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The Bundesbank rejects Sarrazin’s racist comments
Comments made by Thilo Sarrazin, during the launch of his new book on Monday, about immigration issues sparked outrage from German lawmakers and community leaders, and many people agreed with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s statement that he should be removed from the bank’s board.
During the promotion of his book, Sarrazin maintained that Muslim immigrants in Europe were unwilling or incapable of integrating into western societies and that studies had proven that “all Jews share the same gene.”
Although Merkel’s government condemned his comments, it could not force his departure due to the Bundesbank’s independence.
The Bundesbank said in a statement on Monday that its chairman would meet with Sarrazin before deciding whether to take any further measures, adding that the bank is “an institution in which there is no room for discrimination.” Before the central bank could remove Sarrazin from its six-member board, the Bundesbank would have to ask Germany’s President Christian Wulff to order it.
This is not the first time Sarrazin has provoked controversy. He was forced to resign from part of his duties at the central bank last year, following similarly disparaging remarks about Berlin’s Arab and Turkish residents.
“The government feels that the reputation of the Bundesbank has definitely been harmed, domestically and abroad, by Mr. Sarrazin’s comments,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said Monday. “The Bundesbank must be concerned about this.”
In his book, Sarrazin maintains that immigrants have taken advantage of Germany’s welfare system without contributing enough to the country.
Sarrazin, a member of Germany’s left-leaning Social Democrats, urged critics to read his 460-page book before reacting, insisting that his comments were being taken out of context and that his book, “Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab,” or “Germany Abolishes Itself,” consists largely of “well-documented analysis.”
“We could save ourselves 80 percent of all political discussion and the remaining 20 percent would be much more fruitful, if we could first concentrate on the analysis, and then the evaluation and the political response,” Sarrazin said on Monday while at a news conference. “Unfortunately, it usually works the opposite.”
In his book, the 65-year-old Sarrazin maintains that “immigrants are not all the same,” insisting that “most of the cultural and economic problems are concentrated in a group of the five to six million immigrants from Muslim countries.”
Drawing comparison to other ethnic groups that have immigrated to Germany, including those from Eastern Europe, China and Vietnam, he says Muslims in particular have lived in parallel societies for many generations.
“Only three percent of Turkish immigrants in the second generation marry German partners, as compared with 70 percent of ethnic Germans from Russia,” Sarrazin said.
“Even in the second and third generations, the level of participation in education and integration into the job market shown by these groups is far below that of Germans or other immigrant groups and their descendants,” Sarrazin said of immigrants from Muslim countries.
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