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Germany
Aiming to Become More Muslim Friendly
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Muslims attending the gathering
were offended by the insinuation that Islam could be radical or violent,
and demanded instead that the German government take steps to make
"Islam equal to Christianity" in Germany. They were equally
unwilling to discuss the main item on the official conference agenda:
"Gender Equality as a Common Value," and refused even to
acknowledge that there might be any connection between Islam and forced
marriage.
While focusing his energy on
expanding the rights if Muslims in German Interior Minister Thomas de
Maizière has been largely silent about the responsibility of Muslim
immigrants to take measures to integrate better into German society.
Germany's new coalition government is signaling that it wants better
relations with the country's Muslim community.
In a series of newspaper, television and radio interviews, Thomas de
Maizière—who was recently sworn in as Germany's new interior minister—has
announced a series of pro-Muslim initiatives apparently designed to
defuse escalating tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims there.
Among other policy initiatives, Maizière says the government plans to
change German immigration laws to make it easier for Muslim immigrants to
obtain dual-citizenship and thus to maintain religious and cultural links
to their countries of origin.
Maizière also says he intends to give Muslims more say in setting the
agenda of the government's ongoing dialogue with the Islamic umbrella
groups that represent the estimated 4.5 million Muslims now living in the
country.
While focusing his energy on expanding the rights of Muslims in
Germany, Maizière has been largely silent about the responsibility of
Muslim immigrants to take measures to integrate better into German
society.
Muslims have been quick to respond to Maizière's multicultural
concessions. They have issued a list of demands that include the official
recognition of Muslim holidays in Germany, as well as the installation of
Muslim clerics in German hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and military
units.
Maizière's outreach to Muslims stems from a 185-page coalition
deal between Germany's two largest parties.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and their
Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), won the general
election on September 22, 2013, but fell short of a majority. They needed
a partner and—after five weeks of negotiations—Merkel's conservatives
reached an agreement with the rival Social Democrats (SPD) on a program
for a new coalition government. The new "grand coalition"
government was inaugurated
on December 17, 2013.
The coalition agreement includes a series of concessions Merkel made
to the SPD, including a pledge to offer dual citizenship to Muslims in
Germany. More specifically, the agreement states that the so-called option
model—which grants automatic German citizenship until the age of 23
to anyone born in the country; after which time the children of foreign
nationals must choose either German citizenship or that of their
parents—will be abolished.
The new regulation will allow people from migrant backgrounds who were
born and raised in Germany to be able to apply for dual citizenship, a
significant concession to Germany's 3.5 million-strong Turkish
population, which forms the largest ethnic minority in the country.
The center-right CDU/CSU have long opposed dual nationality over fears
it could lead to divided loyalties. But the center-left SPD—which
insisted there would be no coalition deal without the right to dual
citizenship—has argued that forcing young people to choose their
nationality leads to an identity conflict. The reform would presumably
also help the SPD's popularity with Muslim voters in future elections.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Istanbul-based newspaper Hürriyet
on January 25 (German translation here),
Maizière elaborated on the government's plans:
The new government has a big plan. We want new regulations for dual
citizenship. It involves people who were born and raised in Germany and
have two nationalities. This directly applies to more than half a million
people. Of these, there are very many whose parents are from Turkey.
It was not entirely wrong for the previous arrangements to require
that at a certain age a decision for the German nationality should be
taken. But we have seen that this leads to conflicts. In the families,
between parents and adolescents, many mothers and fathers feel that a
decision by an 18-year-old to choose Germany is directed against
the parents rather than as a decision for Germany.
To resolve these conflicts and problems, we want to change the law so
that children who are born and raised in Germany to foreign parents will
no longer have to decide between their German and their other
nationality. This bill will be one of the first that I will present.
The compromise on dual nationality was fiercely resisted by many
conservatives, including Maizière's immediate predecessor, former
Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich.
In an interview
with the Münchner Merkur, Friedrich, a member of the CSU and a
well-known hardliner on immigration and security issues, said the SPD's
proposal threatens Germany's very integrity:
If we give millions of people dual citizenship, which they will hand
down to their descendants, we are building a permanent Turkish minority
in Germany. That means a long-term change in the identity of German
society. I am against it... At some point you have to decide. It is not
unreasonable to demand that one choose Germany as his new home. This does
not mean a person has to forget his or her roots.
But Aydan Özoğuz, a German politician of Turkish descent who led the
SPD's coalition negotiations with the CDU over the dual nationality
issue, says that rather than promote the perpetuation of a parallel Muslim
society in Germany, dual citizenship will promote integration.
Özoğuz also
says the agreed-upon condition—that individuals eligible for dual
citizenship must be both born and raised in Germany—is too
restrictive. She says the coalition agreement should be renegotiated and
expanded so that anyone born in Germany—regardless of whether they
were raised in the country or speak any German—should be given German
citizenship. This would open the door to potentially millions of new
Turkish-German dual citizens, regardless of age.
