Skulls and other remains of massacred tribespeople used in the colonial era for experiments to push claims of European racial superiority were handed over by Germany to Namibia at a church ceremony in Berlin.

In what historians call the first genocide of the 20th century, soldiers of German Kaiser Wilhelm slaughtered some 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama tribespeople in a 1904-08 campaign after a revolt against land seizures by German colonists.

At Wednesday’s ceremony, a Namibian delegation received the skulls and bones from German Foreign Ministry representatives. They will be taken to the Namibian capital Windhoek on Aug. 31 where rituals will be carried out.

“Today, we want to do what should have been done many years ago – to give back to their descendants the remains of people who became victims of the first genocide of the 20th century,” said Petra Bosse-Huber, a German Protestant bishop.

Namibian Education Minister Katrina Hanse-Himarwa said last week that the government would create a group to decide whether to bury or display the repatriated skulls that had been kept in German museums.

Germany has acknowledged “moral responsibility” for the killings but to avoid compensation claims, has avoided making an official apology for the massacres.

Esther Utjiua Muinjangue, chairwoman of the Ovaherero Genocide Foundation, said the handover ceremony would have been the perfect opportunity for Germany to officially apologise.

“Is that asking too much? I don’t think so,” she told reporters in Berlin earlier this week.

Ignored for decades, Germany’s colonial history is drawing increasing attention. A couple of years ago, the German Historical Museum curated a big exhibition on the subject.

Germany, which lost all its colonial territories after World War One, was the third biggest colonial power after Britain and France, which lost theirs after World War Two.

During its 1904-08 campaign in what was then German South West Africa, the German Reich sent reinforcements to put down an uprising by tribespeople over their expulsion from their land and recruitment into forced labour. The Hereros had killed 123 German traders, settlers and soldiers.

In addition to the slaughter, thousands of Hereros were driven into the desert and died of thirst and starvation, and the rest were sent to concentration camps.

Legal representatives for the Herero and Nama people have brought a lawsuit against Germany in New York over genocide and property seizure carried out by German colonists.

The German government has entered negotiations with the Namibian government over possible reparations for the genocide but the lawsuit argues that Germany violated international law on the rights of indigenous peoples.

A growing number of migrants are finding jobs in Germany, according to data released on Tuesday that will give heart to supporters of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let in hundreds of thousands of war refugees since 2015.

Figures last week also showed that German companies have managed to attract more apprentices to on-the-job training schemes due to a surge in applications from asylum seekers from Afghanistan and Syria.

The figures will feed into a running debate in Germany on the impact of Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open German borders to more than a million migrants, many of them refugees from war zones in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Critics including the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have said the new arrivals will be a burden on Germany’s welfare system and economy.

But the head of Germany’s Labour Office, Detlef Scheele, told dpa news agency there was no reason to be overly pessimistic about the country’s ability to cope with the record number of arrivals.

“This is all going pretty well,” he said, adding that the numbers were slightly better than expected. “These are good numbers, also taking into account that the people came here for humanitarian reasons and not for finding a job,” Scheele added.

The number of employed migrants from the eight countries with the biggest numbers of asylum seekers surged by more than 100,000 to 306,574 in May compared with the same month in the previous year, data from the Labour Office showed.

SKILLED LABOUR SHORTAGE

Among those, roughly three out of four had a labour contract in which the company and the employee were paying full contributions to social insurance schemes, the data showed.

There were roughly 500,000 people from the eight main asylum seeker countries who were registered as looking for work in July, the data showed. This includes people who are currently completing an integration and language course.

Among those, nearly 197,000 people were registered as unemployed which is roughly in line with the level seen a year earlier, the data showed.

Shortages of skilled labour and a lack of young people willing to commit to on-the-job training for up to 3 1/2 years have become big concerns for managers in Europe’s largest economy.

Vacancies for training positions have reached their highest level in more than 20 years with more than a third of companies unable to fill all of their training spots.

The number of new arrivals in Germany has fallen sharply this year, partly due to stricter border controls across Europe as well as tighter asylum rules in Germany and other countries.

]]> 7811 https://www.faith-matters.org/tensions-rise-in-germanys-turkish-diaspora-mirroring-splits-in-turkey/ Sat, 03 Sep 2016 22:25:03 +0000 https://faith-matters.org/?p=5858

Ercan Karakoyun has long played a prominent role in Berlin’s Turkish community, promoting education and dialogue among Muslims and Germans of other faiths.

Now, however, whenever he can, Karakoyun avoids the bustling streets where many Turks live in the German capital. He says he has received six death threats via email and Facebook that are being investigated by police.

“One message said: ‘We know where your daughter goes to school’,” he added.

