Germany: How the Buhmann Model

For Mesut Özil and all the Germans who confirmed the power of integration of the national team, the world was still beautiful: the Turkish-German footballer meets Angela Merkel after a match against Turkey in 2010 in Berlin. (Photo: APA)

Chancellor Angela Merkel is on vacation – and it may be her chance. For the next two weeks, no one can demand an answer to the first real upsurge of the summer: Mesut Özil declares his resignation from the German national football team – and justifies it by "racism and disrespect ".

Merkel and Özil attributed special attachment; they never denied it. The starting point is a photograph that has long been part of the collective memory of Germany: a Merkel equipped with the usual Chancellor's jacket shakes hands with a baroque Özil; as far as they can see, both are smiling at each other. At that time – in October 2010 – there was a bit of enthusiasm about the snapshot. The head of government and the footballer half naked – huch! But that was nothing compared to the sound of May's photos showing Özil with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – and who circulated his AKP party.

Two photos, two interpretations

For the bust with the Chancellor, shot in a locker room, there was a sporting event: Germany beat Turkey 3: 0 in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. Erdogan's images of a London hotel, however, were understood in Germany as the Turkish president had meant: politically. And although Erdogan was exclusively concerned with his presidential election campaign, he and Özil, more than his national teammate Ilkay Gündogan, also involved Germany in a debate about the integration of so-called Turks. German.

could only work for two reasons: First, Germany has not pleaded as hard for 20 years for opening and foreclosure as since the autumn of 2015, when Merkel decided to accept more refugees than any other state in the European Union. On the other hand, the question of the role that Germany offers to its Turkish immigrants and their descendants – and what they want to have – has never been resolved.

The photos of London, then the silence of Özil, then the embarrassment of the World Cup of Russia burst into all these uncleared things. And everything was started by the failure of the DFB leadership. President Reinhard Grindel and his team strived to keep the affair secret. And when that did not work, they organized the scapegoat hunt on Özil.

Maybe a little reading would have prevented the big scandal. In his autobiography published a year ago, Özil tells his quest for an identity that combines German life and Turkish tradition. And the constant clash between different cultures and the contradictory expectations of the powerful: politicians, sports leaders, the media. But the officials do not read. They prefer to judge. For example, FC Bayern's president, Ulrich Hoeness, convicted of tax evasion, who succeeds the newspaper "Bild" so that it lasts at least three red cards. "He's been playing the land for years," says Hoeness. He was happy "that the ghost is over."

"Germany is a cosmopolitan country"

Again, Hoeness is wrong. The case of Özil is neither a mirage nor a story. If things are stupid for Grindel and his sporting director Oliver Bierhoff – and good for German football and society as a whole – things are just starting to get going. One might wonder if the ex-journalist and former politician Grindel – who in 2004 called in the Bundestag Multiculturalism "a lie of life" – can really lead the world's largest sports association – in the sense leadership. The DFB, whose deputy spokesperson, Ulrike Demmer, said yesterday afternoon, is involved in "many initiatives, campaigns and projects" against racism and integration

. "A key task of the federal government". The usual formulas The entire government district reacts predictably: the AfD has poisoned a lot against Özil, the left a bit; the FDP is poisoned against the DFB and against Grindel, which is indeed a CDU; the SPD does not poison but sees "an alarm signal". And then there is the Berlin sociologist Kazim Erdogan, one of the leading integration experts. Not only in theory. Also in practice. "It is true, he says, that there is racism and xenophobia in our country." And he warns. Very. Faced with the unmistakable instrumentalization of the Özil case.