Christmas speech 2011
Christmas is fast approaching again. But in this year’s advent season there is no room for peaceful contemplativeness. Half of the Arab world is in revolution. And once again we are all enthusiastic about it, like we were for Iran several years ago. But soon our feet will come back to the ground again. In Egypt, the Muslim Brothers will bring back the Middle Ages. Free development of the individual will become once again a thing of the past for a very long time, and women will remain slaves. Everything will become worse than before. The peoples will jump out of the frying pan into the fire. The world is becoming a powder keg. The free countries, however, are only twiddling their thumbs.
Our newspapers are full of reports on acts of violence against foreign nationals in Germany. The blinded culprits have finally been found and everyone is expressing their sympathy with the victims and their families. Today, such acts of terror are sporadic exceptions in Germany. With respect to such violence, other countries such as India, Afghanistan or Iraq have more to offer. But xenophobia is still widely spread around here. It is not unusual that persons with a foreign passport or a rare skin colour are molested or even heavily beaten.
Reservations with respect to foreigners exist everywhere in the world. There is no country which is immune against it. It is only natural that people form groups and that these groups wish to discriminate against each other. It is even a law of evolution! In my opinion, there is only one solution for our new foreign residents to overcome these reservations: They have to integrate themselves fully into our society. They need to learn our language and they need to assimilate instead of trying to establish their own state within our state. The Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sows violence if he tells his fellow countrymen who have immigrated to Germany that they are first and foremost Turks, and Germans second. I consider the prime minister an irresponsible agitator, who pursues the long-term objective of extending Turkey to Germany. Our formerly Turkish residents, and also the Jewish quota refugees from Russia, should fully take on German identity to be really welcome in our country. They should seek their marriage partners in Germany and thereby become incorporated into German families. Those of us Germans who see through the system consider the one-way road from Anatolia to Germany as an abuse of our confidence.
Dear Turkish collegues, we Germans expect to be treated with fairness by you. Your sons should choose their future wives from our German daughters. There are many beautiful and decent girls among them. Do not believe the mullahs telling you that Allah would be against it. If Allah is a good God, he will be pleased that our blood mingles with yours. According to the customs of our fathers I will make you an offer: Your son Baki will marry my daughter Friederike. Although in this case our grandchildren would still have a migration background of 75 percent, it would probably be less than 50 percent with our great-grandchildren. Celebrate Christmas, the feast of love, together with us – not only as colleagues, but as brothers and sisters.
Lübeck, 2011