Representatives of the Turkish community in Germany are demanding even more
concessions. They want to see dual citizenship for all foreign residents
in Germany, regardless of whether they were born or raised in Germany.
This would include the more than one million immigrants living
permanently in Germany who cannot speak German.
In any event, the debate over dual citizenship in Germany is far from
resolved, and it appears as though the CDU is losing control over the
outcome to the multiculturalists within the SPD.
Meanwhile, Maizière says Muslims should have a greater say in setting
the agenda for the annual German
Islam Conference. Launched by former Interior Minister Wolfgang
Schäuble in 2006, the conference has been billed as the "central
forum for dialogue" between German politicians and representatives
of the more than four million Muslims living in Germany.
The stated aim of the annual event—where Muslim organizations and
individuals are invited to sit at the table with representatives from
federal, state and local government—is to promote Muslim integration into
German society.
But in recent years, Muslims have been angered by the German
government's efforts to enlist the support and cooperation of Muslims at
the conference to help in the fight against the radicalization of young
Muslims in Germany.
The seventh
annual German Islam Conference, for example, held in April 2012, was
supposed to be focused on finding ways to deal with the spiraling rates
of forced marriages and domestic violence among Muslims in Germany.
The main topic for discussion at the conference, however, was not on
the official agenda: the unprecedented nationwide
campaign by Islamic radicals to distribute 25 million free copies of
the Koran—"A Koran in Every Home"—with the stated aim of
converting millions of Germans to Islam.
German authorities view the Koran project as a recruiting campaign for
radical Islam. Security analysts say the campaign is also a
public-relations gimmick intended to persuade Germans that the
Salafists—who want to implement Islamic Sharia law in Germany—are
transparent and "citizen-friendly."
Former Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich opened the one-day
conference by declaring that Islamic extremism has no place in Germany.
"We all agree that Salafist extremism is not acceptable and does not
work in a free society, as we have in Germany," he insisted.
"Religion must not be abused in an ideological bid for power."
Friedrich urged Muslim representatives attending the conference to
join him in condemning the Salafists, but Muslims declined to meet him
even half way. Instead, they dismissed fears over the Salafists as
"hysterical" and "misguided."
The chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, Kenan Kolat,
personally intervened to prevent the Salafist issue from becoming part of
the official conference agenda. In an interview
with the newspaper Rheinische Post, Kolat justified his action by
saying, "A hysterical debate is not helpful."
The chairman of the German Islamic Council, Ali Kizilkaya, told German
public radio that non-Muslims were engaged in "a panicked discussion"
about the Salafist campaign. He insisted: "It is definitely not the
spirit of the Koran to foment unrest in society."
Muslims were equally unwilling to discuss the main item on the
official conference agenda: "Gender Equality as a Common
Value." Conference attendees refused even to acknowledge that there
might be any connection between Islam and forced marriage.
German officials were left trying to put the best spin on the event,
which ended without a joint press conference because of lingering Muslim
pique at the "offensive" comments that were uttered at the
press conference ending the event in 2011.
The eighth
annual German Islam Conference, held in May 2013, also ended in
failure when Friedrich wanted find ways the government could work
together with moderate Muslims in Germany to combat Islamism and
extremism.
Muslims attending the gathering were offended by the insinuation that
Islam could be radical or violent, and demanded instead that the German
government take steps to make "Islam equal to Christianity" in
Germany.
The director of inter-religious dialogue at the Turkish-Islamic Union for Islamic Affairs
[DITIB], Bekir Alboga, complained
that Friedrich had rendered the German Islam Conference
"pointless" by bringing "security policy themes too far to
the fore." Alboga said the conference "makes no more sense in
its current form. I do not see any genuine partnership."
In a speech
he delivered at the conference, Alboga accused Germany of promoting
"extremism and radicalization" by not doing enough to stop
"Islamophobia."
Later, in an interview
with the German news agency Deutsche Welle, Alboga said he was hoping
that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be defeated in the federal
elections so that the Muslim-German dialogue could continue in a more
positive way with a new government led by the more Muslim-friendly Social
Democrats. "I yearn for a real partnership," he said.
It should be noted that Alboga's DITIB is an arm of the Turkish
government, which controls over 900 mosques in Germany. Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long used DITIB to dissuade
Turkish immigrants from integrating into German society.
Alboga's complaints were echoed by the Secretary-General of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany,
Aiman Mazyek, who said the Islam conference "urgently needs a
general overhaul" because it is not a "dialogue among
equals."
Kolat, the head of Germany's Turkish Community, called on the German government to create a
new Integration Ministry that would take responsibility for organizing
the German Islam Conference away from the Interior Ministry.
Maizière now appears resigned to concede the debate. In an interview
with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine on January 21, he
said the German Islam Conference should redefine its role and that he
would personally meet with the heads of Islamic groups in Germany to
discuss their expectations from the conference.
