Schroeder urges German Turks to look to politics

Former chancellor sees need for a Turkish minister in the name of diversity

A man with his face painted in the colors of the German and Turkish flags posed for a photo in the western German city of Duisburg during the Euro 2008 championship in June 2008. Many Turks living in Germany supported both teams.

BERLIN (AFP) – After the runaway success of Barack Obama in US politics, Germany should appoint a minister from the country’s large Turkish minority in the name of diversity, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said.

In an interview to be published tomorrow, Schroeder said Germans should see a “role model” in Obama as the first African American US president.

“After the general election in (September) 2009, it will hopefully be the time (for a minister of Turkish origin) – and, allow me to say, it should be a Social Democrat,” Schroeder, a former leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), told monthly magazine Cicero. The SPD is currently the junior partner in the “grand coalition” government led since 2005 by Schroeder’s successor, conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Polls show that Merkel’s conservatives are likely to win the general election on September 27 and form a coalition, either with their partner of choice, the pro-business Free Democrats – or, in a pinch, again with the SPD.

The Greens in November became the first major party to elect a Turkish-German as leader, Cem Ozdemir, which prompted members to adopt the tongue-in-cheek slogan “Yes We Cem,” based on Obama’s motto.

A report by Agence France-Presse posted earlier this week said that Turks are the least integrated group of immigrants in German society, despite being the second most numerous, according to a report in the weekly magazine Der Spiegel, citing a soon-to-be-published study.

Germany is home to just under 3 million Turks, but 30 percent of students of Turkish origin do not have a high school diploma and only 14 percent pass their final secondary school examinations, the study found.

Turks are also less successful than immigrants from other countries in securing a job in Germany, the study – to be unveiled on Monday by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development – showed.

Less than a third of Turks born in Germany have chosen to obtain German citizenship and 93 percent have married within the Turkish community.

On a scale of 1 (poorly integrated) to 8 (well integrated), Turks were rated at the bottom of the table with 2.4, behind immigrants from the former Yugoslavia and Africa (3.2), the Middle East (4.1), Southern Europe (4.4) and the Far East (4.6).

The best integrated group, according to the study, is composed of immigrants from other EU countries, who score 5.5 on the institute’s index.

The institute assesses several criteria, including education, assimilation into society and employment to make up its index.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the German government was “on the right track” in integrating minorities, but added: “We must tell the socially weaker people, who have been isolated over generations: ‘You are important. We value you; you are as valuable as the others,’” Schaeuble told Spiegel in an interview.

Some 15 million people in Germany are foreigners or of foreign origin, representing just under 20 percent of the total population.