expert administration and the co-ordination of interests. The only way to introduce passion into this kind of politics, the only way to actively mobilise people, is through fear: the fear of immigrants, the fear of crime, the fear of godless sexual depravity, the fear of the excessive state (with its burden of high taxation and control), the fear of ecological catastrophe, as well as the fear of harassment (political correctness is the exemplary liberal form of the politics of fear).
Such a politics always relies on the manipulation of a paranoid multitude – the frightening rallying of frightened men and women. This is why the big event of the first decade of the new millennium was when anti-immigration politics went mainstream and finally cut the umbilical cord that had connected it to far right fringe parties. From France to Germany, from Austria to Holland, in the new spirit of pride in one's cultural and historical identity, the main parties now find it acceptable to stress that immigrants are guests who have to accommodate themselves to the cultural values that define the host society – "it is our country, love it or leave it" is the message.
Progressive liberals are, of course, horrified by such populist racism. However, a closer look reveals how their multicultural tolerance and respect of differences share with those who oppose immigration the need to keep others at a proper distance. "The others are OK, I respect them," the liberals say, "but they must not intrude too much on my own space. The moment they do, they harass me – I fully support affirmative action, but I am in no way ready to listen to loud rap music." What is increasingly emerging as the central human right in late-capitalist societies is the right not to be harassed, which is the right to be kept at a safe distance from others. A terrorist whose deadly plans should be prevented belongs in Guantánamo, the empty zone exempted from the rule of law; a fundamentalist ideologist should be silenced because he spreads hatred. Such people are toxic subjects who disturb my peace.
On today's market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol. And the list goes on: what about virtual sex as sex without sex? The Colin Powell doctrine of warfare with no casualties (on our side, of course) as warfare without warfare? The contemporary redefinition of politics as the art of expert administration as politics without politics? This leads us to today's tolerant liberal multiculturalism as an experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness – the decaffeinated Other.
The mechanism of such neutralisation was best formulated back in 1938 by Robert Brasillach, the French fascist intellectual, who saw himself as a "moderate" antisemite and invented the formula of reasonable antisemitism. "We grant ourselves permission to applaud Charlie Chaplin, a half Jew, at the movies; to admire Proust, a half Jew; to applaud Yehudi Menuhin, a Jew; … We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable actions of instinctual antisemitism is to organise a reasonable antisemitism."
Is this same attitude not at work in the way our governments are dealing with the "immigrant threat"? After righteously rejecting direct populist racism as "unreasonable" and unacceptable for our democratic standards, they endorse "reasonably" racist protective measures or, as today's Brasillachs, some of them even Social Democrats, tell us: "We grant ourselves permission to applaud African and east European sportsmen, Asian doctors, Indian software programmers. We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable violent anti-immigrant defensive measures is to organise a reasonable anti-immigrant protection."
This vision of the detoxification of one's neighbour suggests a clear passage from direct barbarism to barbarism with a human face. It reveals the regression from the Christian love of one's neighbour back to the pagan privileging of our tribe versus the barbarian Other. Even if it is cloaked as a defence of Christian values, it is itself the greatest threat to Christian legacy.
Leading article: Integration has two sides
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-integration-has-two-sides-2109449.html
Monday, 18 October 2010
If anyone doubted that chiller winds were blowing over Europe on immigration and related issues, the speech given at the weekend by Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, offered a powerful corrective. For obvious historical reasons, German leaders have always been careful about broaching the subject of multiculturalism in general and Germany's Turkish minority in particular, preferring, if at all possible, to steer away.
Addressing a youth gathering of her centre-right CDU party, however, Ms Merkel made herself startlingly clear. Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany, she said, had "utterly failed". Immigrants had to do more to integrate – including by learning German.
Now it might be said that Ms Merkel was being tooo hard on her country. While there are areas of some cities which seem more Turkish than German, there are success stories, too, of descendants of 1960s' Gastarbeiter comfortably integrated into German life. The picture is not all bleak, nor has Germany failed more conspicuously than many other European countries.
