CSU: Immigrants should speak German at home, CDU says LOLwhat ?

[Beezer]

Some encouragement is sensible. Every time I hear Mesut Özil in an interview I just cringe and shake my head in disbelief at the fact that the guy was actually born in Germany. There are people who have been living in Germany for a year whose German is considerably better than his.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I think all German speaking people should speak Hochdeutsch at home.  And in the Schule und Arbeitsplatz as well.  These ramshackle, outmoded dialects should be discouraged and teachers and bosses should punish people who still insist on chipping away at a unified German culture by speaking their native language privately among their close friends and families.

[Tender Branson]

Tender,

Cultural insensitivity is not left or right issue, as you know.

Yeah, but i'm not "culturally insensitive". More like a strong supporter of foreigner integration and at best: assimilation. But that's just me. Others of course can still talk their native language even if they are already 50 years in another country. Doesn't bother me really. I just like the idea that immigrants are encouraged to learn and talk the new language as often as they can. It only benefits them. Besides, if you read the beginning of the topic here I have already spoken out against the CSU "mandate" that the media tried to spin (which the party does not want itself either).

[palandio]

I just like the idea that immigrants are encouraged to learn and talk the new language as often as they can. It only benefits them.

But that's at least two ideas:
1) "Immigrants are encouraged to learn the new language, it only benefits them."
Yes, of course it only benefits them. But it's not like if the immigrants couldn't come up with that idea themselves. I also don't get the sense of writing encouragements like this into political programs apart from pandering to resentments like "Immigrants don't want to integrate, they have to be told to do so".
2) What the CSU actually said is "Immigrants are encouraged to talk the new language as often as they can."
a) This totally neglects the value of multi-linguality and gives the idea that one can only be good at one language or the other.
b) It's again about telling other people what to do, mandatorily or not. (Same holds for those who want to abolish dialects.)

[ingemann]

I just like the idea that immigrants are encouraged to learn and talk the new language as often as they can. It only benefits them.

But that's at least two ideas:
1) "Immigrants are encouraged to learn the new language, it only benefits them."
Yes, of course it only benefits them. But it's not like if the immigrants couldn't come up with that idea themselves. I also don't get the sense of writing encouragements like this into political programs apart from pandering to resentments like "Immigrants don't want to integrate, they have to be told to do so".

Clearly there are some who don't get these idea themselves, the kind of immigrants CSU are talking about, is not new immigrants, but people who are born in the country and still have trouble with the native language.

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To speak several language is a good thing, the problem is that the kind of people who is born in Germany (or other west European country of your choice) and dosn't speak German (or other west... you know the drill) well, is unlikely to have any sophiphistication in their own native language, they speak the their equalant of some hill billy dialect, they're usual also having literacy problems, as they have been taught to read and write in a language they barely understand (German). 

Ther are little value in that kind of multi-linguality.

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Seriously?...

So you're okay with people beating their children, drinking while driving, not paying tax etc?

[Hash]

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Seriously?...

So you're okay with people beating their children, drinking while driving, not paying tax etc?

Holy straw man Batman!

[ingemann]

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Seriously?...

So you're okay with people beating their children, drinking while driving, not paying tax etc?

Holy straw man Batman!

Yes it's a strawman (at least the last two, I do in fact think that not teaching ones child the local language is child abuse, at least if you plan for the children to stay), but only because the statement is utterly idiotic. The government force or tells us to do things all the time, if it mean it's for our own good or necessary for the state.

[palandio]

I won't reply to your strawman argument.

My statement is not utterly idiotic. When you are beating your children, drinking while driving and not paying your taxes, you are harming someone. When you refuse to learn the language, you only harm yourself.

Stop, you might say, you are harming your children when you don't teach them the local language.
That's an often heard argument, but it is denying reality as I said earlier. Children can easily adopt a second language at pre-school or elementary school age. Why is Mesut Özil's German so crappy, you might ask? Well, probably his Turkish is not much better and he wouldn't talk better German if his parents would have raised him in a crippled 500-word version of German.  You are 100% right that many immigrants, particularly from certain countries, have literacy problems and that is quite a big problem, but telling them to raise their children in a language that they themselves barely speak is not the solution, better teach the children a proper version of the local language in kindergarden. They will learn it within a year, under the condition that the majority of the other children is not from the same background.

[Gustaf]

Just wanted to say that AG put it well and anyone not thinking this is horrible and moronic is wrong.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Tender, if I and a friend of mine went to live in Austria, would you have problems with us speaking English together at home?

[ag]

There is something sinister in the desire for uniformity that seems to survive in some people´s minds. Let us remember that for many centuries the one identifiable minority in many European countries were the Jews: they did not go to Church and they spoke languages between themselves others could not comprehend. Nor were they willing to assimilate and abandon their tongues and their generally foreign ways.  This "otherness" made people scared: and from a feeling of being scared there was always a short step to a pogrom.

Today, of course, my fellow-tribesmen are the "protected minority": post-Hitler a respectable person cannot be a publicly acknowledged antisemite.  In any case, at this point surviving European Jews have got to be, by and large, sufficiently domesticated: speaking local languages and dressing "normally". And the religious distinction is less important: now that many Europeans no longer go to church on Sundays they are willing to let the Jews not go to a synagogue on Saturdays. And the numbers of the ultra-Orthodox have gotten to be small enough (in Europe) that accommodating  them seems a small-enough price to atone for the Holocaust.

But the new minorities are less lucky. Their otherness is not protected by the memory of the Holocaust. But the fear of that otherness is that exact fear that led to the centuries of the antisemitic persecution. Something, we should always remember.

