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Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland schafftsich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen ['Germany does away with itself: How we are gambling with our country'] (Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2010, 11th printing, 2010), 464 pp. ISBN: 978-3421044303. euro22.90
Perhaps the event on the German book market in 2010 was the publication of Deutschland schafftsich ab: Wie wir unser Land aufs Spiel setzen, a book which went into several printings in that year alone. Its author, Dr Thilo Sarrazin (b. 1945), is a serious critic of unchecked immigration, a German politician (Social emocratic Party, SPD), who was until September 2010 a member of the Executive Board of the German Federal Bank (Bundesbank). The first edition of his book sold out within a few days.
Sarrazin's book, launched toward the end of August 2010, came under severe criticism for supposedly claiming that Germany's immigrant Muslim population is reluctant to integrate and tends to rely more on social services than to be productive. Sarrazin does advocate a restrictive and more selective immigration policy which would prefer the highly skilled and the reduction of state welfare benefits to foreigners - as well as locals. Furthermore, he calculates that the Muslim population growth may well overwhelm the German population within a couple of generations at the current rate. He proposes stringent reforms for the welfare system to rectify the problems.1
Compared to certain other Western nations with past colonial (or present neo-colonial) aspirations in the Islamic world - Britain, France and the United States come to the mind - Germany has fared rather better in the consciousness of Muslims, as this writer has pointed out elsewhere.2 Although written in German and although addressing issues that are somewhat wider than those pertaining to Muslims living in a non-Muslim-majority country,3 Deutschland schafftsich ab is therefore also of vital interest to Muslim readers of this journal as it offers deep insights into the minds and concerns of real people, the 'silenced majority' of a country of 82 million people right in the middle of Europe.
Sarrazin's book is made up of nine chapters and an extensive appendix which contains detailed statistical material to support his theses. He addresses the following key issues:
* how to maintain the welfare state for the really deserving ones while...