Immigration and the Tea Party

A heated debate on immigration in Germany has given the media food for thought. So too have the implications of the Tea Party movement in the US midterm elections. We look at comment on both these subjects.

Change, not failure

It is dangerous to leave the topic of migration to xenophobes, writes the Financial Times. So Chancellor Angela Merkel was right to take voters' concerns seriously and enter the heated debate on the subject. However, her claim that multiculturalism has utterly failed in Germany is overstated.

... Germany has not experienced the civil unrest that has scarred French immigrant communities. Immigrant businesses are well integrated. ... This is not to say there is nothing wrong. Germany’s three-tier secondary education system hinders integration. Some immigrants have been reluctant to expose their children to German culture. Others have not learnt German. This needs to change. ...

 Strange form of life

Some strange forms of political life have emerged during the midterm elections in the United States, writes The Guardian. But the Tea Party movement is more a symptom of a wider political failure than the problem itself.

... Public confidence in government is at an all-time low, but when asked, clear majorities of Americans of all ages want more federal government — not less — in the areas they consider priorities, like energy, poverty and education. The message is clear: government will not regain public trust unless it earns it. Like other western economies, the US is a country in turmoil — record numbers of foreclosures, a long-term unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent (double that of the recessions in the 1980s and 1990s), and bankers who, despite regulation, are poised to pay themselves billions in bonuses...