{"id":1837,"date":"2014-01-31T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/%20rroma.org\/31-01-2014-immigration-debate-in-germany\/"},"modified":"2022-07-24T15:24:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T14:24:08","slug":"31-01-2014-immigration-debate-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/fr\/31-01-2014-immigration-debate-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"31.01.2014 Immigration debate in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wragge (2014) raises the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tquestion why the debate about the supposed mass immigration from Romania and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBulgaria ever evolved. There are plenty of reasons to refute the arguments of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe proponents of mass migration as the experiences with the free migration \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpolicy with Poland and the Czech Republic show. Also, the EU law protects Germany \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tagainst excessive payments from the social security system. Wragge sees the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\torigin of the debate in polemical statements by conservative politicians and in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe dissemination of distorted images through the media: \u201cAn attempt to explain the existence of this debate leads to the images \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthat we have of Bulgarians and Romanians. If one speaks of the predicted 80,000-200,000 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnewcomers \u2013 do we see only low-income families in Duisburg\u2019s \u201cproblem houses\u201d \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin front of us, or also the engineers, doctors and nurses who come to us? Around \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthese images there is a raging \u201csemantic battle\u201d in the media […].\u201d<\/em> \u00a0Furthermore, the responsibilities of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEU and the German government are repeatedly mixed in the debate and a false \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\timage the various actors is spread. Wragge identifies the debate as permeated by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfears and taboos, such as naming problems as the immigration of Rroma by their name. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tHe is, however, clearly wrong if he means that the immigration debate is a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tproblem with the Rroma. The Rroma are exploited and instrumentalised by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpoliticians and journalists for their purposes. They create a distorted, negative \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcaricature of the Rroma, what makes them the real aggressors in the debate.<\/p>\n

The district \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tReinickendorf in Berlin has been allocated 130,000 Euros for the years 2014 and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2015 to support immigrant Rroma in their integration process (Schindler 2014). \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe integration assistance is supposed to encompass language courses and the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tteaching of general social competences. The awarded funding is surprising in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe sense that the ethnicity of immigrants is not identified. The figures are \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbased on estimates and speak of 900 to 1000 immigrant Rroma in Reinickendorf. \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSchindler reproduces a one-sided image of needy, uneducated Rroma, which has \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbeen spread the media for over a year.<\/p>\n