The racist ouburst of German Federal Bank executiveThilo Sarrazin

[Hannah Bell]

Sarrazin’s vicious tirade appeared in the latest edition of the renowned cultural magazine Lettre International. Under the revealing heading “Class instead of mass. From the capital of social benefits to a metropolis for the elite,” the magazine published a long discussion with the former Berlin finance senator.

...Recipients of meager Hartz IV welfare payments were denounced as part of the “20 percent of the population who are economically redundant”. This section of society must be allowed “to peter out,” he said.

When asked if this meant that “these people die and then this layer no longer regenerates itself by means of children, grandchildren etc.,” Sarrazin agreed: “ scientific opinions have always become extinct. And that applies universally.”

That is particularly valid for Turks and Arabs, whose “numbers have increased due to a false policy.” They have no “productive function apart from the fruit and vegetable trade, and are unlikely to develop any perspective.” That is valid “also for a part of the German underclass, which operated coils or serviced cigarette machines in subsidized factories...”

Sarrazin continues: “The Turks are conquering Germany in exactly the same manner as the Kosovars conquered Kosovo: by a higher birth rate. I could accept that when it applied to East European Jews with around a 15 percent higher IQ than the German population.” Here the agitation against foreign infiltration is combined with anti-Semitic clichés...

The federal banker explained that he wants to begin such social-Darwinist selection as early as possible. Although studies testify that few countries discriminate against persons based on social origin to such an extent as Germany, Sarrazin is still not content: “The schools must be organized differently from top to bottom. That also means that we communicate to non-performers that they carry out their non-performing somewhere else...

Sarrazin is a well-connected member of the German ruling elite. The son of a doctor and the daughter of a West Prussian landowner, he had a long career in public posts and state enterprises... In 2002 he was invited by the governing mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit (SPD), to join the Senate, where he assumed responsibility for the finance department. With the support of the SPD and the Left Party, he implemented a rigid austerity course, which had a devastating effect on the jobs and incomes of public service workers and for the social conditions in the city as a whole. In the spring of 2009, Sarrazin then took up his current post with the German Central Bank.

It is indeed remarkable that Lettre International, which describes itself as “Europe’s cultural newspaper,” published Sarrazin’s inflammatory interview in the first place. The German edition of Lettre International originated in 1988 on the periphery of the taz newspaper, which was founded by former 1968 radicals as a leftist alternative to the official bourgeois media and is close to the Greens...The intensification of social polarization provokes in them a further lurch to the right. In the meantime, openly racist points of view are being raised in such circles, above all those directed against Islamic minorities in Germany...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/sarr-o13.shtml

[HamdenRice]

1. Impossible to know if any of this is true. WSWS is not a reliable source

As you are well aware, they are well known for "making up" the "facts" in their stories.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6560399&mesg_id=6561071

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hannah Bell]

3. Will Thilo Sarrazin quit German Bundesbank over interview?

Axel Weber, the Chairman the the Bundesbank, said Sarrazin had caused “considerable damage” to the organisation’s reputation.

There have now been demands for the executive board member to quit.

A resignation would be the easiest way for the Bundesbank to solve its image problem, especially since his contract doesn’t expire until 2014.

But a potential dismissal is not simple. Members of the Bundesbank’s board of directors can only be dismissed by the German President, so Sarrazin’s job looks safe – unless the bank’s management can convince President Horst Köhler otherwise.

In the controversial interview, Sarrazin said that 20 per cent of the population of Berlin were economically unnecessary.

“A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose numbers have grown thanks to the wrong policies, have no productive function except selling fruit and vegetables.”

http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/10/05/thilo-sarrazin/may-quit-german-bundesbank-over-berliner-remarks.html

[blindpig]

4. Classism goes hand in hand with racism

It's all divide and conquer.

k&r