[chucker]

Originally Posted by ShadowOfGed Of course the grass always looks greener on the other side, but from my perception of Germany, some days I wish we here in the United States would learn a few lessons from them.

It can be taken the wrong way, but I would agree with that assessment. The extreme outcome of nazi Germany teaches everyone, not just Germans (and not just Europeans) a lot of useful lessons in sociology, politics and, of course, ethics.

That being said, my understanding is that Turkish immigrants in Germany continue to have ... trouble. Is that accurate, chucker, or am I misinformed?

I wouldn't account immigration problems of Turks (and, to a lesser extent, Germano-Russians for lack of a better term) on xenophobia. Sure, it does play a role. Sure, we do have racist organizations and unfortunately, there has even been a recent "camp"-type development near my hometown (I don't think English Wikipedia has anything on the matter). But that problem isn't specific to Germany, and is actually, from my findings, smaller in Germany than in France (for example), where anti-Arabic xenophobia has become a growing problem.

No, I would rather say that this is a traditional case of clashing cultures. As an example: homeschooling is almost unheard-of in Germany, and private schools are unusual as well, so as a result, almost every child ends up in a public school. In some areas, this causes classes where 50 or more percent of the children aren't German, and possibly hardly even speak any German. How's that possible? Well, a large part of it is (here we go again) terrible parenting. While parents do want their children to "live a better life" in Germany (where standards of living are amongst the highest in the world, quite unlike in Turkey), they don't seem too keen on actually bringing up an effort to make that realistic. They continue to speak Turkish to their children (whether they're babies, preteens, teenagers or adults) and thus also encourage the children to speak Turkish to their peers. I'm not pulling this out of my ass as I have experienced this first-hand over the years. When Turks are with each other, they speak Turkish -- it's just more natural for them. That would be fine if it didn't cause a social left between Germans and Turks. In the end, the Turks complain they are being treated as "outsiders", but that's exactly what they make themselves (again, largely due to their parents): how are German children supposed to "get along" with Turkish children that often hardly speak any German, let alone want to participate (or could) in German culture?

The talk of "making German multicultural" is idealistic and quixotic, as it totally misses the point. It's not about changing religion or anything like that (we do have many mosques). It's about them learning to accept that they are in a different situation now, and that they need to adapt.

Some succeed. Some become famous, successful, rich, etc. But the huge majority doesn't even give themselves a chance at getting to that point. They are crippling their own future.