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  3. (1) Yet this buoyancy is checked by equally potent anxieties. Germany’s best-

(1) Yet this buoyancy is checked by equally potent anxieties. Germany’s best-

游客2024-09-07  29
问题    (1) Yet this buoyancy is checked by equally potent anxieties. Germany’s best-selling book is "Deutschland schafft sich ab" ("Germany does away with itself), a warning by a director of the Bundesbank, since forced out of his job, that too much child-bearing by the poor and by immigrants (especially Muslims), and too little by the educated classes, dooms the country to decline. The book’s popularity has shaken Germany. Xenophobic parties play little role in politics, but the resentments that feed their popularity elsewhere are just as potent. A third of Germans think the country is overrun by foreigners, according to a newly published poll: a majority favour "sharply restricting" Muslim religious practice. Over a tenth would even welcome a Fuhrer who would govern with "a strong hand"—a sign that the embers of extremism still glow.
   (2) Conservative politicians, long fearful of being outflanked on the right, are pandering. Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), declared this month that Germany needs no further immigration from Turkey or the Arab world. Germany is "not an immigration country", he insisted, contradicting a hard-won consensus among conservatives. Characteristically, Angela Merkel, the CDU chancellor, sought to placate anti-immigrant sentiment without stooping to populism. Multiculturalism has "absolutely failed", she said on October 16th, implying that immigrants would be expected to integrate better into German society. But she balanced this by admitting that Islam "is part of Germany".
   (3) Despite their economic strength, Germans fear the worst. They believe their country "has passed its zenith", says Mrs. Kocher, the pollster. This pessimism shapes Germany’s dealings with the rest of the world. Unlike most countries, Germany is not driven by any great ambition, but rather by the fear that "things could fall apart if they don’t hold on to stability," suggests Mr. Kornblum.
   (4) This year’s euro crisis brought out both the apprehension and the arrogance. With Greece’s near default, the promise that the euro would be as stable as the Deutschmark suddenly looked like the lie Germans had always suspected it to be. As the crisis mounted Mrs. Merkel delayed giving German backing to the inevitable rescue for wobbly euro countries. A €750 billion ($920 billion) package was eventually agreed on after a hectic weekend of negotiation in May. To Germans, this looked like the start of the dreaded "transfer union", a bottomless commitment to subsidise Greeks’ early retirement, fix an Italian budget tattered by tax evasion and clear up after Spain’s burst property bubble. "Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks. And the Acropolis while you’re at it," demanded Bild, a popular tabloid. Mrs. Merkel played to the gallery by suggesting that persistent euro sinners should be thrown out of the group.
   (5) These un-European outbursts startled not just Greeks, who brandished swastikas in response, but Europeans generally. They had grown up believing that the Germans saw their own interests as inseparable from those of their fellow Europeans. Now they glimpsed a different, ugly German, smug about his economy and untroubled by his past. Some pundits argue that Germany’s brutality to Greece during the Second World War should have tempered its irritation with the Greeks.
   (6) The crisis has created a new pecking order, at least temporarily. Germany, with its high-competitiveness, low-debt economy, is on top. The rest are having to adjust, including France, traditionally a joint leader of the European project. This is unsettling. "You get an enormous sense of German self-righteousness, which is very difficult to take, especially when there are solid foundations for it," says Francois Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. France, which has lagged behind Germany in making structural reforms, feels its influence waning. "France has to do its homework to be able to restore some level of influence in Europe," says Jean-Pierre Jouyet, a former French minister for Europe, now head of France’s financial regulatory authority. [br] Why is the book "Deutschland schafft sich ab" popular with German?
选项 A、It shakes the country’s economy.
B、It gives warning on the decline of the country.
C、It reminds Germans of the overwhelming foreigners.
D、It points out the widespread Muslim religious practice.
答案 B
解析 本题考查细节理解。考点位于第一段。该书受欢迎的原因在于它警示德国人经济萧条的现状。
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