More on Thilo Sarrazin and the reaction to him

Bartholomew writes:

I was just wondering if you had had a chance to read about the unfolding Thilo Sarrazin controversy in Germany. From a cursory glance at an English-language article at the Huffington Post, I did not notice any mention of the deep resonance his sometimes strongly traditional statements have found among most Germans. I work with young Germans (ages 18 to mid ’20s) here in the U.S. through my church, and I can tell you the reaction from them has certainly corroborated the surveys in Germany. I’d be happy to translate a few of these articles for you, if you’d like, but essentially they have found that as much as 89 percent of the German population (and consider for a moment that seven percent of the German population are Turks) agree with Sarrazin’s overall message. That message includes, among other things:

1. Integration is failing in Germany and the fault lies with the immigrants. 2. Turks and Arabs produce too many “little headscarved girls” and fail to educate or provide for them through the work of their own hands. 3. Turkish and Arabic immigrants have on average a lower IQ than Germans, and this lower IQ influx is damaging the German State. 4. Germany (whether he means the nation or the State is unclear) is, as a result, destroying itself. His recently released book is, in fact, entitled “Deutschland schafft sich ab” which means roughly, “Germany is abolishing itself.”

Mr. Sarrazin is a member of the board of the German Federal Bank (die Bundesbank), which I believe (though I am no expert on German monetary structures) is roughly equivalent to our own Federal Reserve Bank. Perhaps even more shocking, he is a member of the SPD, or the Socialist Party of Germany, Germany’s left-liberal party. Of course, it’s now moving to kick him out.

It isn’t hard to see why his statements are taking Germany by storm, and he is even being called Germany’s Geert Wilders, though I think Sarrazin has spoken a bit more frankly about some issues (e.g. the effects of IQ differences between natives and immigrants).

* You will notice that the Huffington Post characterizes Sarrazin’s statement regarding common Jewish descent as anti-Semitism and then dismisses his statements regarding Islam, immigration and the like as similarly ridiculous. I read the statement in question and saw no sign of any “Jews run the world” nonsense (which one never, ever would hear in Germany anyway). In fact, he simply said that if the Turks were like the Jews—who have an average IQ 15 points higher (than the Germans)—he’d have no problem with the Turks. But they have a lower IQ, and he found that a problem.

I think it’s a very harsh, materialistic and anti-German statement if anything. But the left is being its usual left-liberal (and therefore false) self when it claims that a preference for Jewish immigration is somehow anti-Semitic simply because such a preference recognizes the existence of a definite Jewish ethny to prefer.

- end of initial entry -

Dean E. writes:

How come when some Kraut publishes a book about “Germany Abolishes itself” it makes a huge wave, but the excellent American equivalent, “The Path to National Suicide,” has been out for 20 years barely making a ripple? You need to fire your publicist, Boss.

Yrs, in vilest sycophancy,

LA replies:

Well, he’s a member of the establishment, and his book was published by a mainstream publisher.

Dean E. replies:

… Well, there is that.

How the devil is it that a nation of some 300 million can hardly muster a single establishment figure to denounce a fatal delusion and lead America to a heathy, non-liberal future? All it would take is someone with the charisma of Reagan, the courage of Wilders, the ideas of Auster, the political skills of Lincoln, the faith of Augustine, the … Hells bells, the USA used to pop out such men by the gross, and that in the days when the population was small. Where’d they all go?

John Dempsey writes:

Funny, I had the same (vile, sycophantic) thought when I read the somewhat analogous title of Sarrazin’s book.

Although it would be wonderful if the men that Dean E. speaks of still existed, I think he may have momentarily forgotten the concepts of “taboo” and “ostracism.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 07, 2010 09:18 AM | Send