General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Europe - migrants - Cologne attacks - The comments section on this Guardian article... [View all]DFW
(54,370 posts)They either travel themselves back to Turkey frequently or know people who do, and know how much better the average Turk in Germany has it than the average Turk has it in Turkey. They may ask for mosques to be built (we have one in our town), but they compromise (they do not call to prayer over loudspeakers). They mostly know how counterproductive it would be to isolate themselves from a society that allowed so many of them to make it far beyond what they would be looking at back home--to the extent that they even call Turkey home any more. The guy who does my train tickets at the local travel agency is Turkish in appearance and name, but was born near Düsseldorf, speaks accent-free German, says he is "close to fluent" in Turkish, is "sort of" a Muslim, but smokes, drinks alcohol, eats pork, and does not bow down to Mecca. He has a German passport and, except for his name, is every bit as much a German as someone named Otto Müller.
The Germans, though very nationalistic, are very reticent to be pushy about it--most of them, anyway. The pictures of World War II are everywhere, and they like their relative prosperity and don't want it ruined by the destruction brought upon them by the actions of their grandparents or great-grandparents. They are very uncomfortable with being acknowledged to be a powerhouse of any kind, economic powerhouse though they are, because they don't want to be viewed as a threat to anyone any more. Nor do they want anyone coming in and being a threat to them, which makes them like pretty much like every other country in the world.
The next big test will be February 8th, "Rosenmontag," the height of Karneval. Those parts of Germany that celebrate Karneval will close down, and half the population will be on the streets celebrating the big parades. If there are attacks again, there will be a huge backlash, and many innocents will bear the brunt of it. Germany has the monumentous task of making clear to EVERY recent immigrant in no uncertain terms what is acceptable and what is not, and it needs to be done in the next two weeks. Handing out a piece of paper saying "please be a good boy" in Arabic won't cut it, either.