A year ago, Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin made waves when he published a book that claimed that immigrants were making Germany a dumber society and accused them of having lower levels of education, perhaps even due to hereditary reasons. The publication of the book, "Germany Does Itself In," led to his resignation and to widespread condemnation.
Sarrazin may have moved on, but it appears that Berlin's large Turkish community has not forgotten him and his book. From Der Spiegel:
"Get lost!" and "Nazis out!" were among the epithets lobbed at controversial author Thilo Sarrazin during a recent trip to Berlin's Kreuzberg district, according to newspaper reports on Monday. The city's former finance senator had taken a trip to the area with broadcaster ZDF to film a TV special ahead of the one-year anniversary of the publication of his controversial book "Deutschland schafft sich ab" ("Germany Does Itself In").
The memory of the book's content, which sparked massive controversy in Germany for what many called its anti-immigrant sentiments, was apparently still fresh in the minds of some residents of the district, known for its high concentration of Muslim immigrants.
Accompanied by Turkish-German journalist Güner Balci, Sarrazin took a tour of the district, stopping by a Turkish market where he wrote in Die Welt he was yelled at by an "angry man in his fifties" whom he dubbed "the squaller," before a group of other "politically correct" market patrons joined in, calling him a racist until he and the camera team left.The show's camera team then followed Sarrazin to the popular Turkish restaurant Hasir, where they had planned a talk with co-owner Ahmet Aygün, who runs a number of successful restaurants across the city with his five brothers. But before they reached the eatery, a "well-dressed" couple of "obviously Turkish decent" began shouting at him, he wrote. The woman, who "seemed intellectual in a somewhat anemic way," called him a "racist," and the man called for him to leave Kreuzberg, Sarrazin reported.
Turks are known for their hospitality, by Sarrazin was just too hot, it appears. "I didn't want rumors in Kreuzberg that he eats in our restaurant," Der Spiegel quotes the restaurant's manager as saying. Full article here.
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