Ms Merkel's speech, though, was a bellwether, and the clearest sign yet that the debate on migration and multiculturalism is now open, even in Germany where it was practically taboo. And while Ms Merkel's forthright words suggest that she intends to lead the debate from now on, it was not she who started it. This dubious honour belongs to Thilo Sarrazin, a former boardmember of the Bundesbank, whose recent book, Germany Abolishes Itself, and attendant magazine articles, shocked the country's establishment, first, by what many saw as its racist content and, second, by its swift rise to the top of the best-seller list.
Mr Sarrazin resigned from the Bundesbank last month, after condemnation from Ms Merkel, among others. That she has now addressed the subject herself, however, demonstrates how quickly the context has changed. Mr Sarrazin raised spectres that were too dangerous to be left to become flesh and blood on the far right. They had to be tackled head-on.
Germany now joins France, Belgium, the Netherlands and – so far, to a lesser extent, Britain – in questioning the multicultural approach adopted by governments for many years. If integration is now to be the focus, however, the effort will have to be two-sided. As well as requiring migrants to do more, governments and the indigenous population will have to try harder, too. And this will take funds – for language tuition, better schooling and homes – at a time when money is in very short supply.
'Failure' of multiculturalism
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2010/10/failure_of_multiculturalism.html
Gavin Hewitt | 11:05 UK time, Monday, 18 October 2010
In a speech to young members of her party, Chancellor Merkel at the weekend broke a taboo. She said multiculturalism had "utterly failed".
Up until now mainstream politicians have largely shied away from "identity politics". No longer. The German chancellor was explicit. "This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side-by-side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed."
To understand this intervention it is worth scrolling back a few weeks. Over the summer the former Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin caused a storm of protest with his book Germany Abolishes Itself. His comments about Jews and genetics meant that his views were immediately condemned and he eventually had to resign from the bank.
But the main argument in his book was that Islam did not fit comfortably with Western values. He packed audiences and his book has sold over a million copies. Suddenly Germany was discussing how well its five million Muslims had integrated.
Then the German President, Christian Wulff, stepped into the argument. "Islam," he said, "has become part of German culture". It was right, the president said, for the Muslim religion to be taught alongside others at German schools.
The reaction was not what he may have imagined. The paper Bild splashed a headline asking "Mr President, why are you sucking up to Islam?" Polls suggested the public did not share the views of the president. Of those polled 66% rejected the president's view that Islam was part of Germany. Other politicians began speaking out. The conservative Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann, said "Germany does not want to integrate Islam but to retain its own cultural identity".
This has been the message that has enabled anti-immigration and overtly anti-Muslim parties across parts of Europe to enter mainstream parties.
The Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders visited Germany and according to reports told a large audience that "we do not deserve to become strangers in our own land". There was loud applause.
Angela Merkel has decided that the argument cannot be left to those parties. She told her audience at the weekend that "immigrants are welcome... they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms".
Gradually across many parts of Europe the old concept of multiculturalism is being challenged. That had allowed new arrivals to essentially live within their own communities without taking steps to integrate into their new societies. The problem was that separate parallel communities sprang up.
What politicians like Angela Merkel want is for closer integration, for newcomers to take on Germany's "cultural norms". In her view, it is no longer just enough to arrive and to cling to the values and customs of the country they have come from. She is not promoting assimilation, but she is suggesting that newcomers "have obligations" and need to do more to become "German" or "European".
The new thinking is less to celebrate what makes societies different and more what binds them together. The Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, spoke of the need for Turkish migrants in Germany to speak German "fluently and without an accent".
Many migrant communities are understandably wary of "identity politics" and would argue that the barriers to integration often come from society itself, which makes it difficult for them to find jobs. Some in Germany have pointed out that the funding to help migrants learn German has been cut.
But - after the economy - the issue of immigration in country after country is influencing the outcome of elections and mainstream politicians are starting to pay attention.
