Istanbul, May 11, 2006
THE KEY OF 21st  CENTURY’S PEACE AND PROSPERITY: LIVING TOGETHER “CO-HABITANCE”
*Panelist

 



Thank you very much. Yes I cannot contribute to the discussion of the constitution of Turkey and we have in Germany many experiences but with co-habitance, living together between Turkish and German people there we made some experiences and I am proud to be able to say that our state not only failure is amongst in 16 states in the Republic of Germany the most progressive regarding politics of immigration, integration and co-habitance and because of our good experiences with migrants and immigration we of course as Green Party support strongly the effort of Turkey to get membership of the EU because we think that it would be worthwhile for EU to have also an Islamic state in our EU. On the greatest land, greatest state in Germany it is inhabited by nearly a quarter of the whole population of our Republic about 18 million people, it is the industrial center of the republic and it is also energy center and only 30-40 years ago more then 600.000 miners worked here in our country to produce coal. Today it is only about 30.000 with tendency falling a country in complete change and nothing symbolizes this process more clearly then the recent decision of the EU to make Essen with rural district to the culture capital of Europe in the year 2010. And I am very pleased that Istanbul is one of the twin cities, which will present themselves and together with our cities I think this is also one important step to come together in the field of culture. Also the center of immigration in Germany we have alone in our state 900.000 Turkish people living here, we have lots of examples of successful integration. Almost 100.000 immigrants there are about 25.000 Turkish people went into business on themselves, self employed often in small and middle firms and they created approximately 350.000 jobs in our state and spent a lot of taxes and contributions to social security.

I think for living together one crucial point, which is not mentioned up to now is the question of languages. The language competence in the society where you go to is very important and it has to be promoted from kindergarten age on and earlier. It would be however fatal to draw the conclusion from this to neglect the instruction of mother tongue. Only those people and those kids who know their native language well are able to learn different languages properly. We observed many children of immigrants who suffer from double half language ability. They are not really at home in any language in any language neither in Turkish nor in German and starting from this we have to develop a competent multi-lingualism. This can be developed special strength and advantage of an immigrant society.

The mastering of the mother tongue is the basis for successful acquisition of the German language and therefore the instruction of mother tongue has to have not only minor part but it should be instructed as a regular subject in schools and with large crowds of immigrants. This is also worthwhile for German children to learn Turkish, up to now our foreign language instruction with us still is strictly westward oriented, English, French and Spanish and especially in a country like ours with so close cooperation with Turkey it should be quite natural that also Turkish enters this canon, this would promote also the language competence in German and it is also under the aspect of urban development that immigration means challenge and chance at the same time. From the very beginning we have to prevent ghettos in which parallel societies could prosper. It has been shown by many concrete projects that in all the cases where the own initiative is appealed, where the prides of human is addressed a large social commitment also among the immigrants develops they are pleased about every interest in their culture and then they open up much more for the culture of the taking up society.

Particularly difficult also in our country is still the relationship between religions. There are still psychological barriers while in many cities Christian churches become ever emptier, the neighboring mosques burst from all seams. That leads of course to mourning and also even reservations on the side of Christian communities. On the other side there are many positive examples to be found like the so-called miracle of Marks law for inter-religious dialogue will be integrated. To deepen the mutual understanding it would be crucial in my opinion that our state Islamic religious lessons is not any longer offered alone in Turkish language but in German and like Christian lessons as well as part of the school lessons. We have more then 1 million Moslems in our country and they have the right of religious lessons in German so that also German children can be able to attend it and the state has the right to know whether or nor religion lesson in reality political lesson therefore it must be part of normal school teaching.
 
It is in my opinion worthwhile to put out positive examples of successful integration, some I’ve mentioned. Everywhere in our everyday life of today we meet immigrants who do not move their being immigrants into the center of their action. Turkish policeman in our country, Turkish medical doctors, Turkish teachers, journalists, actors that belongs to our normality, I have also the honor to be the chairman of German-Turkish group of parliamentarians of the North Rhein Westphalian Parliament the only one of 60 states in our country. We have a double task to develop and to deepen the relations with our partner parliament in Turkey and at the same time to contribute to the integration of the Turks living in our country. This already succeeds very well therefore I am glad to mention that only yesterday we brought a common application of all four parliamentary groups into the parliament and in this application under the title intensified cooperation with Turkey and develop it further our parliaments strongly pleads for adding regional cooperation to the already existing numerous partnerships between cities and to develop the partnership between North Rhein Westphalia and one of the seven geographic regions of Turkey. We expect that this will be the region of the Aeges, which has very good relations to our state, which is like North Rhein Westphalia industrial determined, and so we try to establish a German speaking university in Izmir I think one can be optimistic, we successfully can go steps to co-habitance and perhaps our state North Rhein Westphalia could be a model for it and therefore North Rhein Westphalia is not going to the age of 100 like Turkey, we were founded after the Second World War in 1946 so we just have our 60th birthday but may be until 2023 there will be more cooperation between our two countries and Turkey will be at that time a member state of the EU. Thank you very much.


Petros Kokkalis: I have one question to Dr. Vesper whom I think might create a discussion, talking about multilingualism and how they need to develop a lot of languages and we do come from a region that we speak a lot of languages, is multilingualism the same thing as multiculturalism, or is it an enabler of multiculturalism?

No it is not the same but is a condition I think for functioning multiculturalism that you know different languages. We Germans are very bad with languages as you notice by me but I think this is the condition for living together of different cultures.


Comment: I’d just like to build on the point about getting people see the world through someoneelse’s eyes, I think it could be that but I think it could also be jointly finding a way to see the world differently and I use one example from a country which I think is overcome tremendous intolerance in the past which is South Africa with the Apartide regime and the discussions that took place between Nelson Mandela and the previous minister of South Africa de Clerk and from people who were at these mediation negotiations have spoken to me the point of which they were able to break the deadlock between them was not when they were arguing over the what were the rights of one and what were the rights of other were when someone said “what kind of world do we want to create or what kind of country do we want to create for our children” and at that point they were able to find common ground and that was really the first point that they were able to come and to start to be more tolerant of each other to get the conciliation to bring South Africa forward.


Ms. Bunting raised an interesting question regarding what she said in her statement and I would like to listen to the answer of our Turkish partners on the podium regarding the co-habitance.