The Economist Asia Edition - April 14, 2018

6 The EconomistApril 14th 2018

SPECIAL REPORT

GERMANY

1

THE HUNSRÜCK IS a high plateau between the Moselle

and Rhine rivers, known for its wind turbines and its bur-

bling accent. Heimat ist da, wo man schwätzt wie mer(home is

where people talk like us), as they say in these parts. The German

word Heimatcan mean landscape, custom, identity, home, fam-

ily and habit. It is associated with the Hunsrück thanks to a three-

part film, “Heimat”, set in this region. An epic tale spanning mul-

tiple generations of one rural family from the inter-war era to the

post-reunification Germany of the 2000s, it is the focus of the

Hunsrück Museum in Simmern, the largest village in the area.

The film and the museum are enjoying a renaissance.

Growing divisions in Germany, and the rise of the far right,

have recently made Heimatthe hottest topicin the country’s pol-

itics. “People have a need for comfort and Heimat,” as Jens

Spahn, the new health ministerfrom the CDUwho is tipped to

succeed Angela Merkel, recently put it. Germany’s new govern-

ment even has a Heimatministry, part of the interior ministry. A

society that is rapidly becoming more open and fragmented is

harking back to tradition.

The biggest change in recent years has been large-scale im-

migration. Germany does not have a long tradition of welcom-

ing people from other cultures. The Italians and Turks imported

into West Germany to alleviate labour shortages in the post-war

economic boom were called Gastarbeiter(guest workers), imply-

ing that their stay would be limited, and few efforts were made to

integrate them. In a speech in 1982 Alfred Dregger, a CDUgran-

dee, famously said that “the return of foreigners to theirHeimat

must be the rule, not the exception.” For decades the only truly

accepted immigrants were ethnic Germans from eastern Europe.

That old Germany is becoming more heterogeneous. In

1990 Germany’s football team contained only German names

(and one Polish-German one); in the European Cup champion-

ship in 2016 it contained a Boateng, an Özil, a Podolski, a Sané

and a Gómez, among others. In politics, the share ofMPs with a

migrant background has tripled since 2009. Dunja Hayali and

Cherno Jobatey, Germany’s best-known breakfast-TVpersonal-

ities, have roots in Iraq and the Gambia respectively. Many of the

immigrants who have been integrated are from EUcountries in

eastern and southern Europe. Germany is increasingly becom-

ing an Einwanderungsland(immigration country).

This has happened gradually. Simmern’s first substantial

contact with foreigners was in the 1950s, when American ser-

vicemen moved into a nearby airbase. Older locals say this was

the first time they met anyone of colour. Then in the 1960s Turk-

ish guest workers started to arrive, followed in the 1990s by Rus-

sian-Germans from the Volga. Even the touristsfrom all over Eu-

rope landing at Hahn airport, a cold-war air base turned into a

budget airport, contribute to the mix of languages.

Over a dinner oflahmacun(Turkish pizza), baklavaand tea

in Simmern’s tiny mosque, members of the Turkish community

say there is still plenty to do. “It is all about your name: if you’re

called Mehmet, you’re Turkish, whatever your passport says,”

says Mehmet Ali Kaya, chairman of the mosque’s board. A wom-

an in a headscarf jokes that she should change her name to Hil-

degard. Such observations—voiced in perfect German—point to

the challenges of integrating newcomers into a society as rigid

and rule-based as Germany’s.

Around the corner from Simmern’s mosque a much more

basic form of integration is under way. Eight new arrivals—three

Syrians, two Afghans, two Eritreans and a Pakistani—are taking

elementary German lessons in the Café Friends. This is the new-

est wave of immigration into this quiet corner of the country, set

off by the refugee crisis in 2015 and its aftermath. Mrs Merkel’s de-

cision to keep the country open in the face of a huge influx that

summer seems to have been based on a mixture of pragmatism

(there were no obvious alternatives) and idealism (Mrs Merkel,

who came from the east, would later explain: “I grew up behind

a wall and have no desire to repeat the experience”). “We’ll man-

age it,” she told her compatriots. Almost two-thirds of the 1.2m

who arrived in 2015-16 have stayed on.

What do we do now?

“For three months the only thing we talked about was,

‘what do we do now?’,” recalls Andreas Nikolay, Simmern’s

mayor. The first task was to house the new arrivals. Tents went up

at Hahn airport, which at the peak of the crisis accommodated

700 people; then refugees were sent to emergency centres like

the nearby Haus Helvetia, a handsome Wilhelmine mansion

overlooking the Rhine. It is rented by the municipality and run

by a charity, Caritas, whose theme last year was “Together we are

Heimat”. As part of this programme locals and refugees have met

up on nature walks and at cooking lessons. Angelika Hillings-

häuser, the local co-ordinator, reckons that “you can have more

than one Heimat...My grandparentscame from East Prussia.”

Germany is doing better than most at integrating its immi-

grants, according to a surveyof 5,000 refugees by the European

Network Against Racism. It found that 51% of refugees there are

taking part in integration programmes, compared with 34% in

Sweden and 11% in Greece. Examples of thisWillkommenskultur

(culture of welcome) can be seen across Germany. At the high

school in Simmern, for example, teachers decided to add maths

and vocational training to the compulsory language lessons for

migrants. In one maths class a small group of teenagers, all rela-

tive newcomers, respond in confident German when asked

what jobs they would like to do. One wants to become a metal-

worker, another a computer programmer. A 16-year-old Afghan

girl wants to be a painter. “Germany is very calm,” she says.

Identity

Whose Heimat?

These days “Germany” can mean many things to

many people

Guns and Glühwein