Dissent Fall 2001

POLITICS ABROAD The End of Denial Solidarity, Diversity, and Constitutional Patriotism in Germany Jan-Werner Müller undivided nation-states. Skeptics also charged that, in itself, constitutional patriotism was too abstract and, as a particularly inappropriate metaphor went, “bloodless.” The writer Mar- n the 1980s and early 1990s, one could be tin Walser, apparently taking poetic license, forgiven for getting the impression that went furthest when he called it a typical prod- IGermans had a monopoly on self-obsessed uct of the fashionable “political masturbation” debates about their “identity.” When the coun- of the 1980s. try was still divided, politicians and intellectu- After unification in 1990, many expected als joined in what seemed to be an intermi- talk of constitutional patriotism to disappear. nable series of ceremonies, conferences, and The dream of “post-nationalism,” the hope to televised discussions about the meaning of show other European countries how to tran- Germany. Today, a united Germany has hardly scend traditional nationalism, appeared to be found consensus on its ever elusive national lost. A self-styled New Right sought a return identity; and yet, both the tone and the param- to an unashamed defense of the national in- eters of the debate have changed profoundly, terest. Moderate voices like the Social Demo- and not just because of unification. Slowly, crat historian Heinrich August Winkler—later there is convergence on a definition of to become an adviser to Gerhard Schröder— “Germanness” that is no longer ethnic, that is asked that Germans accept their status as a more accepting of immigrants, and that implies “post-classical nation-state.” In practice, prag- a less tortuous, though not complacent rela- matism reigned, but unease lingered. tion to its own past. This new self-conception It was only ten years after unification that might even hold lessons for the pan-European a less self-involved and less abstract debate fi- discussion about the integration of minorities nally began. No doubt, the timing had some- and the future of the welfare state—a discus- thing to do with the fact that a red-green gov- sion in which it is often assumed that there ernment had, at last, amended German citi- has to be a trade-off between “solidarity” and zenship law, privileging jus soli over jus san- “diversity.” guinis and finally abandoning the purely blood- During the Bonn Republic, arguably the based definition of Germanness that had been most successful—and morally most attrac- instituted under the Second Empire. In re- tive—self-description of the country was the sponse, leading Christian Democrats called for concept of “constitutional patriotism.” Initially a new conception of integration centered on coined by the political scientist Dolf the notion that immigrants ought to assimilate Sternberger, a disciple of Hannah Arendt, and to what they called a German Leitkultur (liter- then adopted by Jürgen Habermas in the mid- ally: a guiding culture). The term had been 1980s, constitutional patriotism referred to a coined by the Syrian-born German political form of political belonging centered on demo- scientist Bassam Tibi in 1997 to describe a cratic principles and, more concretely, the “consensus on values”—in contrast to versions achievements of the West German constitu- of multiculturalism that supposedly implied tion. Critics charged that such a concept was moral relativism. merely temporary compensation for a proper As with so many identity debates, the one national identity with a richer sense of his- in 2000 was inconclusive. Most observers be- tory—which was supposedly available to other, lieved that Leitkultur had been rejected, not DISSENT / Summer 2006 ■ 21 POLITICS ABROAD least because its proponents could not say what new identity talk is likely to translate into a dif- was specifically cultural, let alone German about ferent set of policies, especially as far as inte- it. Values seemed at most to refer to political gration is concerned. Here it’s important to get precepts enshrined in the German Basic Law, some basic facts straight and not to conflate in which case Leitkultur was really another way different categories of alleged Ausländer, as fre- of saying constitutional patriotism plus the im- quently happens in German debates: For one, perative to learn the German language. the influx of ethnic Germans from Russia and However, something did change in the first other Eastern countries has abated consider- years of the new century. Schröder styled Ger- ably, as has the number of asylum seekers, many a “power for peace” and persistently which peaked in the early 1990s and fell swiftly called for a more independent and, above all, after the old—by European standards very lib- more self-confident approach to foreign policy. eral—asylum law was tightened. At the same Foreign observers with sharp tongues spoke of time, the legal changes that were to recognize a new “social nationalism,” as the power for Germany as a “country of immigration” have