In any case, the society has no more to do in my kitchen or in my living room than it has to do in my bedroom. I do not want any concerned well-wisher to hold an opinion about my linguistic or dietary preferences than I want his opinion of my sexual preferences.

[Famous Mortimer]

The difference is that the Jews were generally alright financially.

Current immigrants are almost entirely poorer if not impoverished.

By not assimilating, while they may moderately improve their own economic standing, they lower everyone else's.

Germany is a nice country, it's harder to stay that way if it imports large chunks of Turkey (not a nice country). The end result is going to be somewhere between Germany and Turkey, ie, not as nice as before.

[ag]

The difference is that the Jews were generally alright financially.

You need a bit of a refresher on your European Jewish history, I am afraid.

[ag]

Germany is a nice country, it's harder to stay that way if it imports large chunks of Turkey (not a nice country). The end result is going to be somewhere between Germany and Turkey, ie, not as nice as before.

Yeah, Germans were a lot more proficient in organizing their Holocaust. I guess, that makes it a nicer country.

And if you think that is an awful thing to say - it is no way near as awful as what you did say.

[Famous Mortimer]

Germany is nicer than Turkey. This is evidenced by the fact that massive numbers of Turks want to live in Germany but not vice verca.

[Velasco]

This thread is the living proof of how xenophobia and ignorance permeate every corner.

[Tender Branson]

Tender, if I and a friend of mine went to live in Austria, would you have problems with us speaking English together at home?

Not really, but I would advise you to learn good German if you want to stay here for a while for work. Unless you work for a multi-national company in Vienna etc. where you can get by by talking English with international customers, it's ok. But if you work in a company where the business language is Austro-German, then it would be better for you and your friend to get a language course soon. It will also help you in the local bakery, etc. or in general.

But that's not the point: Like I said in the beginning, the media (falsely) thought the CSU wanted to mandate German-speaking at home for immigrants (and apparently, you falsely think the same). In fact, they only want to encourage them strongly to learn and talk German as often as possible. A mandate is not what I support, because it's stupid and non-enforceable anyway.

This thread is the living proof of how xenophobia and ignorance permeate every corner.

There is a difference between "xenophobia" and advocating a smooth integration of immigrants into society by encouraging to learn the local language and apply the new culture and customs close to 100%. Otherwise, you will end up with the immigrant "ghettos" like in France or in Sweden full of disillusioned folks who start to riot ...

[Franzl]

Fortunately, the CSU is deservedly being mocked by pretty much everyone, so not really worth debating.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

What the christ, Europeans don't understand anything about immigration. It's one thing to promote language learning programs in order to help immigrants communicate with fellow community members and quite another to demand that immigrants learn language because they "need to apply the new culture and customs close to 100%". This is an insulting and dehumanizing sentiment.

My Mom often speaks to me in Spanish and it's none of your business. If you tell me "speak English or get out", I'll tell you "chinga tu madre puto gringo de mierda". All immigrants share this sentiment, including second and third generation migrants who hardly speak the mother tongue.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

The difference is that the Jews were generally alright financially.

Current immigrants are almost entirely poorer if not impoverished.

By not assimilating, while they may moderately improve their own economic standing, they lower everyone else's.

Germany is a nice country, it's harder to stay that way if it imports large chunks of Turkey (not a nice country). The end result is going to be somewhere between Germany and Turkey, ie, not as nice as before.

America is nicer than Poland, Belorussia and Sicily. When we let those swarthy uneducated Papists and Jews into this country, we declined from superpower status to a festering sh**tehole full of crime, illiteracy and poverty. Remember the good old days when McKinley was President and 80% of our country was literate rather than the 50% that is literate today?

Do you inhale paint fumes on a regular basis? Your analysis is as sophisticated as a toddler's. Actually, I'd like to redact this point: it's very insulting to toddlers.

[Famous Mortimer]

Immigration had no effect on our superpower status, it was WWII that did that and by that time, we had basically disallowed mass immigration.

The era of immigration you refer to was The Gilded Age. It was not a good time in general and it's very odd to see a left-winger holding it up as something positive to be emulated.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Immigration had no effect on our superpower status, it was WWII that did that and by that time, he had basically disallowed mass immigration.

Also, it's ironic to see a Democrat defending Gilded Age social policy.

Where did I claim that immigration propelled us to superpower status? You were the one that claimed that immigration weakens nations and this claim has no evidence. It's also quite rich coming from an fellow American, where we have a a clear understanding that immigration is a virtue rather than a vice.

"Gilded Age social policy" rescued hundreds of thousands of oppressed Jews from pogroms and constant oppression in the Old World. Why wouldn't I defend ethical immigration systems that save migrants from material deprivation and political oppression? I'm a leftist because I believe in universal human rights and think that ethnic/race based nationalism is detestable.

[Famous Mortimer]

All of the benefits America has gotten from immigration are actually just the "benefits" of cheap labor.

[Cassius]

Well, I'm not entirely sure as to how you can 'oblige' immigrants to speak the national language at home, but it should certainly be encouraged for them to do so. After all, speaking one language at home and another at work is a bit of a barrier to full assimilation on the part of immigrants.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

All of the benefits America has gotten from immigration are actually just the "benefits" of cheap labor.

Considering that America is primarily composed of the descendants of immigrants who arrived after the mid-19th century, it borders on complete gibbering idiocy to claim that America never benefited from immigration: the vast majority of Americans would not exist without immigration.