Multiculturalism in Europe With Special Dissertation

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104)..

Berlin district mayor, Neukolln, asserts that multiculturalism in German has fallen short. Evidence shows that the recent increment in immigration is because of economic refugees from southern European nations because of the euro disaster (Conradt 2013, p.117). However, the debate regarding the considerable rise in immigration in German falls back to the Turkish community integration, which depicts the uppermost number of foreigners in Germany, the Europe largest economy. Scores of policy makers and politicians view integration as a means to form a homogenized society as opposed to a strategy that reinforces equal social and political contribution for every individual in Germany. Integration is ill-executed, and this issue has instigated a block amid Turkey and Germany in recent times, particularly when Wulff Christian, a former German President, was advised by, Abdullah Gul, a former Turkish president, that German should integrate Turks into its German culture. Following this request by Abdullah Gul, German Chancellor, Merkel Angela confirmed that multiculturalism has fallen short. According to Angela, there are approximately 7 million foreigners living in Germany (Klopp 2002, p.24). Over four million of these foreigners are of Muslim religious background and they have build over three thousands mosques across the country. The "Multikulti" concept has failed and the concept of German-ness is being overtaken given the increasing mosques and Turkish ghettos in Berlin and headscarves worn in classrooms and other social events (Klopp 2002, p.24). The religious culture of German has been overtaken taken by immigrants' religious culture. This trend challenges the feasibility of immigration policies. The increasing Turkish religious culture jeopardizes the national Christian identity of Germans and this augments fear towards Muslims given their record in terrorism and crime.

Objective of the Study

Many policy makers and politicians in German view integration politics as a means of creating a homogenized society. Multiculturalism contends to address minorities and thereby suggest a link with the majority. However, these categories, the minority and majority, wielded and defined with respect to each other are increasingly challenged and further made difficult through disparities in articulation amid developed capitalist nations and the Third World (Triadafilopoulos 2012, p.122). The organizing aspect for the minorities include such terms as indegeneity, ethnicity and race while their source are linked to colonization, immigration and other types of subjugation. Integration remains an alternative for western democracies to deal with the issues of immigrants. Nevertheless, as confirmed by a German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not all efforts of integration policies that take in novel models of multicultural citizenship have lead to the achievement of intended benefits. Multiculturalism can work in favor of the host country or in the favor of the immigrants (Triadafilopoulos 2012, p.121). Given the factors impending and facilitating multiculturalism, the purpose of this study is to evaluate multiculturalism in Germany, its success and failures, assess the integration policies and factors affecting multiculturalism. It is hoped that this analysis will inspire development of feasible integration and multiculturalism policies to ensure a multicultural state, and people will realize that not all problems are caused by multiculturalism or immigrants.

Chapter Two: Literature Review

Multiculturalism in Germany

Multiculturalism is understood against the backdrop of assimilations perspectives and policies that surround a nation's integration of immigrants in divergent nations. Multiculturalism refers to the situation where diverse cultures live together, but at the same tine establish and ensure spaces where every cultural group can develop with respect to its determination (Paul 2009, p.1). In one sense multiculturalism and multicultural are sociological terms that identifies societies characterized through cultural, ethnic or religious diversity (Triadafilopoulos 2012, p.125). Multiculturalism refers to a policy orientation that stresses on active support to assist immigrants to uphold the cultural allegiances with their origin nations as a major element of fair, non-assimilationist perspective to social integration. Multiculturalism began in Canada during 1970s and was adopted elsewhere. The concept of multiculturalism was created when tensions amid the Canadian federal government and province of Quebec were on the rise (Entzinger 2006, p.121). Multiculturalism in this policy-oriented perspective finds itself being routinely blamed because of failing to offer what it promised. Multiculturalism was intended to develop social cohesion through allowing immigrants' integration into the mainstream culture (Eckdart 2007, p.240). Another aim of multiculturalism was for consolidating popular attachment to the basic principles of liberal democracy besides putting to remission economic differences between old-stock populations and newcomers.

