Why Japanese Parallel Societies Don’t Bother Anyone
13th March 2011
Not just Turks, but Japanese as well live in Germany in parallel societies, and they teach their children Japanese first. Nonetheless that makes no one nervous.
So I wonder why we have a problem with the Turks and no problem with the Japanese, not even in Düsseldorf. Nobody inquires after their birth rate. No authorities are putting interpreters at their disposal. There has not been a summit on Japan — or Asia — with the ministry of the interior. There has been no Christian-Japanese working group on Protestant Church Day. We don’t even know what religion they belong to. They make no secret of it, but they don’t make a big fuss about it either.
There must be other reasons. Could it have something to do with the fact that no Japanese has gone to court to sue for a prayer room in a school? Or that no Japanese has refused to stack drinks in a supermarket, which his religion has forbidden him to drink? Or that the Japanese are under-represented in the ranks of multiple offenders and over-represented among those who have graduated from secondary school? The Japanese, too, live in parallel societies, marry among themselves and teach their children Japanese first and then German.