GUEST WORKERS---THE GERMAN EXPERIENCE
Guest worker program offers lessons Bush might profit by German
experience
Complete article at:
http://www.ajc.com/sunday/content/epaper/editions/sunday/news_043126b2966ef0600051.html
Berlin--Fevzi Cakir came to Germany intending to stay a year or two.
It was his plan --- and the German government's plan --- that he
return shortly to his native Turkey. Thirty-nine years later, he's
still in Germany. So is his wife. And two of his four children are
German-born. Cakir likes his life in Berlin. He came as a guest
worker and now is a citizen. He should be a fan of guest worker
programs, right? Wrong. Such programs, in his view, cause serious
problems. "I don't understand why America is planning something like
that," said Cakir, 62.
More than 40 years after the first Turkish guest workers arrived to
help the country rebuild --- Germany had Marshall Plan funds and other
post-World War II reconstruction money but was short of manpower --- a
significant number are still here. Many of the immigrants live in
ghettos. Many, even children, do not speak German. Housing and
education are substandard. Crime is high. Unemployment, 18 percent
among Berliners, is 35 percent among the city's Turks. They feel the
sting of bigotry and keep to themselves. Some, clinging to their roots
in a land that remains foreign to them, practice Islam in a manner
more conservative and rigid than that of many people in Turkey. Young
people, devoid of prospects, have developed a hip-hop-style culture of
gold chains and aggressive behavior.
"I don't think the whole program is very good," Cakir said. "It
creates heavy problems, as we see here."
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