左派が展開した「それぞれの民族集団が独自性を保持しながら、互いに存在しあう」という主義の失敗だ。移民に現地語（英語）を学ばせるのではなく、役所業務に通訳と翻訳を提供することに予算を割いている。
（2つ目）がーディアン紙の論調
（3つ目）インディペンデント紙の論調
（4つ目）BBCの解説
最後の下線部。「そうはいうけど、外国人がドイツ語を学ぶ予算は削減されたんですよ」が痛い（笑）。
Multicultural mistakes
Telegraph View: Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, was right to condemn multiculturalism as a failure.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8071854/Multicultural-mistakes.html
Published: 7:48PM BST 18 Oct 2010
Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has provoked heated controversy with her declaration that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany have "utterly failed". The "multikulti" concept, as the Germans call it, had led immigrants to believe that they need not integrate, learn the language or adopt the customs and practices of their new home. To some extent, the Germans have only themselves to blame, because they were less than welcoming to the millions of Turks and others who arrived under the Gastarbeiter scheme to help build the post-war economic miracle. Many were given a right to reside but denied full German citizenship – excluding them from certain jobs such as teaching. Most of the immigrants have settled; but in the eyes of many, they have not made much of an effort to become Germans.
The same is true in this country, if not more so. British tolerance of other people's ways, religions, cuisines, languages and dress has not always been matched by an equal willingness on the part of immigrants to subscribe to the value system of the host nation. That was principally the fault of the multiculturalist creed espoused by the Left, which encouraged different ethnic groups to do their own thing, meaning they became more estranged from mainstream society and from one another. In some parts of the country, this led to segregation and separation – the "parallel lives" identified by a report into the 2001 riots in several northern cities. Rather than insisting that immigrants learn English – which would be to their own benefit – millions of pounds have been spent providing interpreters and translating public service documents. This is a subject political leaders usually recoil from discussing – and Mrs Merkel may pay a price for doing so. But the alternative is to leave the debate exclusively to the extremists.
Liberal multiculturalism masks an old barbarism with a human face
Across Europe, the politics of the far right is infecting us all with the need for a 'reasonable' anti-immigration policy
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/immigration-policy-roma-rightwing-europe
Slavoj Zizek
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 October 2010 22.00 BST
The recent expulsion of Roma, or Gypsies, from France drew protests from all around Europe – from the liberal media but also from top politicians, and not only from those on the left. But the expulsions went ahead, and they are just the tip of a much larger iceberg of European politics.
A month ago, a book by Thilo Sarrazin, a bank executive who was considered politically close to the Social Democrats, caused an uproar in Germany. Its thesis is that German nationhood is threatened because too many immigrants are allowed to maintain their cultural identity. Although the book, titled Germany Does Away with Itself, was overwhelmingly condemned, its tremendous impact suggests that it touched a nerve.
Incidents like these have to be seen against the background of a long-term rearrangement of the political space in western and eastern Europe. Until recently, most European countries were dominated by two main parties that addressed the majority of the electorate: a right-of-centre party (Christian Democrat, liberal-conservative, people's) and a left-of-centre party (socialist, social-democratic), with smaller parties (ecologists, communists) addressing a narrower electorate.
Recent electoral results in the west as well as in the east signal the gradual emergence of a different polarity. There is now one predominant centrist party that stands for global capitalism, usually with a liberal cultural agenda (for example, tolerance towards abortion, gay rights, religious and ethnic minorities). Opposing this party is an increasingly strong anti-immigrant populist party which, on its fringes, is accompanied by overtly racist neofascist groups. The best example of this is Poland where, after the disappearance of the ex-communists, the main parties are the "anti-ideological" centrist liberal party of the prime minister Donald Tusk and the conservative Christian Law and Justice party of the Kaczynski brothers. Similar tendencies are discernible in the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Hungary. How did we get here?
After decades of hope held out by the welfare state, when financial cuts were sold as temporary, and sustained by a promise that things would soon return to normal, we are entering a new epoch in which crisis – or, rather, a kind of economic state of emergency, with its attendant need for all sorts of austerity measures (cutting benefits, diminishing health and education services, making jobs more temporary) is permanent. Crisis is becoming a way of life.
