Concept
Leitkultur is a German concept, which can be translated as 'guiding culture' or 'leading culture', less literally as 'common culture', 'core culture' or 'basic culture'. The term was first introduced in 1998 by the German-Arab sociologist Bassam Tibi and from 2000 onward the term figured prominently in the national political debate in Germany about national identity and immigration. Bassam Tibi first suggested a 'Leitkultur' in his 1998 book Europa ohne Identität ('Europe without identity'). He defined it in terms of what are commonly called western values, and spoke of a European rather than a German 'Leitkultur'. "The values needed for a core culture are those of modernity: democracy, secularism, the Enlightenment, human rights and civil society." (B. Tibi, Europa ohne Identität, p. 154). These core values are similar to those of the 'liberal-democratic basic order' (Freiheitlich-demokratische Grundordnung) which is considered the foundational value of the post-war West Germany, and the unified German state after the German reunification of 1990. Tibi advocated cultural pluralism based on value consensus, rather than monoculturalism. However, he also opposed value-blind multiculturalism, and the development of parallel societies where immigrant minorities live and work, isolated from western society around them. Tibi advocated a structured immigration policy, and opposed illegal immigration into Germany. Theo Sommer, then publisher of Die Zeit, was one of the first to use the term German core culture, as part of a debate about the assimilation of immigrants in Germany, and national core values: "Integration necessarily implies a far-reaching assimilation onto the German guiding culture and its core values" („Der Kopf zählt, nicht das Tuch“, Zeit 30/1998). However, the term only became a national political issue in October 2000. Friedrich Merz, then leader of the Christian-Democratic CDU in the Bundestag, wrote an article for Die Welt, rejecting multiculturalism, and advocated controls on immigration and compulsory assimilation in a German core culture.