EDITH KURZWEIL
587
instead of "reunification," because this de facto situation is assumed and
discussed as the temporary evil nearly everyone hopes to eradicate: it
avoids implying that the former Bundesrepublic [BDR] dominates the
former German Democratic Republic [GDR].) As it is, even the most
dedicated and insightful German professor, while trying
to
do the right
thing in the true, practical sense, also brings along his or her former po–
litical baggage, his or her long-held "right-leaning" or "left-leaning"
convictions and disillusions. Like professors everywhere, they are expected
to arouse the students' moral conscience, to help turn them into trust–
worthy and active citizens who will ensure the survival of democratic
culture.
Nowhere did I hear anyone suggest that professors "make the world
safe for democracy." But this is precisely what the debates are all about,
what the professoriate is expected to accomplish, even though in the
former West academics had been sharply divided between the Christian
Socialists (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), and in the East had
been employed by the Unity Party (SED) to "make the world safe for
communism," or for what its promise had become. As we know, the
euphoria following the demise of the GDR was symbolized by the
storming of the Berlin Wall (actually a strip of no man's land and a
bulwark, reinforced with electrified barbed wire and manned by strutting
Soviet soldiers), and institutionalized by Chancellor Kohl's management
of the
Wel1.de
-
which the growing number of detractors liken
to
an–
nexation. But whatever it was, and whether or not it could have been
better handled through delay, arranged more equitably, or with fewer
negative consequences, is a moot issue. Germany is reunited. Now,
Germans not only are forced to deal with the economic consequences -
with massive unemployment, the absorption of hordes of immigrants into
the West from the GDR, Poland, Turkey and further East, as well as
with the repatriation of German nations, some of whom don't even
speak German - but also with
their
multiculturalism. In the process not
only the Communist utopia but all utopia is being repudiated - because
the long-desired freedom instead of bringing greater riches has intro–
duced new insecurities, along with other languages, cultures and com–
petitors.
As noted by the sociologist Hermann Strasser of the University of
Duisburg (which was ranked as number one in the
Spiegel
survey), multi–
culturalism is the result of immigration and immigrants are part of
German reality. However, unlike America or Israel, Germany for years
has granted residency without citizenship to its immigrant work force .
Thus many workers have been in the country for a few decades, have
German-born children but continue to be Turkish or Polish nationals. As
