analysis
Germany is a country of immigration: the red-green government recognized this 23 years ago – and Merz spoke of the “leading culture” for the first time. He also split the CDU. Nevertheless, Merz is attached to the term.
Leading culture. Who else remembers? It was the year 2000. The Chancellor at the time was Gerhard Schröder. And a certain Friedrich Merz had just become the leader of the Union parliamentary group and had what he thought was a fantastic idea: “It’s essentially about ensuring that foreigners living in Germany are prepared to join a dominant German culture.”
“German dominant culture” – that’s when it happened. A term entered the political stage and divided the country and its people. The Chancellor reacted in a Schröder way: a bit mocking and condescending. “Orient yourself a little more to Old Fritz,” Schröder insulted Merz in the Bundestag. “You always like to carry it around in front of you.” He already knew back then what a tolerant society meant. Motto: Everyone should be happy in their own way.
Angela Merkel also had little use for Merz’s idea of the dominant culture.
The term dominant culture divided the CDU
So now the German dominant culture in the sense of Friedrich Merz. Incidentally, the future Chancellor had little use for the term dominant culture. At that time, Angela Merkel reminded Union parliamentary group leader Merz, whom she then kicked out of office along with his leading culture in 2002, that the term leading culture was not invented in the Sauerland of Friedrich Merz.
The idea of a dominant culture came from someone who described himself as a German foreigner: the Muslim Bassam Tibi. The Orientalist was the first to speak of a “European dominant culture,” Merkel lectured at a conference of all CDU district chairmen. “We Europeans should have the courage to acknowledge our own cultural identity,” the science-savvy Merkel quoted the scientist Bassam Tibi as saying.
At that time, things were also happening in the CDU. The term dominant culture also divided the Christian Democrats. Peter Müller, today’s judge at the Federal Constitutional Court, was Prime Minister of Saarland at the time and said that the basic consensus of our society must be observed. “I really don’t need this unfortunate concept of dominant culture for that.”
Fighting term against “multiculturalism”
Friedrich Merz saw it differently, even if a certain Heiner Geißler, CDU chief strategist and clever mind, found Merz’s idea of introducing this term into the migration debate only modestly clever. Geißler had a different thesis: “The constitution must be accepted by everyone who lives here, regardless of whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish.” The constitution does not prescribe a dominant culture.
But the term gained momentum and was a campaign hit with the conservatives in the Union. The then Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer marched to the front: “We as a Union stand up for the dominant German culture and against multiculturalism,” shouted the CSU politician on an election campaign stage. “Multiculturalism is dead,” his battle cry.
More fundamental as the basic law
Two decades later, however, the dominant culture is back – in the draft of the CDU’s basic program. Serap Güler, deputy chairwoman of the policy commission, says apologetically that the discussion about the term leading culture is not entirely new. Many in this country would say that the German Basic Law is our guiding culture, said Güler.
But that’s not enough for the CDU’s policy committee. She wants to be even more fundamental than the Basic Law when it comes to the topic of dominant culture. A certain SPD politician named Franz Müntefering had already called out to Friedrich Merz back then: “If you say: Leitkultur is our basic law, then I say. That’s okay. I have nothing against that.”
But the CDU under its leader Friedrich Merz now wants to understand more about the dominant culture. Officially, the draft of the basic program states: “Courage for a dominant culture. We want a society that holds together. Everyone who wants to live here must recognize our dominant culture without any ifs and buts (…) Only those who are committed to our dominant culture can integrate and become a German citizen.”
Conciliatory tones from Güler
Our guiding culture? This is meant to be friendly, says Serap Güler, explaining: “We see the dominant culture as a means of promoting social cohesion.”
So the dominant culture is back and so is the debate about the term. Just like the CDU’s self-image in the new basic program is: “We are Christian, social, liberal and conservative.” A classic is also the one that former Chancellor Merkel used to say when she wanted to annoy the particularly conservative people, the friends of the dominant culture, in her own shop: “Sometimes I’m liberal. Sometimes I’m conservative. Sometimes I’m Christian socially. ”