peace was also to embody a social model—in so far not had the effects that friends and foes contrast, of course, to the United States. Para- expected. There hasn’t been a large wave of doxically, the more Schröder himself began to naturalizations, and neither have the quotas for dismantle the German social model, the more a much-trumpeted German version of a green he defended it as an example for others. card been filled. This new social nationalism went hand in hand with an apparently changed attitude to hat about the country’s three mil- the past. Günter Grass, most notably, started lion Muslims? High profile incidents writing about the Germans as victims in the W such as the murder of a young Second World War; a book about the bombing Kurdish woman by her brothers have re-ignited of German cities, by a maverick historian, be- debates about the emergence of so-called par- came a surprise bestseller. Some observers de- allel societies; that is, traditionalist subcultures tected a strange socio-psychological economy: in which German laws do not apply, Turkish the less the welfare state could render the women are imported and forced to marry, and present and the future secure, the more the archaic honor codes justify the cold-blooded past had to become a source of comfort or even execution of women whose major offense is to an object of compassion. “want to live like a German woman.” For many This peculiar economy, however, did not al- Germans, the murder of Hatun Sürücü in Feb- ways turn on zero-sum games. A logical and ruary 2005 was the German equivalent of the highly influential variant emerged with another murder of Theo van Gogh—a shock causing surprise bestseller by yet another maverick his- both genuine soul-searching and scare-monger- torian: Götz Aly’s 2005 Hitler’s People’s State ing, if not an outright “moral panic,” as the reinterpreted Nazi success as being based on Dutch writer Gert Maak called what happened the fact that they had given the Germans a very in the Netherlands after Van Gogh’s murder generous welfare state, mostly by plundering in November 2004. Europe. Hitler, Aly contended, had been, above So far, there hasn’t been much of a re- all, a “feel-good dictator.” Thus, discomfort with sponse to any of this from the Greens or So- the welfare state in the present—even accep- cial Democrats. The Christian Democrats, who tance of its partial dismantling—and guilt tended to repeat, “Germany is not a country about the past could now coincide. Parameters of immigration” like a mantra of exclusion dur- for debates about nationalism, patriotism, and ing the 1980s and 1990s, can’t bring them- integration began to shift considerably; old selves to put it like this anymore—though many lines between left and right became blurred; of them might like to return to an ethnic defi- and the possible ways in which solidarity in the nition of citizenship. For now, they almost ritu- past, present, and future might hang together ally denounce the “naïve multiculturalism” that have become significantly more complicated. Greens and Social Democrats allegedly The real question is whether some of this dreamed about, even if it’s impossible to pin- 22 ■ DISSENT / Summer 2006 POLITICS ABROAD point any proposals in the past that ever actu- ceremonies tend to reflect a traditional distrust ally advocated a multiculturalism of parallel of national symbolism, while at the same time societies. there is an increasing tendency to insist on loy- The president of the German Parliament, alty tests. Baden-Württemberg has this year be- Christian Democrat Norbert Lammert, re- come the first state to introduce a cently called for a renewed debate on the con- Loyalitätsprüfung comprising thirty questions cept of Leitkultur, because “Multikulti was an that only Muslims have to answer. Not surpris- illusion.” His actual proposals, however, did not ingly, Muslim leaders feel that such a singling go any further than constitutional patriotism out is discriminatory. plus the German language. In fact, he claimed Second, the German state has in principle that German was “the only really German been willing to grant the status of “public law thing” that was involved in his vision of corporation” to an Islamic organization, in the Leitkultur. Other elements in what Lammert way it has done with the major Christian called a “canon of what keeps us together” were churches and with the Jews. Yet so far, no pri- the rule of law and everyday civility. Although mary Islamic organization has emerged, for he gestured toward religion’s playing a “signifi- which “Muslim disunity” is usually blamed. In cant role” in making people aware again of their practice, however, Islamic organizations are own culture, Lammert was quick to reassure already offering instruction in state schools, citizens that initiatives in this regard would parallel to Catholic and Protestant instruction, have to come from within civil society, not from if there is sufficient pupil demand.

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