Multiculturalism has become a significant focus in debates in Germany for several years, particularly as pertains to the issues of nationality.

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As Germany still does not describe itself officially as an immigrant society, the presence of ethnic diversity offers numerous challenges (Albrecht 2012, p.364). Official and populist descriptions of nationality and citizenship have not extended to cultural immigrants and minorities. Neither of the term ethnic diversity and multiculturalism has entered the official political discourses in Germany. Until the nineteen nineties, major debates in public were instigated by the ideas of integration combined with immigration policy (Albrecht 2012, p.364). Even though Germany has been a crucial destination for immigrants in Europe for years, the overall attitude presented in state policies until recently has been that Germany is not an immigration country in comparison with the United States of America, Australia or Canada (Joppke 1999, p.63). Since the early nineteen nineties, particular changes in these debates can be determined and multiculturalism has become an increasingly controversial term.

In intellectual fields, the idea of "communitarism" employed in North America was considered a symbolic realm for debating principles derived from the perceived antagonism between universal democracy and ethnic diversity (Albrecht 2012, p.363). In the political discourse, a similar controversy surfaced where on one side, Green politics employed the term to support a more cosmopolitan way of urban life while conservative politics attempted to maintain its political comprehension of German nationality in contrast to a multicultural comprehension of the society (Conradt 2013, p.117). Following the takeover of the national government by coalition for the Green Party and Social Democrats in nineteen ninety-eight, the reform of some key components of German immigration laws and nationhood was high on their agenda.

Multiculturalism leads people straight back to a time when open-minded attitudes towards others did not clearly exist and social interaction with divergent cultures seemed impossible. Such a view does not, however, ascertain with all the literary documents and their reflections regarding people from other cultural backgrounds (Messer 2012, p.5). Debates regarding multiculturalism, identity and minority rights dominated Anglo-American political theory during the majority of the 1990s, and constantly raise significant questions regarding the temperament of citizenship, responsibilities of liberal state and community. Politicians, journalists and policy makers united in support of multiculturalism (Klopp 2002, p.2). As the philosophical literature became more multiculturalists, scores of European states considerably adopted multiculturalist's policies as a way of including historically marginalized persons into ordinary liberal culture, or a means of safeguarding minority groups from unjust pressures from the majority culture. Nevertheless, as time passes, the multiculturalist turn in liberal political theory and among scores of European governments, has waned. In the wake of terrorist atrocities around the world, developing concerns regarding the erosion of national and civic identity, and fears that cultural recognition can permit illiberal practices, many practitioners and academics have sought to distance themselves from the notion that it is the responsibility of the state to afford special treatment to cultural minorities (Messer 2012, p.1). Academics and practitioners have sought to emphasize those common bonds, which unite citizens of liberal democratic states as opposed to those cultural identities that divide them (Joppke 1999, p.63). .

In Germany, multiculturalism debate has been focused principally on pedagogical and race-relations issues. While journalists and scholars use the term to define the incredible cultural and ethnic diversity in Germany, multiculturalism is most often linked with the political-correctness debates that focus on the suitable pedagogy for teaching the history of society and the humanities (Vasta 2007, p.345). In Germany, there is no official state policy or national multicultural agenda. However, the concept has been a salient political issue at federal, state and local levels since early 1980s. Scores of commentators locate the introduction of the term multicultural society into German discourse with statement issued by the catholic and protestant churches in cooperation with the Greek Orthodox Church to address the foreign fellow citizen in 1980.

According to Klopp (2002, p.24), Jurgen Micksh, the author of the statement, "day of the foreign fellow citizen," religious leaders arrived at the concept of culture as a more comprehensive way to discuss foreigners in Germany society. These scholars were attempting to broaden the views of the public with regard to the group of foreigners and counter the pervasive media reflection that stressed either the problems or the economic value of the foreigners and not their humanity. Until nineteen eighty, discourse on ethnic diversity or cultural diversity, let alone integration, was in fact absent in the Federal Republic of Germany. Ten years later, the unification of the.....

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