Forum Views ()
Forum Replies ()
Read more with google mobile :
German bid at multi-cultural society has failed: Merkel
Yahoo!
My Yahoo!
Mail
More Yahoo! Services
Account Options
New User? Sign Up
Sign In
Help
Yahoo! Search
web search
Home
Singapore
Asia Pacific
World
Business
Entertainment
Sports
Technology
Weekend Edition
Africa
Europe
Latin America
Middle East
North America
German bid at multi-cultural society has failed: Merkel
AFP - Sunday, October 17
Send
IM Story
Print
German bid at multi-cultural society has failed: Merkel
BERLIN (AFP) - – Germany's attempts to create a multi-cultural society in which people from various cultural backgrounds live together peacefully have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday.
"Multikulti", the concept that "we are now living side by side and are happy about it," does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin.
"This approach has failed, totally," she said.
Merkel spoke a week after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which they pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany's 2.5-million-strong Turkish community.
Horst Seehofer, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, CSU, told the same party meeting Friday that the two Union parties were "committed to a dominant German culture and opposed to a multicultural one.
"'Multikulti' is dead," he said.
While warning against "immigration that weighs down on our social system", Merkel said that Germany needed specialists from overseas to keep the pace of its economic development.
According to the head of the German chamber of commerce and industry, Hans Heinrich Driftmann, Germany is in urgent need of about 400,000 engineers and qualified workers.
"The lack is causing a loss of growth of about one percent," he said in an interview.
Jewish leaders in Germany meanwhile warned that German society and democracy were under threat from extremists.
A recent expert study should prompt the government to act against antidemocratic ideas, the secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, told the Rheinpfalz am Sonntag weekly.
The study, by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation think tank, showed that more than one third (34.3 percent) of those surveyed believed Germany's 16 million immigrants or people with foreign origins came to the country for the social benefits.
Around the same number (35.6 percent) think Germany is being "over-run by foreigners" and more than one in 10 called for a "Fuehrer" to run the country "with a strong hand".
Thirty-two percent of people said they agreed with the statement: "Foreigners should be sent home when jobs are scarce."
Far-right attitudes are found not only at the extremes of German society, but "to a worrying degree at the centre of society," the report noted.
More than half (58.4 percent) of the 2,411 people polled thought the around four million Muslims in Germany should have their religious practices "significantly curbed."
The integration of Muslims has been a hot button issue since August when a member of Germany's central bank sparked outrage by saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants with headscarves.
The banker, Thilo Sarrazin, has since resigned but his book on the subject -- "Germany Does Itself In" -- has flown off the shelves, and polls showed considerable sympathy for some of his views.
Kramer also criticised CSU leader Seehofer for ideas which he said were "not only petty but outright irresponsible" and slammed the current immigration debate as "hysterical".
Recommend
Send
IM Story
Print
Related Articles
Obama on nationwide blitz with vote two weeks off AFP - 15 minutes ago
Amid parties, Chile miners try to return to normal AFP - 26 minutes ago
UK-World Summary Reuters - 1 hour 13 minutes ago
Some of Chile's 33 to return to mine for ceremony Reuters - 1 hour 36 minutes ago
Israeli envoy says only peace can halt settlements AFP - 2 hours 16 minutes ago
News Search
Top Stories
Blonde or brunette? Celluloid rivals fight it out
Britons trust ministers on cuts, expect unfairness
China battles to rescue trapped miners
German police evict protestors in station siege
Iranian chocolate thief 'to have hand chopped off'
More Top Stories »
ADVERTISEMENT
Most Popular
Most Viewed
Most Recommended
NESV seal acrimonious Liverpool takeover
World's longest tunnel breaks down Swiss Alpine barrier
Time, like all good things, may come to an end: study
Paris airports pipeline cut amid protests: company
Iranian chocolate thief 'to have hand chopped off'
More Most Viewed »
Too much TV psychologically harms kids: study
British lottery winner gets record 129 mln euros
Workers swarm Europe's streets in anti-cuts protests
'A billion people' go hungry in 2010: report
Global marine life census charts vast world beneath the seas
More Most Recommended »
Elsewhere on Yahoo!
Financial news on Yahoo! Finance
Stars and latest movies
Best travel destinations
More on Yahoo! News
Home
Singapore
Asia Pacific
World
Business
Entertainment
Sports
Technology
Weekend Edition
Subscribe to our news feeds
Top StoriesMy Yahoo!RSS
» More news feeds | What are news feeds?
Also on Yahoo!
