Migration Affects National Cultures

"Why," Benjamin Franklin asked in 1751 when faced with heavy German migration to America, "should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?" Rainer Ohliger, a demographic expert from Berlin, cites Franklin in his contribution to the debate about a German migration museum, which was held at a conference in Cologne last weekend.

Although the development which Franklin feared did not come about, current demographics are raising the same question in Germany. For behind the debates about headscarves, mosques and passports is the feeling that diverging demographic trends between Germans and immigrants in Germany are changing the cultural balance, and thus the country itself.

It would be good if these concerns caused Germans finally to take the presence of migrants in their country seriously. As Ohliger points out, politicians initially claimed that Germany wasn't an immigration country at all; then they said Germany wasn't a classic immigration country; and finally admitted that Germany is a de facto immigration country.

But what does de facto mean? Certainly not the opposite of de jure, because in legal terms we're not living in an immigration country. So does it mean no more than "unfortunately" or "not voluntarily?" Neither history nor social developments, however, depend on whether we like what is happening. By repeatedly expressing our unease about the mixed implications of immigration we're merely wasting time that could be used better to try and deal with the facts.

And that is exactly what has happened in Germany. Initially, the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe were considered as mere labor market participants, as though one could tap this labor force without having to consider other effects of their presence in this country. But since temporary work-related stays weren't in the interest of the foreign workers or their German employers, they stayed and brought their families here as well.

This development did not prompt a policy of active cultural assimilation in Franklin's sense. Instead, politicians' answer to the problems related to immigration was social policy. Migrants were treated like children in need of care and protection. Welfare lobbies and the government together introduced measures of dubious effectiveness, according to Ohliger. Often enough, the result of multiculturalism was no more than subsidies for certain projects.

It took Germany's dismal results in the international Pisa education study to finally prompt a culture policy response to migration. Only now have politicians noticed how speechless and therefore estranged from the communication culture of their German environment many migrants are.

One reason for this is the upbringing of many of these immigrants who come from rural populations with low school qualifications in southern Italy, Portugal or Anatolia. And upward social mobility is also limited in the second generation of immigrants. The combination of linguistic distance and low social prestige encourages the creation of culturally closed social circles by preventing the immigrants from creating their own elite who can communicate their concerns to the outside. Immigrants remain under the impression that they're only economically and politically, but not culturally, dependent on the society that surrounds them.

German culture should be advertized, and the respective immigration culture addressed, in schools. But migration hardly features in text books and curricula. According to Ohliger, German pupils continue to learn about the Turks attacking Vienna in their history lessons, but rarely find out about the Turks who live in Berlin today. Migration-specific issues are not part of teacher training, or at least didn't feature on the programs of the majority of today's teachers, who are between 50 and 60 years old.

The Cologne conference focused on the idea of a German migration museum, a good idea in terms of cultural policy. But even more important would be the introduction of school lessons that would make it interesting for Germans and migrants alike to visit such a museum for learning purposes.