Özil could be an opportunity so that Germany does not quickly lose the values it found late

The debates triggered in the country by Mesut Özil's decision to leave the German national team as a result of the racist harassment directed at him, viewed from one angle, constitute an important opportunity for Germany in particular and for Europe in general.

This opportunity may alert Europe, which made a great historical breakthrough with the EU project, to develop a remedy against the far-right and nationalist surges that are now threatening precisely this project. For if it cannot diagnose this problem accurately enough and develop a remedy for it, the real threat to the EU will come not from the US, Russia or Turkey but from within itself.

Today a large part of the European countries are, through the far-right currents rising from within them, increasing with each passing day their grumbling against the EU project itself. The grumbling is moving step by step toward points of threat that would make it impossible for the Union to survive and to maintain its vitality.

Truly, the first condition of holding so many different cultures and societies together is that racism be overcome, that different cultures be tolerated, and that there be openness to embracing, together with its law and its philosophy of the human being, a new citizenship identity beyond an ethnicity-centered, religion-centered identity. For this, politicians must first know their own societies well, and calculate that the price of the concessions they make to racism out of concern for votes can be very heavy.

Unfortunately, in many European countries, Germany first among them, politicians are rapidly drifting away from the trouble of putting forward better discourse and politics and are lapsing into the facile course of competing with each other for the nationalist votes they find attractive. When they compete targeting nationalist votes, the discourses repeated enlarge nationalist feelings and excitements, and even the vote pie, still further. In fact, the nationalist vote reservoir at the outset does not feed them; they are feeding and enlarging the nationalist votes.

That is, it is thus not the voters who carry the parties to power; on the contrary, it is the politicians who carry them to power by multiplying a certain type of voter with their discursive encouragements. Here the famous rule of the French philosopher Michel Foucault is at work. Power is effective through discourse and from the bottom up. Indeed, once the political field comes under the dominance of these discourses within a short time, it is inevitable that politicians become still more condemned to these discourses.

Yet these discourses may cause the EU to quickly lose values such as multiculturalism, secularism, anti-racism, and freedom of religion and belief, which it in fact found very late. The EU found these values very late, but within a short time it put them on sale, stamping on them the brand "European Values" with patent rights reserved. Today these values, which make Europe attractive to the whole world, are under serious threat because of the far-right discourses rising within it. If things go on like this, it is even possible to say that nothing will be left of the EU.

For that reason the Özil debate can be considered a good opportunity for Europe. Because probably no event in recent times has driven Europe into such intense self-questioning about where it is heading in relation to immigrant populations as this one has.

Immigrant populations, and those among them who are Muslim, are in fact the first real test of European values such as multiculturalism, secularism and democracy.

The world is becoming more articulated with itself with each passing day. In the future of a world in which population movements increase for one reason or another, it will be impossible to prevent different people from living together more.

No country that will invest in the world of the future can ignore this fact. Everyone has to adjust their position to the world of the future now. Those who cannot adjust will in any case not be able to exist in the world of the future. Those who can already now succeed in seeing differences as a possibility, a source of richness, and turning it into an opportunity will be more advantageous in the world of the future. As for those who cannot manage this, not a trace of them will remain in the world of the future.

Frankly, I am hopeful seeing that German public opinion is assessing the Mesut Özil case well. The picture that emerged with his departure from the national team seems to have led many people who sincerely believe in the so-called "European values" to question seriously the situation they are living in and to think about taking serious measures on it. The words uttered by German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on this matter, warning the German people against racism on the occasion of this event, show how aware he is of the danger.

We hope Germany, as a European country, will not quickly lose the value of multiculturalism or cultural pluralism that it found late. If they assess well the Mesut Özil case, which emerged within them as a shame, a wrong, there is an opportunity and a benefit in it for them. Of course, seeing and making use of this opportunity is up to them.