Xenophobic reaction to the Arabella U-Bahn attack

I think you only lose it if you've never bothered to register to vote. I seem to remember that you can no longer register to vote after a 10 year absence, but only if you've never done it before then.

Possibly the Germans are interested in what Erdogan has to say. So simultaneous interpretation or written translation projected on a screen in the arena would have been a good thing. And if he wants to campaign he shouldn't use an official visit to Germany to do so and organize a separate trip instead.

What politicians doesn't try and make political capital out of official visits?

I don't know if Gates did any public engagements in Munich over the weekend.
If he did, would it being criticised if he talked to Americans in English?

Gates is not here on an official visit to propogate understanding and cooperation between two nations. Erdogan is.

To be honest he could have spoken fluent Kölsch and all the audience could have eaten Schweinsbraten und drank beer and still someone would moan they weren't "integrating" enough.

MT, I love you and you know it so I will stop trying to point out the obvious.

salt, pinch of etc.

MT, private conversations and mass events are two completely different things. Usually, there are press releases of speeches in advance.

I find it so absurd that Prime Minister Erdogan as a representative of a state with a history of oppressing a minority, the Kurds, wants to teach Germans the difference between integration and assimilation.

If Gordon Brown came to a public meeting specificly aimed at a British audience would there be ojections to him adressing the meeting in English?


Turkey has issues about it deals with minorities currently living in the state and has acted genocidally in the past.
Germany too.

I'm not a specialist in diplomatic protocol, but I guess organizing such a large event in this way while on a state visit is simply not done. English is overmore understood by a majority of people here.

I forgot to mention the fate of Armenians. Unlike Germany and the Holocaust, the Turks still don't even acknowledge this genocide, and trying to shed light on it is prosecuted in Turkey.

EDIT: Author and Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk was charged with "vilification of Turkishness" (not sure about the translation) because of this.

The fact that english is more widely understood amongst the non native speaking population in Germany than Turkish is not relevent.
It's a Turkish speaking man at a meeting aimed squarely at a Turkish speaking audience. So they are going to speak errrrrm Turkish!

Remember the premise of Toytown: It doesn't turn people away but it isn't a resourse for non English speakers to learn nor are TT events.
Do we have to have simultaneous translation of a TT meet up now?
I'm not sure that translators would be happy handling some of the topics!

Sure there are MASSIVE issues with the Armenian genocide. But that doesn't have much bearing on what language people speak at an event.

Fortunately, the widespread more or less good knowledge of English enables non-native English speakers to participate on this forum, so no need for translators, thank you.

The protocol issue and the preaching on "integration, not assimilation" has a tinge of arrogance to it and doesn't foster good relations between the two people.

If non native speakers want to take part on Toyown I'm all for it.
But I wouldn't change the way I speak at that event for the benefit of a non native English speaker as I would do at work for example.

Of course Erdogan has an agenda. What poltician hasn't.
But he's put the boot on the other foot.

He's saying get out there, be part of the society.
Don't shy away in the corner and let them shit on you.
Stop being a victim, be something more.

And that is provocation for conservatives who expect Turks in Germany to be kleine brav kanacken.
Good enough to clean the floor, never good enough to have an opinion.

I cited two women of Turkish descent, Necla Kelek and Lage Akgün, with very determined opinions. I wonder why you ignored them ...

Ignore them?
They are entitled to their opinion.
They don't have a monopoly on opinion though and Kelek isn't exactly an uncontroversial figure.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necla_Kelek

It's in the nature of the topic that she is controversial. I simply give her and other well-informed Turks or Germans with Turkish descent living here more credit than a Turkish head of state and leader of an Islamist party – with an agenda, as you say – when talking about integration.

Like when MdB Cem Özdemir said he had done more for an integrated society in Germany in a couple of days than the German government had done in years?

Quote from the taz on Friday iirc.

A member of the Green party and an Islamist politician are rather strange allies, and Özdemir has an agenda, too, I just can't figure out which, based on this statement.

Course Özdemir has an agenda.
Becasue he's a Green MdB, accusations that he is somehow an islamist, responsible for genocide or an ally of Erdogan just won't wash.

Kelek and Akgün have agendas too.
Couldn't find the latter on Wiki - I guess she is an SPD careerist and has been trotted out so as not to rock the boat with the federal government.

Here you go: Dr. Lale Akgün

EDIT: Erdogan said this afternoon that assimilation was "a crime against humanity". Glass houses, stones ...

Oh I was right! Member of the committee leading the SPD Bundestags fraktion.

What's wrong with that? Don't you complain that Turks are the underdogs here?

I had a stab in the dark that she was an SPD careerist and I was right.

Two swallows don't make a summer and a woman with Turkish background in the SPD Bundestags fraktion committee
hardly makes things all tickety boo with for minorities in Germany.

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