The guests who wouldn’t leave
Gee honey, I thought they’d never leave. What do you mean they’re still here??
First came the Italians. Then the Spanish and the Portuguese showed up. Then the Greeks and the Turks and the Yugoslavs and… hey, wait a cotton-pickin minute! There are even Americans here now!
It’s been 50 years now that the Germans were in the middle of their famous Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) thang and didn’t have enough manpower to make all of that cool stuff that everybody wanted to buy from them – and could afford to buy from them - back then. Political agreements were reached with neighboring countries ("Der Vertrag mit Rom", for example) and Gastarbeiter (guest workers) started rolling in by the thousands (remember that the important word here is “guest”). The Germans assumed (and you know what happens when you ass-u-me something, right?) that these folks would eventually want to go back home again someday already. That was a false assumption, of course.
There was never any real thought put into integration and Germany has to this day yet to take that big step to becoming what one could “officially” call an Immigrationsland (immigration land). Now all of that is starting to fly back into everybody’s face (ask Christoph Ströbele).
So there we have it. Now the 6.7 million Gastarbeiter and their Nachkommen (descendents) just won’t leave (about 8 percent of the population, by the way). And the Germans have tried all the usual tricks, too.
You know: “Yawn, yawn. Oh man, I really have to get up early tomorrow morning,” or “Wow! It’s really gotten late, hasn’t it?” Nothing seems to work. They’re still spread out on the sofa drinking German beer and waiting for the next DVD.
Max Frisch: “Wir riefen Arbeitskräfte, und es kamen Menschen.”
Comments
Ströbele suggested a translation of the national anthem in Turkish...mmmmmm it's Hans-Christian ;)
Karl; May 3, 2006 9:56 AM
Easy, fellow, easy. Ask your Brit - Swiss friend how they treat their immigrants. And then reconsider. If we would do it like them people would use the N-word.
steini; May 3, 2006 8:46 PM