From BZ editors
Once a week, ex-rulers Eberhard Diepgen (CDU) and Walter Momper (SPD) discuss topics that move the capital in the BZ Berlin. Today it’s about Berlin’s school senator Astrid-Sabine Busse. In 2009, she complained that migrants were unwilling to integrate.
Eberhard Diepgen: No, the demand is exaggerated
The school senator got caught in the whirlpool of heavy criticism.
A critical discussion about the state of the Berlin schools and the achievements that are actually made by the students after leaving school seems necessary to me. After only a few months in office, the school senator certainly cannot be blamed for all the problems.
I’m a bit irritated by the fierce criticism of statements made in 2009 by the headmistress of a primary school in Neukölln. Am I remembering incorrectly? A cry for help and her relentless description of the catastrophic situation led to decisive improvements in the schools in the district’s deprived areas.
It was about opportunities for the integration of children who do not come into contact with the German language in their home environment. As I remember, it was about a development that in the schoolyard and in the classrooms it was only about the priority of the Arabic or the Turkish language. And a few lost people with German as their mother tongue.
Is that a thing of the past everywhere? I have doubts. But politics can take countermeasures when the facts are on the table. With only cautious hints, however, politics tends towards comfortable restraint. The senator is accused of the sentence from 2009: “They just stay with each other … The neighborhood is taken over.”
And her hint from 2018 that spouses are brought from the former home country is criticized. What’s wrong with it? What is wrong with the associated reference to integration issues. The motives behind the attacks from the Senate coalition against the political career changer are not the topic here.
The accusation of racism is exaggerated, as is the demand for distancing. A clear description of the situation was and is the basis for the right measures for integration, mutual recognition and equal opportunities.
Walter Momper: Yes, it’s probably better
Yes, it’s probably better if the school senator distances herself from her 2009 statements.
She has now made it clear that she did not mean to belittle or discriminate against anyone. She tried to describe the reality as it presented itself to her. After all, she was headmaster in Neukölln for many years and is therefore well acquainted with the behavior of parents, children and young people.
I can’t find anything discriminatory in what she said at the time. Even the fact that Thilo Sarrazin liked the statements particularly well cannot dissuade me from Ms. Busse describing the reality. As she says herself, she didn’t want to discriminate against anyone.
It is better to end a public discussion by distancing yourself from what you said at the time or by interpreting it as it was meant. Otherwise the allegations drag on forever. Ms. Busse is well advised to take the edge off the discussion about what she said at the time by interpreting it.
Incidentally, those who are now criticizing Ms. Busse should take a look at the reality she describes. That would continue. Only the accusation of racism and xenophobia does not lead us any further in the matter.
