PERHAPS the Schröder government's most courageous act has been its decision to change Germany's outdated nationality law, offering hope to many of the 7.4m foreigners living there of gaining German citizenship at last.
Germany's guilty conscience about its treatment of foreigners under Hitler has made it a model of generosity in welcoming refugees. In 1992, for instance, at the start of the Bosnian war, it accepted 438,000 people, nearly 80% of all those seeking asylum in the EU. But it has been much less generous with handing out citizenship, at least to those who can claim no German blood. The biggest such group are the Turks who first came to Germany in the 1960s to lend muscle to the Wirtschaftswunder, and whose numbers have been swollen over the years by both immigration and reproduction. All told, they number 2.1m today, most of them doing jobs Germans do not want to do, and many of them born in Germany and knowing no other country at first hand. But few have become Germans. The qualification required for that is ancestry, not place of birth, which makes it available to almost anyone of German origin, but to few Turks.
That is set to change. All children born in Germany will now be automatically entitled to citizenship, so long as at least one parent has been born in the country or arrived before the age of 14 and has a residence permit. Others will be allowed to apply for citizenship after eight years rather than 15, and dual citizenship will be tolerated, though not encouraged. It is this last provision that particularly excites conservatives in the CDU and CSU. They think it breeds divided loyalties, and are organising a petition to stop it becoming law. But the government argues that complete exclusion from German society is far more divisive—and many Turks do not want to forswear their Turkish passport for fear of losing inheritance rights in Turkey.
The aim is to improve race relations, which are indeed bad. The first Turks to come to modern Germany arrived as Gastarbeiter, guest workers, and both they and their “hosts” expected them to go home after five years. Accordingly, neither side made any serious effort to promote integration, but nor were the “guests” encouraged to leave—except by far-right extremists, who in 1982 set a Turkish hostel on fire in the first of several such incidents, and attacked Turks in Hamburg and other towns. Not surprisingly, some Turks started to form gangs of vigilantes to protect themselves. Others took to crime: nearly 30% of crimes in Germany are committed by foreigners, according to official statistics, and racists are quick to call Turks criminals. In the election last year, neither the CDU nor even the SPD was above appealing to their prejudices.
In fact, most Turks are enterprising and hard-working. They own some 35,000 companies in Germany, but find it hard to advance in a country that will not accept them. Germany's absurd regulations, which decree that all shops must shut at 8pm, block one avenue open to industrious immigrants in many countries—running the late-night corner shop. And in Berlin, which has the biggest Turkish community, many Turkish enterprises went bust after the Wall came down: recession coincided with a decision to push investment to the east, where Turks were loth to follow because they felt even less safe there than in the west.
Turks will not be eligible for citizenship if they do not have a regular income, nor if they are guilty of so much as a trivial traffic offence. Such conditions cause many Turks to argue that the proposed new law is far too grudging. They point, too, to the long struggle they had to win the right to Islamic religious instruction for the 35,000 Muslim children in Berlin's schools; it was granted only last November. And they complain that even Germans who say they are ready to accept them really want them to give up their language, religion and culture; that is what is meant when they are accused of not integrating. On the other hand, any easing of the law risks stirring up extremists on the right.
All in all, it is hard to see Germany's Turks being truly and peacefully integrated for many years. But the new citizenship law, whatever its shortcomings, is at least a move in the right direction, and opens the way to reducing one unnecessary division in German society.
This article appeared in the Special report section of the print edition under the headline "Both Turkish and German?"