After the disintegration of the communist regimes in 1990, we entered a new era in which the predominant form of the exercise of state power became a depoliticised expert administration and the co-ordination of interests. The only way to introduce passion into this kind of politics, the only way to actively mobilise people, is through fear: the fear of immigrants, the fear of crime, the fear of godless sexual depravity, the fear of the excessive state (with its burden of high taxation and control), the fear of ecological catastrophe, as well as the fear of harassment (political correctness is the exemplary liberal form of the politics of fear).
Such a politics always relies on the manipulation of a paranoid multitude – the frightening rallying of frightened men and women. This is why the big event of the first decade of the new millennium was when anti-immigration politics went mainstream and finally cut the umbilical cord that had connected it to far right fringe parties. From France to Germany, from Austria to Holland, in the new spirit of pride in one's cultural and historical identity, the main parties now find it acceptable to stress that immigrants are guests who have to accommodate themselves to the cultural values that define the host society – "it is our country, love it or leave it" is the message.
Progressive liberals are, of course, horrified by such populist racism. However, a closer look reveals how their multicultural tolerance and respect of differences share with those who oppose immigration the need to keep others at a proper distance. "The others are OK, I respect them," the liberals say, "but they must not intrude too much on my own space. The moment they do, they harass me – I fully support affirmative action, but I am in no way ready to listen to loud rap music." What is increasingly emerging as the central human right in late-capitalist societies is the right not to be harassed, which is the right to be kept at a safe distance from others. A terrorist whose deadly plans should be prevented belongs in Guantánamo, the empty zone exempted from the rule of law; a fundamentalist ideologist should be silenced because he spreads hatred. Such people are toxic subjects who disturb my peace.
On today's market, we find a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol. And the list goes on: what about virtual sex as sex without sex? The Colin Powell doctrine of warfare with no casualties (on our side, of course) as warfare without warfare? The contemporary redefinition of politics as the art of expert administration as politics without politics? This leads us to today's tolerant liberal multiculturalism as an experience of the Other deprived of its Otherness – the decaffeinated Other.
The mechanism of such neutralisation was best formulated back in 1938 by Robert Brasillach, the French fascist intellectual, who saw himself as a "moderate" antisemite and invented the formula of reasonable antisemitism. "We grant ourselves permission to applaud Charlie Chaplin, a half Jew, at the movies; to admire Proust, a half Jew; to applaud Yehudi Menuhin, a Jew; … We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable actions of instinctual antisemitism is to organise a reasonable antisemitism."
Is this same attitude not at work in the way our governments are dealing with the "immigrant threat"? After righteously rejecting direct populist racism as "unreasonable" and unacceptable for our democratic standards, they endorse "reasonably" racist protective measures or, as today's Brasillachs, some of them even Social Democrats, tell us: "We grant ourselves permission to applaud African and east European sportsmen, Asian doctors, Indian software programmers. We don't want to kill anyone, we don't want to organise any pogrom. But we also think that the best way to hinder the always unpredictable violent anti-immigrant defensive measures is to organise a reasonable anti-immigrant protection."
This vision of the detoxification of one's neighbour suggests a clear passage from direct barbarism to barbarism with a human face. It reveals the regression from the Christian love of one's neighbour back to the pagan privileging of our tribe versus the barbarian Other. Even if it is cloaked as a defence of Christian values, it is itself the greatest threat to Christian legacy.
Leading article: Integration has two sides
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-integration-has-two-sides-2109449.html
Monday, 18 October 2010
If anyone doubted that chiller winds were blowing over Europe on immigration and related issues, the speech given at the weekend by Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, offered a powerful corrective. For obvious historical reasons, German leaders have always been careful about broaching the subject of multiculturalism in general and Germany's Turkish minority in particular, preferring, if at all possible, to steer away.
Addressing a youth gathering of her centre-right CDU party, however, Ms Merkel made herself startlingly clear. Attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany, she said, had "utterly failed". Immigrants had to do more to integrate – including by learning German.
Now it might be said that Ms Merkel was being tooo hard on her country. While there are areas of some cities which seem more Turkish than German, there are success stories, too, of descendants of 1960s' Gastarbeiter comfortably integrated into German life. The picture is not all bleak, nor has Germany failed more conspicuously than many other European countries.