Answers
Groups
Mail
Messenger
Mobile
Travel
Finance
Movies
Sports
Games
» All Yahoo! Services
Site Highlights
Singapore
Full Coverage
Most Popular
Entertainment
Photos
Yahoo! News Network
Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Southeast Asia Pte Ltd. (Co. Reg. No. 199700735D). All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy
- Terms of Service
- Community
- Intellectual Property Rights Policy
- Help
Other News on Sunday, 17 October 2010 Blasts hit southern Afghan city, at least one dead
|
EU lacks vision on Turkey membership: Gul
Herat 'may be handed to Afghans by 2011'
Iranian chocolate thief 'to have hand chopped off'
Karzai: Afghan peace council is hope for future
World's longest cable car line opens to Armenia
Rescuers hunt for trapped Ecuadorean miners
|
Seven Iraqis arrested in September army base attack
|
N.Korea 'ready' to resume nuclear disarmament talks
Japan rallies against China over disputed islands
Indian Muslims to appeal disputed holy site ruling
Alicia Keys gives birth to baby boy
China media mostly quiet as mine blast traps 16
Germany to help Japan obtain vital rare earths
China calls US green-tech trade charges 'groundless'
New date sought for Paris peace summit
Britons trust ministers on cuts, expect unfairness
Six killed in gun attack in Mexican border city
|
Seven Iraqis arrested in September army base attack
Philippines braces as Megi becomes super typhoon
|
Blonde or brunette? Celluloid rivals fight it out
Basque separatist says ETA should declare 'permanent truce'
China urges anti-Japan protesters to stay within law
|
Attacks hit Kandahar, killing 2 Afghan civilians
Some of Chile's 33 to return to mine for ceremony
|
German police evict protestors in station siege
China battles to rescue trapped miners
German bid at multi-cultural society has failed: Merkel
Voting starts in Pakistan's Karachi after violence
|
Bomb hits Kandahar city police HQ; 1 Afghan dead
New date sought for Paris peace summit: Israel
|
Israeli air strike kills militant in Gaza Strip
|
Tens of thousands rally against Italian government
Jolie to get back licence to film in Bosnia: local producer
Philippines braces as Megi becomes super typhoon
China urges anti-Japan protesters to stay within law
Vietnamese sailors located after China release
Gates: No sensitive info in Wikileaks Afghan papers
|
10 die in Indian temple stampede
Stoner scorches to fourth straight Aussie MotoGP win
At least 17 people killed in Pakistan's Karachi
Russian Arctic's 'nuclear dump' gets a facelift
Insurance fraudsters target North Korean refugees
Hope fades for 11 trapped miners in China
Blonde or brunette? Celluloid rivals fight it out in Paris
Hobbit row 'threatens' NZealand film industry
Australian police probe Gitmo detainee book deal
Festival stampede at north Indian temple kills 10
US-ENTERTAINMENT Summary
"Leave It to Beaver" mom Barbara Billingsley dies
Crocheted coral exhibit carries environmental warning
Jolie to get back licence to film in Bosnia: local producer
Leave It to Beaver mom Barbara Billingsley dies
|
US-TECH Summary
Gates: No sensitive info in Wikileaks Afghan papers
'Fallout: New Vegas' takes post-apocalypse play to Sin City
Afghan reprieve for some private security firms
Merkel says German multi-cultural society 'has failed'
Ahmadinejad says world has no option but talks
American held in Iran for 30 months says to sue group
|
Sarkozy, French unions fight to finish on pensions
|
Israeli air strike kills 2 militants in Gaza Strip
Off-Duty Baltimore Police Officer Killed After Argument Over Parking Space
Afghan 2010 troop death toll reaches 593
Yemeni planes bomb al Qaeda in south after ambush
|
NATO service member killed in southern Afghanistan
Pope makes saint of nun who exposed sexual abuse
|
American freed in Iran says he is innocent
Thai red shirts rally to demand leaders be freed
|
Iran warns domestic media over opposition news
|
Nine missing Vietnamese fishermen found adrift
|
Somali pirates seize S.Korean fishing boat
Thai PM faces court as ban threat hangs over party
Minimum and maximum temperatures in Celsius
Super typhoon only hours away from Philippines
Discovery of GPS tracker becomes privacy issue
Taiwan bourse 'says 61 foreign firms want to list'
APEC ministers warn food security at 'crossroads'
India launches diamond bourse
OPEC caught in dollar crossfire
India's 'King Coal' sale to raise billions
SE Asia should 'de-dollarise', but slowly: experts
Wall of money leaves Asia swimming against tide
Greece at new risk of being pushed off euro
Bodies of missing Tenn. mom, Jo Ann Bain, and daughter found
Female Breasts Are Bigger Than Ever
AMD Trinity Accelerated Processing Units Now in Volume Production
The Avengers (2012 film), made the second biggest opening- and single-day gross of all-time
AMD to Start Production of piledriver
Ivy Bridge Quad-Core, Four-Thread Desktop CPUs
Islamists Protest Lady Gaga's Concert in Indonesia
Japan Successfully Broadcasts an 8K Signal Over the Air
ECB boosts loans to 1 trillion Euro to stop credit crunch
Egypt : Mohammed Morsi won with 52 percent
What do you call 100,000 Frenchmen with their hands up
AMD Launches AMD Embedded R-Series APU Platform
Fed Should not Ignore Emerging Market Crisis
Fed casts shadow over India, emerging markets
Why are Chinese tourists so rude? A few insights