Assimilate Already!

So, what was it that the Chancellor of Germany, Ms Angela Merkel said last week? Multiculturalism has utterly failed in Germany apparently. Immigrants are not doing enough to assimilate, apparently. Then, what did she say? Wasn't it something about inviting all these people to come and work and toil for Germany a few decades ago, and now they just won't leave? Oh man, this was some disturbing talk from the Chancellor (what is a Chancellor exactly??).

First off, I've seen Germans in Doha where I live right now. I don't exactly see them converting to Islam, wearing thobes, and learning Arabic. I'm not seeing a whole lot of assimilation here by Europeans and other Westerners. We Westerners go places and we hardly assimilate. One constant worry that Westerners have here is "I can still get alcohol, right?" Another love of us Westerners is to complain about the lack of bacon. BACON! NO BACON! What kind of place has no bacon? I haven't met one Westerner here, or anywhere I have gone, who has assimilated as it were. If anything, it's the opposite. The world assimilates to us. The world is becoming a McDonald's eating, Brad Pitt loving, Nike wearing, Eminem listening, English speaking homogeneous wasteland (ironically, NONE of these things is German). We are still colonialists. We are not the victims. We are still on top. The world is bending to our needs! It makes life easy for me as a very Western, English speaking white guy who is pretty darn lazy. In fact, I guess I can't complain at all. I really can't. I got it darn good in this world. I have it better than darn good, I'm at the very top. How did I get there? Being born in the right part of the world at the right time with the right skin colour, surrounded by the right language. In other words, I did nothing! That was easy, let me tell you. It's hard to assimilate, which is probably why we just don't do it, us First World hypocrites. We want people to assimilate in our countries, although we don't actually have a clear definition of what that means. With the new fad of banning face veils worn by Muslims, it would appear that looking Muslim, or even being Muslim for that matter, means that you have not assimilated. Sometimes I think people feel that others have not assimilated when some one speaks with an accent, or has not managed to completely forget their traditional language and speak English perfectly. If being able to speak English well means you have assimilated, half of my hometown of Thunder Bay would be asked to leave, but they would have nowhere to go because that is where they were born....eh. They would all be loaded up on a boat and their selected leader would say "F off, eh? Like, we ain't goin' nowheres, eh. We're, like, from Thunder Bay, eh, and you gots no right to do this, eh."

Secondly, the last part of what Ms. Merkel said. This whole idea of bringing people into a country to do crap jobs that no one else would take when the economy is good, and then getting mad when the economy isn't so good anymore, and they are still there. In other words, Merkel is mad about disposable people not being disposed of, and most of these are Turks it seems. Darn people and their giving their hard work, blood and sweat for Germany and it's economic growth and then not going away when they aren't needed. Shameful! So, leave now people! Get out! But leave your kebabs. They can stay. Meanwhile, while I was living in Turkey, I would shop at a large German supermarket, a large German hardware store, and almost get run over daily by many makes of German cars. So, as long as the money is coming out of Turkey to Germany, no problem! But, if those damn, dirty Turks are going to Germany, whoa, problem! Does this just sound completely horrible to you, all of this stuff? It does to me.