BERLIN, March 28 — What's the capital of Germany? Well, pretty much everybody knows that one. It's Berlin, of course.
A street scene in Berlin shows a clash of cultures: a billboard of a planned Islamic center and one advertising lingerie.
At a protest last month in Stuttgart: "We belong here! Even without an attitude test!"
But how about these questions: "Which convention gathered at St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt in 1848?" "Name three mountains in Germany." "Which German physicist revolutionized medical diagnosis in 1895?"
If you are a foreigner living in Germany and do not know that the National Assembly was the convention that gathered in 1848, or that the 1895 scientist was Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, you might not be able to become a German citizen — not, at least, if a new citizenship test for foreigners is adopted by the national government.
Lately it seems that just about everybody in this country is talking about the proposed citizenship test, which would add to an already fairly long list of requirements to become a German citizen. The test is favored by Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country's main conservative parties but opposed by many on the left, as well as some experts on immigration.
The 100-question test, drawn up by the state of Hesse but being considered for nationwide use, has received a lot of comment, in part because of the widespread belief that many German university students would have trouble passing it, so how fair would it be to impose it on immigrants relatively unschooled in German culture?
But at a deeper level the debate about the test, echoing the immigration debate in other European countries, illustrates the difficulty that Europe has with the immigration question. And the plain fact now is that the prevalence of Muslims among the immigrants — and fears that Islamic extremism is infiltrating Europe — has given the usual immigration debate a special edge.
The world certainly took note a couple of weeks ago when a new Dutch law came into effect requiring all would-be immigrants to take a Dutch citizenship test, based largely on a two-hour videotape that immigrants are strongly encouraged to view. The test costs $420 each time it is taken, and the kit to study for it, including the video, an additional $80.
The video is certainly a general introduction to the Dutch way of life, including how to open a bank account and register for the national health service. But there are also much-discussed scenes of nude bathing at North Sea beaches and of gay men kissing in public, presumably to give immigrants a sense of the prevailing Dutch cultural and moral values.
But what critics of the video are saying is that the underlying and discriminatory message is this: Do not come to the Netherlands if your religion makes you so socially conservative that you would be uncomfortable with the Dutch way of life. Or, as the narrator of the video puts it: "You have to start all over again. You have to realize what this means before you decide to come here."
Germany, though home to roughly 2.3 million guest workers of Turkish origin, has been particularly slow in grappling with the immigration issue. It was only in 2000, for example, that Parliament passed a law allowing people born in Germany of foreign parents to become citizens if they so choose, and if they meet some fairly stringent criteria.
The law was expanded in 2005 to provide for the cultural and linguistic education of would-be immigrants, each of whom is required to take 600 class hours of German language instruction and an additional 30 hours on the country's history, culture and way of life.
To its advocates, a nationwide citizenship test would just be a way of ensuring that applicants are truly ready to be German. "The state is allowed to ask whether citizenship is a conscious decision," Mrs. Merkel said, arguing for a national citizenship test. "Citizenship can't be granted with a wink and a nod."
But citizenship is not given with just a wink and a nod, opponents of the test say, citing a list of requirements that are already stiff enough: fluency in German, economic independence, a renunciation of extremist groups. Besides, the critics argue, the test would be a poor way to screen out extremists or terrorists, because people would find ways to pass it whether they really accepted the principles of German democracy or not.
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