Hearing the truth spoken in public about Islam is not popular among Europe’s elites, even after all the violence and other hostility, so the messenger is likely to get punished.
Thilo Sarrazin, a former finance minister, published a book this week critical of the effects of Muslim immigration in Germany titled Deutschland Schafft sich ab ["Germany Does Away With Itself"]. (See my blog Muslim Immigration Condemned in Germany for details.)
An uproar exploded among officialdom about the book, with Prime Minister Angela Merkel leading the call for his expulsion, and the Bundesbank voted in a couple days for Sarrazin to be fired from his position on the board.
Bundesbank official to be sacked after controversial Jewish and Muslim comments, Daily Telegraph, September 3, 2010
The Bundesbank said in a statement that its six-member board “unanimously agreed” to ask Christian Wulff, the German President, to remove Mr Sarrazin, 65, from his post. It said the bank’s corporate governance commissioner “unreservedly supports” the decision.
Mr Wulff’s office said he had received the request from the Bundesbank and was considering it. It did not say when he was expected to make a decision.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and several members of her government have indicated they would like Mr Sarrazin to go, amid fears that his comments were damaging to the central bank’s reputation.
Following the Bundesbank’s announcement, a government spokesman signalled Mrs Merkel’s satisfaction with the move.
At least in the video below, Sarrazin the banker emphasized the economic impact on German society of so many unproductive immigrants, specifically the Muslim ones who refuse to assimilate, unlike other immigrant groups of which he approves. “In every country, the Muslim immigrants — on the basis of their lower participation in the work force and looming recourse to social support — cost the state more than they bring in,” he reads from his book.
For more of Thilo Sarrazin speaking out in his own defense, see a Bild article translated in Gates of Vienna: Strangers in Our Own Country.
