Berlin, Germany (CNN) -- Multiculturalism in Germany has "absolutely failed," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told her party's youth wing at a conference Saturday.
"The approach of saying, 'Well, let's just go for a multicultural society, let's coexist and enjoy each other,' this very approach has failed, absolutely failed," she said in a speech.
The remarks echo a comment she made to CNN last month in response to a question from Becky Anderson about Germany's Muslim population.
"We've all understood now that immigrants are a part of our country, (but) they have to speak our language, they have receive an education here," Merkel told CNN's "Connect the World" program September 27.
Germany's population is about 5 percent Muslim, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimated last year. Its roughly 4 million Muslims make up the largest Muslim population in western Europe.
This story of multiculturalism in another country caught my eye. Sounds all too familiar.
I actually wrote a research paper on Muslim immigration/integration in Europe for a class. The argument could definitely be made that multiculturalism has failed in Germany and other European countries, because integration of Muslims has largely failed in Germany and other European countries.
ReplyDeleteYou could try and make a case that the failed integration is a result of the Muslims choosing to not integrate, but I think that's a very hard case to make. I think the much stronger case is because most European citizenship laws do not have a "citizenship by birth" stipulation. Thus, even a person born in the country is not automatically a citizen if the parents are illegal immigrants.
Thus, unlike in the U.S. with Hispanic immigrants, the second and third generations of Muslims also do not integrate, because they too can be deported. And it's very hard to get multiculturalism to work when a significant portion of the population and an entire culture/race/class of people is almost completely isolated from everyone else.