Ms Merkel's speech, though, was a bellwether, and the clearest sign yet that the debate on migration and multiculturalism is now open, even in Germany where it was practically taboo. And while Ms Merkel's forthright words suggest that she intends to lead the debate from now on, it was not she who started it. This dubious honour belongs to Thilo Sarrazin, a former boardmember of the Bundesbank, whose recent book, Germany Abolishes Itself, and attendant magazine articles, shocked the country's establishment, first, by what many saw as its racist content and, second, by its swift rise to the top of the best-seller list.
Mr Sarrazin resigned from the Bundesbank last month, after condemnation from Ms Merkel, among others. That she has now addressed the subject herself, however, demonstrates how quickly the context has changed. Mr Sarrazin raised spectres that were too dangerous to be left to become flesh and blood on the far right. They had to be tackled head-on.
Germany now joins France, Belgium, the Netherlands and – so far, to a lesser extent, Britain – in questioning the multicultural approach adopted by governments for many years. If integration is now to be the focus, however, the effort will have to be two-sided. As well as requiring migrants to do more, governments and the indigenous population will have to try harder, too. And this will take funds – for language tuition, better schooling and homes – at a time when money is in very short supply.
'Failure' of multiculturalism
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2010/10/failure_of_multiculturalism.html
Gavin Hewitt | 11:05 UK time, Monday, 18 October 2010
In a speech to young members of her party, Chancellor Merkel at the weekend broke a taboo. She said multiculturalism had "utterly failed".
Up until now mainstream politicians have largely shied away from "identity politics". No longer. The German chancellor was explicit. "This multicultural approach, saying that we simply live side-by-side and live happily with each other has failed. Utterly failed."
To understand this intervention it is worth scrolling back a few weeks. Over the summer the former Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin caused a storm of protest with his book Germany Abolishes Itself. His comments about Jews and genetics meant that his views were immediately condemned and he eventually had to resign from the bank.
But the main argument in his book was that Islam did not fit comfortably with Western values. He packed audiences and his book has sold over a million copies. Suddenly Germany was discussing how well its five million Muslims had integrated.
Then the German President, Christian Wulff, stepped into the argument. "Islam," he said, "has become part of German culture". It was right, the president said, for the Muslim religion to be taught alongside others at German schools.
The reaction was not what he may have imagined. The paper Bild splashed a headline asking "Mr President, why are you sucking up to Islam?" Polls suggested the public did not share the views of the president. Of those polled 66% rejected the president's view that Islam was part of Germany. Other politicians began speaking out. The conservative Bavarian Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann, said "Germany does not want to integrate Islam but to retain its own cultural identity".
This has been the message that has enabled anti-immigration and overtly anti-Muslim parties across parts of Europe to enter mainstream parties.
The Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders visited Germany and according to reports told a large audience that "we do not deserve to become strangers in our own land". There was loud applause.
Angela Merkel has decided that the argument cannot be left to those parties. She told her audience at the weekend that "immigrants are welcome... they must learn the language and accept the country's cultural norms".
Gradually across many parts of Europe the old concept of multiculturalism is being challenged. That had allowed new arrivals to essentially live within their own communities without taking steps to integrate into their new societies. The problem was that separate parallel communities sprang up.
What politicians like Angela Merkel want is for closer integration, for newcomers to take on Germany's "cultural norms". In her view, it is no longer just enough to arrive and to cling to the values and customs of the country they have come from. She is not promoting assimilation, but she is suggesting that newcomers "have obligations" and need to do more to become "German" or "European".
The new thinking is less to celebrate what makes societies different and more what binds them together. The Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, spoke of the need for Turkish migrants in Germany to speak German "fluently and without an accent".
Many migrant communities are understandably wary of "identity politics" and would argue that the barriers to integration often come from society itself, which makes it difficult for them to find jobs. Some in Germany have pointed out that the funding to help migrants learn German has been cut.
But - after the economy - the issue of immigration in country after country is influencing the outcome of elections and mainstream politicians are starting to pay attention.
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