Germany: Integration debate is racist 19th century talk, says Turkish scholar

Germany: Integration debate is racist 19th century talk, says Turkish scholar Via The Local: A leading Turkish scholar has likened elements of the latest German debate on integration to racist 19th century notions of "primitive" immigrants who breed uncontrollably. The new head of the centre for Turkish Studies and Integration Research at Essen University, Haci Halil Uslucan, said the Sarrazin debate appeared to have flushed out old ideas about race that did not belong in the 21st century. "Take the now-revived discussion of migrants' 'high fertility,'" he said. "Debate about it is like the 19th century racist discussions about 'primitives' who could not control their drives," he told Wednesday's edition of daily Der Tagesspiegel. His remarks came as Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger warned of a rising fear of Islam and the view that "Muslims and their religion are regarded as threatening." "It would be wrong to see it this way: here, the Western, enlightened and liberal Europeans, there the fundamentalist migrants," she said on Wednesday at the opening of the German Legal Congress. Uslucan said that people from poorer rural areas typically had larger families for social reasons, yet such clear-headed analysis was missing from much of the debate in Germany.

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