A rigged quiz - racial discrimination, Bavarian style
As the publisher of Munich’s only magazine for the city’s English-speaking community, and as a German, I feel obliged to contribute a word — not necessarily the last one — on the most recent attempt of Bavarian officials to discriminate against foreigners — in an even more elegant manner than Jörg Haider. I am referring to the “Deutschtest für Ausländer,” an exam that one is required to pass to obtain German citizenship. According to the federal constitution, each German state is entitled to devise its own test. Bavaria, geographically and ideologically rather close to Austria, has always outdone Austria when it comes to clever ways of preventing immigration, and the Bavarian version of this new language test is further proof of that.
For years, the German government refused to allow the naturalization of resident foreigners. Recently, a bill was passed — against the explicit objections of many conservative politicians — allowing Ausländer, who have lived here for at least eight years, the opportunity to apply for German citizenship. But here is the hitch — the applicant must manage to clear the hurdles of a “very special” language test.
Sure, it makes sense for officials to require of those wishing to be branded a German a certain degree of proficiency in the German language, but this cunning exam is obviously being used to undercut the applicant’s chances for naturalization. To some, it would appear that Bavarian Minister of State Dr. Günther Beckstein, the conservative hard-liner who is responsible for this test, is seeking to create a Bavarian annex for Haider and the FPÖ. The test is a sly device to promote further racial discrimination, and the announcement of its implementation was easy to sneak past an unsuspecting public. Officials knew that everyone would surely agree that a “little test” is necessary, but they didn’t tell us who wrote the test, how it will be conducted and what the consequences of not passing it will be.
Recently, a Swabian grade school teacher administered a nine-line, press-released test to 69 seventh and ninth graders: only 28 had correct answers, 41 didn’t have a clue what it was all about — should they return their passports? Even I, with a master’s degree in German, had to read the annoying gibberish three times before rendering correct answers to the diabolically worded questions. As a native, I can read newspapers with ease, but it was a struggle for me to decipher the meaning of the test’s complex story, into which an entire article is packed, by using no fewer than five relative clauses.
The highly unprofessional test authors did not — intentionally or unintentionally — take into consideration that there is a big difference between acquiring a second language naturally, by hearing it spoken, and learning it in a structured, academic environment. Measured against written language, spoken language is always full of mistakes — even educated Bavarians struggle with the genitive and dative cases. Therefore, the average foreigner, whose “learned-by-ear” comprehension of German is tested by asking him to understand a complicated text — one in which a single word ending can change the meaning of an entire sentence — doesn’t stand a chance. The Bavarian test appears to be meant as an instrument used to sabotage the naturalization of foreigners, not, as intended by the new Ausländergesetz (law pertaining to foreigners), to integrate them into German society. Though the law requires only “sufficient knowledge of the German language,” the Bavarian interpretation thereof is a breech of constitutional rights.
The last roadblock in the Bavarian Language Test is just plain embarrassing. Applicants’ written German is tested in an exercise in which they must write a “postcard” home from a fictional vacation. Happy greetings from a land of sunshine and joy are to be sent to the poor ones at home. How many of these hardworking, often impoverished, people do Bavarian officials think have had the opportunity or the funds to take lavish vacations while hobbling along the eight-year rocky path to naturalization?
I wish the bureaucrats at the Ministry of the Interior had put their minds to developing effective programs for learning German and civics while awaiting a standardized test from Berlin, for all of Germany. At least the attitude encountered in Munich is often a bit different. The new slogan of the city’s Foreign Advisory Board is, “No one is a foreigner — anywhere!” Perhaps that’s why so many readers of Munich Found love living here.
