Dr Qaisar Rashid<\/p>\n
On March 1, 2020, Germany enforced its new Skilled Immigration Act, which claims to extend opportunities for qualified professionals and skilled workers from outside the European Union to come to work and live in Germany. Currently, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), in coalition with the Green party, has been ruling over Germany since December 8, 2021. Scholz was the Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor of Germany in the fourth term of the previous Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in 2018.
\nIn coalition with the Greens, the SDP saw its rise in the 1998 federal elections, which made Gerhard Schr\u00f6der Germany\u2019s Chancellor. The SDP again won the 2002 elections but got defeated in 2005 by Merkel\u2019s party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its coalition partner, Christian Social Union (CSU). Under Chancellor Merkel, the centre-right CDU-CSU coalition ruled over Germany from 2005 to 2021. Merkel\u2019s four terms spanning sixteen years swayed Germany by seeing the rise of far-right ultranationalist political parties such as Alternative for Germany and the National Democratic Party.
\nProblems with the SDP are two: first, it is a socialist party working in the domain of capitalism; and second, it is a centre-left party functional in the society of centre-right wingers. Both factors hastened the downfall of Schr\u00f6der in 2005. Along with Schr\u00f6der, not only did his reform agenda (Agenda 2010) fizzle out, but his immigration law (introduced in March 2002)\u2013to invite professionals and skilled workers from other countries, especially developing countries\u2013also dissipated. Through the law, which was introduced for the first time since the 1970s, Schr\u00f6der wanted to make German society multi-cultural and workplaces competitive.
\nWho knows more than the streets of Berlin the way foreign professionals and skilled workers were hounded out of Germany? After 2002, in the dying years of Schr\u00f6der\u2019s rule or the rising years of Merkel domination, foreign professionals and skilled workers were scoffed at in research institutes and other workplaces, and made jobless with their research and working rights snatched. Schr\u00f6der had won the 2002 elections with the promise of not cutting the social security system, but he reformed the system to improve the economy. This is why it is said that though Schr\u00f6der\u2019s reform project, Agenda 2010, was the major cause of unemployment in the labour market and deterioration in the welfare system in the early 2000s, foreign professionals and skilled workers were considered culprits, who had secured their employment replacing the locals in Germany.
\nOn the other hand, to ensure her rise, Merkel remained successful in instigating right-wing nationalism in the Germans. Foreign professionals and skilled workers were condemned publicly as bread snatchers (Ausl\u00e4nder sind Brotschn\u00e4pper). She openly condemned multiculturalism in Germany and raised slogans such as multiculturalism has failed in Germany (Multi kulti ist gescheitert). Her followers followed suit. Work places and even research institutes reverberated with the slogans: Germany is not a land of immigration (Deutschland ist kein Einwanderungsland), Say \u2018no\u2019 to immigration (Sag nein zur Einwanderung), German jobs for the Germans only (Deutsche jobs nur f\u00e4r die Deutschen), Foreigners are criminals (Ausl\u00e4nder sind verbrecher), Children instead of Indians (read, Pakistanis) (Kinder statt Indianer), Foreigners pollute our living space (Ausl\u00e4nder verschmutzen unseren Lebensraum), and Foreigners are not welcome in Germany (Ausl\u00e4nder sind nicht willkommen in Deutschland).
\nUnfortunately, Schr\u00f6der\u2019s government was not accountable to foreign professionals and skilled workers who were allured to reach Germany. They were abandoned. Labour courts got inundated with lawsuits. Most sufferers were Asians (mostly Indians and Pakistanis), South Africans and South Americans (mostly Brazilians). They were mistreated publicly for being the sin of Schr\u00f6der.
\nNow, after sixteen years, the SDP is back in power and has brought old wine into a new bottle. In a video message, Robert Habeck, Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, utters, \u201cMake it in Germany,\u201d which offers an excellent work environment to foreign professional and skilled workers. Perhaps, Habeck is unaware that, during her four terms in power, Merkel kept on claiming to be a warden of German competitiveness (Deutsche Wettbewerbsf\u00e4higkeit) and a guarantor of keeping non-Germans out of Germany, a modern variation of the slogan, Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil), a nationalist motto expressing Nazi\u2019s ideal of a racially strong relationship between a person (blood) and the land (soil) excluding foreigners. The slogan was also expressed in the refrain, local jobs for the locals (Lokale Arbeitspl\u00e4tze f\u00fcr die Einheimischen).
\nIn Germany, the problem is not only with racism but also with the Germans\u2019 delusion about their unmatched competitiveness. Persisting with the obsession, the Germans loath any foreigner who performs better. In Germany, a competitive work environment is a curse for a foreign professional or skilled worker because the environment refuses to be inclusive. When in Germany, the Germans like foreigners who work under them, but they dislike the foreigners who compete with them.
\nThe Skilled Immigration Act also makes a provision for the contract of employment (Erkl\u00e4rung zum Besch\u00e4ftigungsverh\u00e4ltnis) which should be signed between the German employer and a foreign employee. This is another problem area. During the rising days of Merkel, German employers violated all such contracts by terminating them prematurely and with impunity even when these were written in the German language. Violators disrespected their own language. Issues landed in labour courts which favoured the locals against the foreigners on one pretext or another. German media observed iniquitous silence on the events.
\nThe assumption driving the current Skilled Immigration Act is that who remembers what happened sixteen years ago in Germany with foreign professionals and skilled workers? To the utter dismay of both Scholz and Habeck, victims of that crime are still around and on the watch for such an offence which could harm fellow countrymen: what happened to us should not happen to others. The final point is this: how can Scholz and Habeck guarantee that Merkel\u2019s sixteen years remained racially unproductive and socially inconsequential? No sane foreigner is ready to waste their time and jeopardize their lives in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr Qaisar Rashid On March 1, 2020, Germany enforced its new Skilled Immigration Act, which claims to extend opportunities for qualified professionals and skilled workers from outside the European Union to come to work and live in Germany. Currently, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SDP), in coalition with the Green […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1683,67,11888,11887],"class_list":{"0":"post-302488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"tag-dr-qaisar-rashid","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-immigration-act","10":"tag-skilled"},"yoast_head":"\n