Missing the boat.
Friday, March 10th, 2000
There’s been an interesting debate going on in Germany lately.
The Germans don’t have enough skilled people to do all the computer and new media jobs that need to be done. I don’t know how such a technologically advanced country managed to completely miss the Internet revolution boat, but it did, and now everyone is frantic because everyone wants to get involved with “e-commerce" (because we all know that’s the only thing the Web is really good for) and no one knows how.
So Chancellor Schröder decided to allow several thousand short-term work permits to be issued to foreign computer experts. These people - mostly from India - are supposed to come here and do the jobs the Germans can’t do while teaching the Germans how to do it all themselves. After the Germans have learned everything they need to know, these foreigners are supposed to leave again and let the Germans get on with it.
If you’ve read previous journal entries, maybe you can imagine how this went over with the general public here. There was a huge outcry - mostly from people who I think don’t really know anything about the computer industry. Everyone started talking about all the unemployed Germans and wondering why foreigners should be coming here and taking jobs that Germans should do themselves (never mind the fact that this whole thing started because Germans can’t do these jobs themselves…).
A lovely slogan has gotten started: Kinder, nicht Inder. This means “children, not Indians” and refers to the idea that Germany should be investing in training young Germans to do this work instead of bringing in foreigners to do it.
The problem is that it’s way too late for that.
I’ve been going to lectures held by the “Freiburg Media Forum” lately. The lectures are given by people working with new media, and they have covered topics ranging from banner ads to child pornography on the Web. The last lecture I went to was held by a company that offers classes on things like networks, new media design and being a webmaster.
Jeremy and I were sitting in an audience of men wearing suits. After the company had presented their training programs, there was a question-and-answer session during which nearly every guy wearing a suit raised his hand and said, “I run such-and-such a company, and we need trained people now. Desperately. Not tomorrow, not next week, not a year from now when people have gone through your training program. We need these people yesterday. Where can I find people?”
There was no good answer to this question that night because there is no good answer to this question because there are no people here. Period.
And this is where the foreigners are supposed to come in. If I hadn’t been at that lecture that night, if I hadn’t heard first-hand from all these companies that are begging people to come work for them, then maybe I would find the foreigner idea a bit dubious. But when there is only one German available to do a job that 40 different companies need to have done - and need to have done “yesterday" - I personally don’t know what other option there is.
In its hesitancy to get involved with the Internet boom, Germany as done itself a big disservice, and now it has to pay. They can’t train people fast enough to be able to stay on top of things. And unlike America, most young people here haven’t taken the initiative to teach themselves anything about the Web in the past few years. So unlike America, there isn’t a wide base of cocky young computer whizzes raring to go in the business world.
There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which being that loads of people don’t have personal computers here, and it’s very expensive to go online. The Germans also have a little hang-up about autodidacticism, but that’s another story.
So, the foreigners are supposed to come get Germany out of the hole it’s gotten itself into, even though the Germans don’t want them to come. Maybe the Germans are afraid the foreigners won’t leave again. It’s not an entirely unfounded fear, I suppose, considering the “guest workers” from Turkey who were “invited" here to do the jobs the Germans didn’t want to do and then decided that Germany was nicer than Turkey. Of course, if the Germans lowered themselves to clean their own streets, maybe they wouldn’t have this problem - but that, too, is another story.
Anyway, considering the Kinder, nicht Inder attitude, I have to say that, if I were a computer expert from India, I don’t think I’d want come here in the first place. Maybe it sounds petulant, but if that’s the attitude I was facing, I would say they should figure it out for themselves. If the Germans can’t catch up with the rest of the world, it’s their own problem.
They’re already missing the boat. Maybe they should just stick to building cars.
Comments
1
She gave me her forsythia knees to hold with my lips as cold as Fargo highway lighting poles (where he hid the money in the snows of lost memories) We began the dance that always leads to tommorow thinking and wishing for a river to appear in her hair where I can be sailor and she the shore; but that was in the earlier years when distances were measured by breaths, as close to her as her breath and yet the young heart feels the distance in an instant of outward regard where the hand reaches to find no purchase in her eyes only the Hara fear until this day of missing the boat…
2
Hi Jessica,
I can’t agree with you more about this issue.
"Kinder, nicht Inder! Wir haben schon 4 millione Arbeitloser." Sagen meisten Deutche. Ich glaube, diese Leute interessieren sich total nicht, dass diese Arbeitloser kein Computer Know-how haben. Hauptsache, jemandem die Schuld geben, was die Deutche nicht lösen können. Lösung? Sonntag-shopping vielleicht? Könnte wohl klappen.
