Ron,
Can those Turkish "Auslanders" receive German citizenship yet?
What if they're born in Germany??
According to the germanic blood-and-soil mantra, only 200,000 out of the 2,500,000+ ethnic Turkish living/born in Germany have been granted the German citizenship... Meanwhile, ethnic Germans who are not even fluent in German but whose ancestors emigrated in Russia and Central Europe centuries ago are fully eligible for German citizenship --go figure!
Actually, this citizenship issue was a campaign promise of Gerhard Schroeder: when he was still a candidate for Germany's top job, Schroeder said he would push for changing German rules from a ''blood right'' to a ''soil right'', ie a citizenship granted to anyone who's born in Germany, whatever his/her ethnic background. Needless to say that Chancellor Schroeder had to step back from that (touchy) track!
Oh well... maybe one day.
Never! See Ron, I would re-qualify your remark with this little terse phrase of mine:
Americans are racist people who nurse their racism whereas Europeans are repressed xenophobes.
Xenophobia is much more insidious than racism because it goes beyond the color line. After all, both Serbs and Albanians are white folks; both Croats and Serbs, and Bosnians speak the same language (ie the Serbo-Croat lingo). Both Flemishes and Walloons are white, mostly catholic, etc. Even North African folks from Morocco, Algeria,... are from a white, Central European descent: the Vandals who, together with the Visigoths, settle in Spain, before crossing the Mediterranean sea and conquering North Africa. That's why you still find today blue-eyed or red-haired people in the Sahara desert...
Yet, European bourgeoisies stick to their wild dream of a pure white, christian, prosperous Europe that will prevent (Muslim) Barbarians from crossing the gate!
This fortress-minded feeling is even more rooted in Europe's military elites: only viscounts and barons can make it to the top, whether it's France, Germany, Great Britain: General Baron Francois-Xavier de Tartempion, Lt-Col. Lord Henry Blimp or Kolonel von Karajan... You're not gonna see some colored guy whose parents emigrated from Jamaica to the Bronx and who eventually could become Chief of Staff...
I'm not naive about the color line in the US though... a few weeks after I left LA in 1992, the so-called LA riots unfolded, forcing President Bush to send in 6,000 soldiers in LA. A curfew was imposed after more than 53 people were killed. If such a racial climax should occur in any major European city it would just trigger a fascistic regime on the spot. That's why I was dwelling on jingoism as a major threat looming around the corner...
Regards,
Gustave. |
