BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel and senior conservative allies hit back at Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan yesterday after he urged Turks living in Germany to keep their traditions and resist assimilation.
Speaking in Cologne at the end of a four-day trip to Germany that highlighted differences, Erdogan said Turks residing here should learn German, but urged them not to give up their Turkish identities and called assimilation a “crime against humanity.” The comments sparked sharp reactions from Merkel and members of her conservatives, who have long argued that immigrant groups must fully adapt to the German way of life, including abandoning aspects of their native cultures.
“If they are citizens, then of course I expect them to behave as full citizens without qualification. Their loyalties are then to the German state,” Merkel told reporters in Hamburg, when asked about Erdogan’s remarks.
“I think further talks with the Turkish prime minister are needed about the meaning of integration,” she added.
Some 2.5 million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, more than in any other country in western Europe. While some are well integrated into German life, others live in separate urban communities, speak only Turkish, and stick to old traditions.
Ali Kizilkaya, head of the German Muslim group Islamrat, told the Tagesspiegel daily that Erdogan had touched many Turks in Germany by encouraging them not to forget their culture and expressed disbelief at the outrage over his comments. “A lot of Turks finally got the feeling a government leader was listening to them,” Kizilkaya said of Erdogan’s visit. “That’s something Merkel could do too.”
Merkel, who opposes Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, has made improving integration a priority of her government, bringing a coordinator for the issue into her Chancellery and holding regular “summits” with leading immigrant groups. But both she and her party have tended to put the onus on immigrants to adapt. When asked last month, for example, why the government’s “integration plan” existed only in German, she replied curtly that German was the national language and those who could not read it should learn.
Senior conservatives, including Merkel’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, were quick to reject a suggestion by Erdogan during his visit that Turkish-language schools and universities should be set up in Germany.
And yesterday, they slammed him for his remarks in Cologne, with Bavarian premier Guenther Beckstein accusing Erdogan of supporting the “ghettoization” of Turks in Germany.
“The task (for Turks) is to be good citizens in Germany, to learn German, to speak German in their families,” Beckstein told N24 television, calling the Turkish prime minister’s remarks “nationalistic” and “highly displeasing.”
Tensions between Germans and Turks were stoked before Erdogan’s trip by a fire in a housing block in the western city of Ludwigshafen that killed nine people with Turkish roots.
