[aaken]

He is right in describing Germans as very hesitent to accept and embrace foreigners like other people may do that. that is a question of mentality, but also a history centuries before the Nazis came and WWII crushed any nationalistic pride in Germany. It also derives from a time when Germany did not exist, the land was scattered with many small kingdoms and often were at war with each other and thus, "foreigners" likely meant "enemies". But today, I hear that time and again in private talks, it is also about Germany clearly seing that many of our foreign "guests" simply do not care to integrate themselves, and try the best they can to be different in language, clothing, habits, behavior. Like Tibi said, muslim elites try to raise their children isolated and in a way as if they even were not stationed in europe. The ignorration of europe being around only can mean that they see themselvbes on a mission to colonize a hostile environment, cultural terraforming, so to speak, not to immigrate and integrate. And that such a huge ammount of especially young ones are behaving pretty arrogant and "typical turkish" on the street today and are also find by professional observers to be less (!) integrated than their first generation parents are, is something that understandably does not raise German sympathies anymore. We clearly see that many come to Germany and do not wish to become German by heart and mind at all. Now, if you immigrate to the US, this would simply be demanded from you. To Germany people come who simply want the passport, and the better money from the different living environemnt. Beyond that, they do not care much for Germany and being German. Why are Germans expected to wish to see such people here? Being German (or American or English or whatever) should be more than just a bureaucratical formality. But that is what being German is today: a stamp on a document, and that is all. That is absurd, and that raises more and more hostility of native Germans - and mine, too. That Brussel also pushes for a policy that negates national and cultural diferences and replaces cultural and historical identity with a mere formal status labelled on a document does not help in any way, of course.
concerning the Islam conference here: I am not interested, I don't mind, and I think it cannot work, for the reasons Tibi has pointed out. It bores me, and islam bores me as well. I am not intersted in teaching germans about the speciality of muslim culture. And I see nothing in it that is so wonderful that it must be merged and squeeezed into european culture. what is it that should be so special when politicians talk of cultural exchange and an enrichment of our own culture? Döner? Their terrible music? Their way of clothing, which I personally do not like at all? The whole dialogue thing is needless, useless, and not wanted. There are certain principles, values, things in usual life, and basics they have to accept, fully, uncompromisingly, and other that they have brought from their homes (their former homes - or their still true homes...?) they have to give up. They accept that, or they have to leave, that simple it is. These values and rules and laws and principles are not negotiable, period (at least they should not be...). No need to talk about that, no need to have a dialogue on that, no need to ask them for their agreement on that - they have to agree and fully live by that, or they have to leave. It is a thing of a simple Yes or No from them. What need there is for another fourty years of one-sided dialogue - which effectively is a monologe od the west's self-declared intellectual and/or left "elites"?

Ok, since I myself can be considered an immigrant ...let's say that I'm from a country A in Europe, and for work reasons I move to country B in Europe. I live there, I pay my taxes there, I abide to the laws of the host country. Let's say that I'm lazy and don't want to learn the language because I do not intend to take the citizenship of the host country or because I don't need it. Or, let's say that I learn the language and after the time prescribed by the law I decide to take the citizenship of the host country.
Whose business it is if I decide to keep the culinary costumes of my country A, or if at home I speak in my native language A or if I teach my children the culture of my native country A (which they couldn't know living in country B)? Or should I ask permissions to the people of the host country if I want to do one of the above mentioned things? Is it not sufficient to live by the laws of the host country? Or the immigrant should be stripped of the culture of his native place? Or what you have written above is only valid for muslim immigrants? And if so, why should they not be entitled to live their private life the way they want, provided that it does not break the law of the host country?