Integration is history - Participation is the future

Why we should ban integration from our vocabulary, our heads and from politics rather yesterday than today. A plea.

By Kübra Yücel

Integration is the theme of my youth. At countless conferences, seminars and panel discussions others and I were wondering what was going wrong in Germany. At the youth integration summit I discussed the issue with the minister for integration and our chancellor. I got press fotos taken with the latter. And the picture still appears in newspapers as an example for integration policy.

Today, I am 21 years old and think that integration should be banned. It is an artifical phenomenon that has been homogenised and will lead to a standstill within society.
Artificial, because it is unfeasable for integration to exist. According to the dictionary integration means “to become part of an entity”. However, there is no “ German entity”, no “German society” that a migrant could identify with. So what is the “entity” then? This question leads us to the never-ending-story of Deutsche Leitkultur – the futile effort to define what it means to be German. Radically speaking, integration equals homogenisation. You have to abandon parts of personality and being, fit in, lose yourself.

It is especially dangerous when integration leads to a stillstand within society. When migrants integrate in “an entity”, conform to today, societal growth stagnates. It misses to utilise the most crucial capital that it has: diversity. Only with the help of new ideas and influences it can change and progress.

I never integrated. Fatih Akin, Feridun Zaimoglu, Charlotte Roche, Samy Deluxe, Wladimir Kaminer, Jasmin Tabatabai, Cem Özdemir, Tarek Al-Wazir, Mehmet Kurtulus, or Mesut Özil never did either. They participated, enriched society and found their way. Now they are part of the “entity Germany”. They are integrated, yet not purposely but more so because they participated.

Therefore participation is the key. An equal involvement has to be encouraged and called-for. Every individual should be involved and shape life around us. If this is ensured, it offers migrants the opportunity to stay true to true to themselves, utilise their diversity and society can change and progress.

Kübra Yücel is 21 and studies political science at the University in Hamburg. She is also a freelance journalist and has her own blog: http://ein-fremdwoerterbuch.blogspot.com/.