Karakoyun heads the Foundation for Dialogue and Education in Germany, a movement that supports Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric Turkey blames for July’s attempted coup.

The group has been active in Germany for many years, operating 150 tutoring centres in the country, 30 government-recognised schools and a dozen interfaith dialogue projects. It has long been seen as a moderate Islamic group although it has faced criticism over a lack of transparency.

Now though, tensions are rising among the community of 3 million people with a Turkish background in Germany following the failed putsch. They have split into supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his opponents, and they are vying for influence.

The divisions mirror those that are now in stark relief in Turkey between Erdogan’s supporters and two other groups – Gulen backers and ethnic Kurds.

Karakoyun said ties with Erdogan supporters had been strained for several years but the situation had spiralled out of control since the coup was thwarted.

“Erdogan’s witchhunt in Turkey against Gulen supporters is now being carried out here,” Karakoyun said.

The rivalries have raised questions about a failure to better integrate Turks, some of whom have lived in Germany for decades. They have also deepened scepticism in Germany about migrants at a time when Chancellor Angela Merkel is under fire over her open-door refugee policy.

The government has a policy headache. Although concerned about Turkey’s record on human rights and a crackdown on opponents since the failed coup, it needs Ankara’s help to stem the flow of migrants from countries such as Syria.

KURDS PLAN TO MARCH

One immediate concern is a march planned in Cologne on Saturday by leftist groups and Kurds, who account for one in three immigrants from Turkey.

This follows a ban on a large, annual Kurdish festival nearby which angered the Kurds, especially as Erdogan supporters were allowed to hold a rally in Cologne on July 31.

Security officials worry that Erdogan supporters could take to the streets to counter the Kurdish march, expected to attract about 30,000 people, and that there could be violence. Tempers flared when Germany’s top court prevented Erdogan from addressing the July 31 rally via videolink.

With many people of Turkish origin just back from summer holidays in Turkey, there are concerns that passions have been fuelled by media coverage “back home” which is dominated by criticism of Germans, coup plotters and Kurds.

“We cannot allow this conflict to be imported to German soil. We have to pay particular attention to those cases where massive pressure is being applied to Germans with a Turkish background here,” Nicola Beer, general secretary of Germany’s libertarian Free Democratic Party, told Reuters.

Community leaders say a pervasive and longstanding sense among young Turkish Germans that they are shunned in society makes them pliable and more attuned to the political mood in the homeland, to which they feel attached but barely know.

“Because they (young Turks) are ill-informed (about events in Turkey) many get emotional quickly. Some are charged like ticking time bombs,” said Kazim Erdogan, 63, a psychologist who is no relation of Turkey’s president.

“The atmosphere (in the Turkish community in Germany) is completely poisoned. We are at a tipping point.”

Lists of businesses identified as backing Gulen, and calling for boycotts of their products or services, have appeared on social media.

“We are outing these parallel forces and their henchmen!” read one entry, listing over 20 firms in the Stuttgart area, at least one of which denies such links.

Turkish officials say the German government’s concerns about tensions in the Turkish community are overblown and the majority of Turks in Germany have rallied behind Erdogan since the coup.

Sixty percent of Turks in Germany voted for his AKP party in the latest national elections, according to the Organisation of Turkish Communities in Germany.

QUESTIONS ABOUT INTEGRATION

But Labour and Social Affairs Minister Andrea Nahles told Reuters after meeting Turkish groups in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighbourhood that the situation was “ripping families apart.”

Government officials are worried about the role played by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) which operates through some 900 associations across Germany, most of which are mosques with imams dispatched from Turkey.

“DITIB is used to spread the Turkish government’s message in Germany,” Ole Schroeder, deputy interior minister and a member of Merkel’s conservatives, told Reuters.

Politicians from right and left want DITIB’s influence curbed, and many, including Schroeder, are calling for the group to stop importing clerics who are trained in Istanbul.

DITIB has denied being steered by the Turkish government or posing any threat to Germany.

Merkel has urged Turks in Germany to show “loyalty to our country,” a comment that divided her ruling coalition and pointed to growing angst about strains in the Turkish community and Ankara’s influence on it.

Tensions with Ankara grew when German parliament passed a resolution in June declaring the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a genocide.

They rose further when a government report in August called Turkey a hub for Islamist groups, and government data show a quarter of the 850 militants who have left Germany to fight for Islamic State had a Turkish background.

Cansel Kiziltepe, a Social Democrat member of the Bundestag lower house of parliament, said the situation showed Germany had not implemented any meaningful integration policies until the early 2000s.

“If people aren’t integrated, then they don’t feel like they belong here,” she told Reuters. “And then they’re susceptible when someone comes (along) who shows apparent strength and tries to incite these people against the majority (in) society.”