Why can't we just all get along?

TIME Magazine featured an interesting cover story a few weeks ago. In it, author Jumana Farouky highlights five steps toward a true muticultural society in Europe. She suggests that the debate on headscarves take on a more rational approach accross Europe, as a sign of a true acceptance of Islam into the multi-facetted spectrum of religion in Europe. Her discussion of the issue is over simplified, yet nevertheless compelling. She argues in favor of allowing women to wear the hijab (i.e. the headscarf) in public places, including their place of employment. This should also hold true for teachers, who have been banned from wearing the headscarf in many federal states in Germany and accross France. Teachers, she says, would then have the option of which school to teach at. (This vision, however, is incompatible with the French and German constitutions, which codify the separation of church and state). Nevertheless, her's is an interesting approach.

In her second short piece, she advocates the creation of affirmative action-like quotas to get immigrants into mainstream European political parties. While it is hard to contest the need for migrant participation in traditional party politics, the introduction of quotas would be highly controversial in many European countries, who have just recently struggled through the process of adopting formal anti-discrimination legislation. Established parties in Europe, for example the Social Democrat and Green parties in Germany, have long pushed for an increased number of first, second and third generation migrants as active party members. Only few, such as Cem Oezdemir, have made it to the front lines of federal politics. But many are at the front lines of grass-roots and local politics. Introducing quotas, while an idea worth playing through in practice, would introduce a number of follow up questions: to vote and be elected into political office in most European countries, you must hold citizenship of that country. Naturalization of migrants has been dropping steadily in Germany, since 1997, however.

Her third point about inclusion in education is valid. Immigrants must have access to additional language education and if necessary, subject specific assistance in addition to help them live up to their full potential in their new countries. The Europe-wide PISA studies, conducted with middle school children proved that immigrants across Europe were suffering from unequal treatment in the classroom and were underperforming in comparison to most natives. In Sweden, the example that the TIME correspondent quotes, bilingual education (i.e. in the migrants mother-tongue and Swedish) is practiced from kindergarten onwards. The Nordics, with their emphasis on life-long learning lead the way – the rest of Europe must follow.

Developing smarter methods for legal migration is a point that has long been advocated, especially on the EU level, and it is Farouky's fourth point. In exploring modern immigration policies that can apply across Schengen countries, the EU has been closely examining the Canadian, US and Australian points-based systems. A number of EU countries have developed their own, albeit none too functional, Green Card systems. For long these systems have been geared toward attracting the most highly-qualified migrants to a country. But even this has been difficult. To enter Germany as a highly-qualified migrant on the Green Card system, you must prove an earning power of at at least EUR 85,500. The leading industry association in the country has advocated that this be dropped to EUR 40,000 to fill the currently existing skills gap, left by German scientists and engineers who – as part of the inevitable brain drain – have left the country for greener pastures. For other countries, it's not the highest qualified migrants they need. The British NHS system is overly dependent on an influx of well-trained Phillipino nurses, for instance. EU countries must be able to fill their skills gap in a sustainable matter. What of the German Green Card migrants who were left unemployed, when the IT market turned sour a few years ago. Europe needs migrants, in part to quell its looming demographic crisis. This need must be communicated and immigrants welcomed to Europe through a calibrated, functional and controlled migration system. Point blank.

“Think locally, act locally” – is her closing advice and nothing could be more true. Plenty of good examples exist, but we need to hear more about them. Sharing best practice examples and models across countries is at the heart of initiatives, such as USable, a competition run by the German-based Koerber Foundation. The initiative invites Germans and Americans to examine best practice examples in the other country and write project proposals on how best to transfer these good ideas to the other cultural context. Reporting on positive projects is a political necessity. Unfortunately, good news rarely makes headlines.