''Leitkultur'' is a German concept, which can be translated as 'guiding culture' or 'leading culture', less literally as 'common culture', 'core culture' or 'basic culture'. The term was first introduced in 1998 by the German-Arab sociologist
Bassam Tibi
Bassam Tibi ( ar, بسام طيبي), is a Syrian-born German political scientist and professor of international relations specializing in Islamic studies and Middle Eastern studies. He was born in 1944 in Damascus, Syria to an aristocratic famil ...
and from 2000 onward the term figured prominently in the national political debate in Germany about national identity and
immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
.
Bassam Tibi's definition
Bassam Tibi first suggested a 'Leitkultur' in his 1998 book ''Europa ohne Identität'' ('Europe without identity'). He defined it in terms of what are commonly called western values, and spoke of a ''European'' rather than a German 'Leitkultur'. "The values needed for a core culture are those of
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
:
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
,
secularism
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on Secularity, secular, Naturalism (philosophy), naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the Separation of church and state, separation of relig ...
human rights
Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...
and
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.liberal-democratic basic order' (''Freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung'') which is considered the foundational value of the
post-war
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
German reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...
of 1990. Tibi advocated cultural pluralism based on value consensus, rather than
monoculturalism
Monoculturalism is the policy or process of supporting, advocating, or allowing the expression of the culture of a single social or ethnic group. It generally stems from beliefs within the dominant group that their cultural practices are superior t ...
. However, he also opposed value-blind
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
, and the development of parallel societies where immigrant minorities live and work, isolated from western society around them. Tibi advocated a structured immigration policy, and opposed illegal immigration into Germany.
Nationwide debate in Germany
Theo Sommer, then publisher of ''
Die Zeit
''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles.
History
The ...
'', was one of the first to use the term ''German core culture'', as part of a debate about the assimilation of immigrants in Germany, and national core values: "Integration necessarily implies a far-reaching assimilation onto the German guiding culture and its core values" („Der Kopf zählt, nicht das Tuch“, Zeit 30/1998).
However, the term only became a national political issue in October 2000.
Friedrich Merz
Joachim-Friedrich Martin Josef Merz (born 11 November 1955) is a German lawyer and politician, serving as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 31 January 2022 and as leader of the Union parliamentary group as well as the Leader of ...
, then leader of the Christian-Democratic CDU in the
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
, wrote an article for ''
Die Welt
''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE.
''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...
'', rejecting
multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
, and advocated controls on immigration and compulsory assimilation in a German core culture. Merz, after being reminded of the earlier article by Theo Sommer, referred to Sommer as the inspiration for this policy. Sommer, in turn, claimed he was only advocating integration of immigrants, and distanced himself from the call for restriction of immigration ("Einwanderung ja, Ghettos nein - Warum Friedrich Merz sich zu Unrecht auf mich beruft", Zeit 47/2000). Merz, supported by the
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (; nds, Brannenborg; dsb, Bramborska ) is a states of Germany, state in the northeast of Germany bordering the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony, as well as the country of Poland. With an ar ...
interior minister
Jörg Schönbohm
Jörg Schönbohm (2 September 1937 – 7 February 2019) was a German politician ( CDU) and a retired lieutenant general. He was the first commander of the Bundeswehr Eastern Command (BwKdo Ost) in 1990, which supervised the absorption of the East ...
(CDU), proposed an annual immigration limit of 200 000, about 0.25% of the German population. Anything more, according to Merz, would exceed the absorptive capacity of German society. Immigrants had a duty, according to Merz, to adopt the basic cultural values of Germany.
Bassam Tibi now protested that politicians had appropriated his proposal for their own purposes, and pronounced the entire debate a 'failure'. Most of the reactions to Merz's proposals were negative, and the debate split along party lines, with the government coalition (social-democratic
SPD
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been t ...
and the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
) rejecting a German Leitkultur.
Cem Özdemir
Cem Özdemir (, ; born 21 December 1965) is a German politician who currently serves as Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture since 2021. He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens party.
Between 2008 and 2018, Özdemir co-chaired the Gr ...
(then Bundestag member, Green Party) and others defended 'integration' as against 'assimilation' of immigrants. Forcing immigrants to assimilate at any price would in any case, according to Özdemir, deny the reality that Germany was a multicultural society. Some reactions in media outside Germany likened the Leitkultur proposals to the enforced
Germanisation
Germanisation, or Germanization, is the spread of the German language, German people, people and German culture, culture. It was a central idea of German conservative thought in the 19th and the 20th centuries, when conservatism and ethnic nationa ...
in territories occupied by
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, where the population was usually forbidden to speak local languages.
In 2005, the new presiding chairman of the
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
,
Norbert Lammert
Norbert Lammert (born 16 November 1948) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He served as the 12th President of the Bundestag from 2005 to 2017.
Early life and education
The son of a baker, Lammert attended gymnasium ...
( CDU), proposed a re-opening of the debate on a Leitkultur. The proposal, he said in an interview in ''Die Zeit'', has been summarily dismissed without argument; "The noticeable thing about the very short national debate is that the Leitkultur concept was widely rejected, as a negative reflex, but that there was a wide recognition of the problems underlying the debate" ("Das Parlament hat kein Diskussionsmonopol", Zeit 43/2005). There was no noticeable reaction to his suggestion at first: Lammert then proposed to move the discussion to a European level, to establish a ''European'' core identity. In an article in ''Die Welt'', he wrote: "If Europe wishes to preserve the multiplicity of nation identities, and yet establish a collective identity, it must develop a political core ideal, a set of foundational values and convictions. Such a European core ideal must necessarily be based on the common cultural roots of Europe, on its shared history, and on shared religious tradition," (Die Welt, 13 December 2005).
