This post is about fear of flying and xenophobia. Not related other than being the prevalent feelings I've had in the last 36 hours. Please scroll down if not interested in my stupid fear of flying. I won't mind. Honest.

I fly a lot, because it's quick, so much cheaper thank taking trains and ferries, and definitely not because I like it. I get dizzy with fear of heights, I also get pangs of worry that this heavy heavy thing is actually going to be in mid air, miles above the ground, just like that. And not drop. Usually. I've tried tranquilisers but they make me into an alien in human form (once, I almost stayed on in Vancouver due to utter relaxation and not a care in the world about catching my plane in time). And I'm still afraid when the motors roar in anticipation of take off. What keeps me in control is the water of life, good old Whisky. You see, I'm a well adapted foreigner on these shores.

So I had my usual Flachmann with me which enables me to avoid the more serious panic attacks of the sweaty, hyperventilating and crying type. In fact, I quite like my not so wee dram and the freedom of travelling, reading on the train to the airport, in the airport lounge, buying presents for my friends and family, it's all rather jolly and enjoyable. Until the plane takes off and I fall into a stupor between the land of nod and sudden startles of panic. I'm still not sure if I should blame the whisky, the cabin pressure, the attempt of Ryanair to only give its passenger the exact amount of oxygen necessary for bare survival, or whether it's just me. Without fault, after the first critical point of take off is over, the fasten seat belt sign off, and I attempt to read my book, I sink into sleep. Instantly. There is absolutly nothing I can do about it. Then, every five minutes, I wake up with a panic stricken startle, convinced the plane is about to crash. Fall asleep again, startle myself awake again. By the end of the 80 minutes flight, I've had enough of travel and am in a seriously bad mood. Ready for a whisky. Actually, come to think of it, I hate travelling if it involves planes, although I can get used to it in the really big jets for long hauls. There's hope. Interestingly, I got the same panic attack induced by fear of heights when snorkeling in Cuba, I thought that was pretty hilarious, if it hadn't been so scary. I was seriously panicstricken to drop into a coral reef and crush the colourful fish... Incidentally, I was wearing a safety ring ...

For all these fear of heights anecdotes, I've come back to a country (Germany) where xenophobia is alive and kicking. I'm exhausted after hours of discussion with every single family friend complaining about the Turkish youngsters, lack of integration, rowdiness and honour killings. Calls for them to go "home", not to allow them German citizenship (although they, and sometimes their parents, were born here) and general distrust and utter reluctance to have anything to do with them. Them. Us. Complaints about the head scarf being a religious statement to provoke "us" Germans. Fear of living in a country that is no longer one's own. Overestimates of number of people of Turkish decent actually living here. It's frightening, especially as it comes from educated and liberal folk. I'm drained trying to argue against gross generalisations, stereotypes, and in fact plain racism, which seems to be the most normal thing here now. I feel a stranger here myself, but I'm also confronted with the result of avoidance that has prevailed in German politics since the arrival of the so called "guest workers" from many southern European countries, mainly from Turkey.

The issue is quite simple but nobody seems to be able to share my perspective. School starts at the age of 6 or 7 here, and if a child was born into a non-German speaking family, well tough. They won't get any help developing their language. Instead, they'll be classed into the low achieving group, then go on to the Hauptschule (the school for the really low achievers, nowadays mainly of Turkish origin, who are not actually stupid but simply don't read and write German properly), get disillusioned as there's no work for people from Hauptschule, get angry, annoy people, vandalise, become antisocial elements. Often, the family also doesn't value schooling too much, as they tend to come from rural parts of Turkey. Poverty and Turkish descent become interchangeable concepts, where Turkish people live, Germans move out, creating ghettos which in turn give the idea that in these parts a German cannot feel safe because we're "flooded" by so many foreigners.

In Britain, to start with, you are British if born in the UK. It's a start to feeling part and responsible as a citizen in the country you live in. Turkish kids born in Germany are Turkish, and even if they change citizenship (which they can do), any German will continue to consider them to be Turkish. In the UK, school starts at 5. Primary school takes longer, giving also the non-English speakers a real chance to catch up before reaching Secondary School. On top of this, comprehensive schools prevail, giving more chances, and everyone is sort of expected to be able to do Highers or A-Levels if they want to. In Germany, nobody expects a Turkish child to do well in school. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. It could be changed by changing attitudes to start with, establishing early intervention in the form of reducing the age of starting school, or creating a prep school or language support for kids from families where German isn't spoken in the home.

My schooltime friend is the proof of what it takes not to be left behind by the system: Spanish born, her parents never mastered German and only Spanish was spoken in the home. However, as both parents worked, she was sent to full day nursery school from the age of 3. We became friends at nursery. By the time we started school, she spoke German as well as me, and she passed her Abitur, went to University and simply fulfilled her potential. My primary school friend from Turkey was simply taken out of the class into kindergarden for one year, where all kids were younger than her, and there was no specific support to proactively improve her language. I don't know what became of her but I can guess. At University, I never even saw a student of Turkish descent.

How is it that after 35 years of inviting guest workers to Germany, an invitation answered by people and their families rather than "workers", who certainly weren't guests but stayed on, there is still no serious thought of how to break the vicious circle of xenophobia, ghettoisation, lack of language skils, opportunities, ambition, achievement and resulting antisocial behaviour, bringing us back to xenophobia? But Paris has shaken us up, we have to get our act together and change something, to keep the peace and create at least a shadow of social justice. And it's not good enough to look at the dangers of continuing our road of avoidance, we must also look at instances where multicultural living works. Because it does more often than it doesn't.

In the meantime, I guess I need to keep challenging people's views.