In the past, most of the Turkish people who came here and stayed on were unskilled workers. And given the treatment they got, can they be blamed for keeping to themselves? I wonder, if this new group of Indian computer elite is willing to put up with the treatment they might get. As a single Asian female, I have met with many unhappy, if not insulting situations. I was blamed for trying to cheat some gullible German man into marrying me, so that I can stay in Germany. And for taking away some German’s job. Never mind if I am fully capable of getting German PR on my own credit and that the post I took up was vacant for more than a year. It doesn’t matter to these people, they just need to blame someone for their misery/problem/the lack of sunshine. Wenn nicht die Ausländer, wer sonst?
I suppose, hostility towards foreigners exists in every corner of the world, but this is the first time I encounter such open hostility. Whatever happens, some of these foreign workers will decide for one reason or another to stay on in Germany. Whether those anti-foreigner Germans like it or not. When it comes to humans, you can’t always use them and throw them away like used paper cups. It just doesn’t happen this way. Perhaps it’s time some of our German hosts learn to live with that. : )
Best regards, Laurena
3
Its been going on since ages, and I doubt if it will ever end.
Desmond Morris explains it beautifully in ‘The Human Zoo’ , where he traces such tendencies of human beings to the time when we had not yet evolved to being Homo Sapiens. Survival was difficult then, and things were easier if one belonged to a group. Stronger ( and perhaps bigger ) the group, the better were the chances of its survival. Members of other groups were considered a threat, and it was very rare for members of different groups to mix. Being in a group provided the security which was badly needed.
Slowly things changed - our ancestors evolved. And they realized that they could gain much more if they learned to interact with other groups. Thus they began to exchange goods and primitive tools with other groups, without which they could never have progressed beyond certain limits. But there still remained a fear in some, and for them the other groups were still ‘they’, and ‘they’ could never become ‘us’. These insecure elements still preferred the cloak of security offered by their group.
Things are not very different today. Even though a good number of us realize that the reason we are where we are today is only because of the exchange of ideas that has taken place between different people ( or ‘groups’ ), there is a good amount of resistance - predominantly among the less educated - to foreign elements in their surroundings. The insecurity is still there, but perhaps such people would prefer to refer to it as patriotism.
Now even though I know that there does exist an undercurrent of xenophobia amongst some Germans, I have not encountered it one bit in the last two months that I have been here. I am basically a software engineer from India ( one of those ‘Inder’, if you like it that way ), and I am currently in Germany on a short term project. And I must say that I have been very lucky because my stay has been very pleasant. But this is not the only reason I would cite when I express my difference of opinion to the one expressed by Jessica.
"If I were a computer expert from India, I don’t think I’d want come here in the first place…" . I would say that that is the easy way out. One has to realize that we are talking here of a symbiotic relationship : if I come here and work in Germany, its just not Germany which stands to gain ( by way of some improvement to its economy ); I gain too, in a number of ways. And if I think that to gain all that it is alright even if I encounter - once in a while - someone with the Kinder, nicht Inder attitude, I would then decide in favour of coming here. Instead, if I take it as an insult if someone looks down upon me over here because I am an Indian, and decide never to step into this country again, I would be a loser. I would lose all that I can gain if I spend time in Germany - exposure to another culture, another way of life, another way of working, another set of people and the infinite things that I can experience and learn by simply travelling through this lovely country.
Its all a question of one’s perspective. So what is your’s ?
4
id say if gemrany doesnt want u why the heck do u still want to go there … it sounds absurd to me leave the germans alone if they dont want any help if they want then u go on ur terms and leave on ur terms and by the way everyone likes their own country much more imagine if gemrnas came to india to help indians with programmig will any indian say ur welcome to take my job im happy ur here so its all in empathising and gettin the hell out when ur work is done
5
It will be same situation as Canada. Money, job opportunities and sunshine are much bigger in California than Germany. Germans will only get 2nd tier talent, first tier guys always will stay India or go to Silicon Valley. Germans ‘kinder inder’ types are fools who think they will get flooded by highest value talent from India just if they allow them to come .. they are in for rude surprise. Esp if the great genius Indians come to Germany and face bad attitude, they will leave instantly for America.
America is a great country, it gives people options. Like not having to deal with Nazis.
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