In early 2006, the
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy
The ''Jyllands-Posten'' Muhammad cartoons controversy (or Muhammad cartoons crisis, da, Muhammedkrisen) began after the Danish newspaper ''Jyllands-Posten'' published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhamma ...
led to violent protests in Islamic countries, against depictions of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
in a Danish newspaper. Lammert now restated his demand for a re-opening of the Leitkultur debate. The cartoon protests, he said, show that German society must reach a consensus on its "foundational values and a minimal standard of value orientation". The 'constitutional patriotism' (proposed by the philosopher
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
) would not suffice, since all constitutions are based on non-random cultural assumptions. Fundamental rights, such as freedom of the press and freedom of expression, must be fully supported by a social consensus. Given the background of a multicultural society in Germany, according to Lammert, rights must be linked to certain cultural values, and a nationwide debate on this issue was necessary, to re-establish such a link. The idea of multiculturalism was "perhaps originally well-intentioned", but had reached the end of its useful life. Multiculturalism could not be allowed to create a society where all values were equal – and therefore in practice had no values. In conflicts of values, society had to decide which values were valid, and which were not. Lammert insisted that he had never spoken of a ''German'' Leitkultur. The essential elements of the German culture were not specifically German, he said, and it would be better to speak of a ''European'' Leitkultur. (
Deutschlandfunk
Deutschlandfunk (DLF, ''Broadcast Germany'') is a public-broadcasting radio station in Germany, concentrating on news and current affairs. It is one of the four national radio channels produced by Deutschlandradio.
History
Broadcasting in the ...
interview with Lammert, reported in the ''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
'' of 8 February 2006).
Jörg Schönbohm also remains a vigorous advocate of a German core culture: in 2006 he suggested changing the name of the Berlin radio station ''radiomultikulti'' into 'Radio Schwarz-Rot-Gold' (black-red-gold, the colours of the
flag of Germany
The national flag of Germany is a tricolour (flag), tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: Sable (heraldry), black, Gules, red, and Or (heraldry), gold (german: :de:Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Sc ...
).
Immigrant tests
The concept of Leitkultur figured prominently in the national debate about a test for immigrants to Germany. These tests are known in English as 'citizenship tests', see
Life in the United Kingdom test
The Life in the United Kingdom test is a computer-based test constituting one of the requirements for anyone seeking Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK or naturalisation as a British citizen. It is meant to prove that the applicant has a suffic ...
, but they often apply to all immigrants, not just those seeking
naturalisation
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
. In Germany, the federal parliament (
Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...
) ultimately decided against a national immigrant test, but the 16 states can set their own tests, which can be based on an officially defined German culture and values.
See also
*
Cultural selection theory
Cultural selection theory is the study of cultural change modelled on theories of evolutionary biology.
*
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism in social science and anthropology—as well as in colloquial English discourse—means to apply one's own culture or ethnicity as a frame of reference to judge other cultures, practices, behaviors, beliefs, and people, instead of ...
*
Immigration
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
*
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...
*
Modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
*
Multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the tw ...
*
Nation-state
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may inc ...
*
Values
In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of something or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live (normative ethics in ethics), or to describe the significance of dif ...
References
Further reading
* Bassam Tibi, ''Europa ohne Identität, Die Krise der multikulturellen Gesellschaft'', 1998.
* Bassam Tibi, Multikultureller Werte-Relativismus und Werte-Verlust, In: ''Aus Politik und Zeitgeschehen (Das Parlament)'', B 52–53/96, p. 27–36
* Bassam Tibi, Leitkultur als Wertekonsens - Bilanz einer missglückten deutschen Debatte, In: ''Aus Politik und Zeitgeschehen (Das Parlament)'', B 1–2/2001, p. 23–26
* Theo Sommer, Der Kopf zählt, nicht das Tuch - Ausländer in Deutschland: Integration kann keine Einbahnstraße sein, ''ZEIT'' 30/1998
* Theo Sommer, Einwanderung ja, Ghettos nein - Warum Friedrich Merz sich zu Unrecht auf mich beruft, ''ZEIT'' 47/2000
* Interview: »Das Parlament hat kein Diskussionsmonopol« Der neue Bundestagspräsident Norbert Lammert über die Konkurrenz durch Talkshows und den Ansehensverlust der Politik, ''ZEIT'' 43/2005
* Auch die EU braucht ein ideelles Fundament, Gastkommentar: Leitkultur von Norbert Lammert, ''Die Welt'', December 13, 2005
* Interview mit Norbert Lammert: "Lammert plädiert für neue Leitkultur-Debatte. Bundestagspräsident fordert breite öffentliche Diskussion", Deutschlandfunk (''Kultur heute''), 20.10.2005.
* Lammerts Wiedervorlage, ''FAZ.'', February 8, 2006.
* Pautz, Hartwig: ''Die deutsche Leitkultur. Eine Identitätsdebatte: Neue Rechte, Neorassismus und Normalisierungsbemühungen''. Stuttgart 2005
*
* Jörg Schönbohm "Multikulti ist am Ende" 7 July 2006. NZ Netzeitung.