Muslim groups responded by demanding
that the German government officially recognize Muslim holidays in
Germany, beginning with the Eid al-Adha, the
feast of sacrifice. In practice, this would require all federal, state
and local government offices in Germany, as well as all non-Muslim German
businesses, schools and stores, to be closed in observance of a Muslim
religious festival.
Islamic groups have also called on the government establish Islam on
the same footing as Christianity in Germany. As a first step, they said,
Muslim chaplains should be placed in all public institutions in the
country. In addition, prisons, hospitals and nursing homes should begin
serving halal foods that are prepared according to Islamic dietary
guidelines. "This would be an important signal to the Muslim
population," Kolat said
in Berlin.
In his interview
with the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, Maizière was asked if Islam
belongs to Germany. The interviewer was referring the declaration
by former German President Christian Wulff—during a keynote speech to
mark the 20th anniversary of German reunification in October 2010—that
"Islam belongs in Germany." Wulff's comments set off a debate
about the role of Islam in Germany that still continues.
Maizière responded: "What is meant by 'Islam'? My understanding
of the Islamic religion is that the individual Muslim is strong. That is
why I would rather talk about Muslims in Germany. Muslims belong to
Germany. This is a sentence that is more focused towards people. Towards
people of faith, who educate their children religiously, and who live
side-by-side with us in society. That is why I say quite clearly that
Muslims belong to Germany."
Soeren Kern is a
Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo
de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and
Twitter.
Marine
Le Pen's Worldview: Oppose America, Embrace Iran
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your friends to like this.
Le Pen's worldview seems comes
from the man sitting next to her, Aymeric Chauprade, who taught
geopolitics at the Joint Defense College of the French army, until he was
fired after writing a book in which he voiced the possibility that that
the 9/11 attacks might have been part of a deliberate plot conceived in
Washington to start an American war against the rest of the world.
Chauprade is being groomed to
become the leader of the FN group in the European Parliament after the
next French general elections.
Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National (FN), the most
likely winner of the upcoming municipal and European elections in France,
held a press conference on January 22, in which she presented the foreign
policy of her party, including a passionate plea for France to break
off its relations with Saudi Arabia and ally itself to Iran.
Sitting next to her foreign policy advisor Aymeric Chauprade, Le Pen
advocated that France should sever its links with Saudi Arabia,
"America's best ally" and a "dangerous country ruled by
extremist clans, who, since the origin of Wahhabism, have but one goal:
to dominate global Islam and turn it into jihad against all other
civilizations."
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Marine Le Pen
(right) and her foreign policy advisor Aymeric Chauprade. Image source:
Wikimedia/Marie-Lan Nguyen (Le Pen); Wikimedia/Realpolitik-tv
(Chauprade).
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Marine Le Pen is apparently of the idea that the world is currently
under threat from two evil types of global imperialism trying to
subjugate France: American "euro-mondialism" and Islamism. In
Le Pen's view, both the Americans (with the European Union as an American
tool) and the Islamists want to dominate the world and destroy France's
sovereignty and identity.
Her view seems to be that there is moral equivalence between the U.S.
and Islamism; that both are equally eager to dominate the world, and that
sometimes they even cynically use each other to foster their own goals.
At the conference, Le Pen called on her "moderate Muslim
compatriots" to help the FN fight the violent Islamists, who, with
Saudi support, are trying to impose their will on the world and France.
To counter the Saudis, Le Pen said, France should support Iran.
The Saudis, she explained, want aggressively to isolate Iran, but the
position of women is far better in Iran than in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or
even Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. Apparently she is unaware of
both the rapes
in Iranian prisons, the custom of arranging "marriages"
for even an hour as a form of "legal" prostitution, and
that just last year Iran passed a
law that allows men to marry their adopted daughters at the age of
13, or even younger, with her family's permission. All a man therefore
has to do to take advantage of legalized paedophilia is to
"adopt" his victim, marry her, then legally rape her.
Le Pen claimed that it is in France's interest that Iran does not
acquire nuclear arms, but Iran should be allowed to further develop
nuclear energy for civilian purposes. She seems dangerously unaware, at
best, that Iran's nuclear program is not at all for peaceful purposes. As
she mentioned herself, however, Iran possesses the second biggest gas and
oil reserves in the world, but she fails to wonder why a country which
such an abundance of gas and oil would need nuclear energy for civilian
purposes. if Iran were merely developing energy for civilian purposes, it
would not need to enrich uranium
or plutonium. The Iranians are enriching uranium and plutonium with
only one purpose – and it has nothing
to do with civilian purposes.
The boycott of Iran, Le Pen said, should stop. French companies should
return to Iran and follow the example of Germany and even America, who
are eager to play an important role in Iran. The Germans are discreetly
positioning themselves in Iran, which, she claims, proves that their
international policies are "much smarter than ours." By that
logic, she presumably would have considered countries that enabled the
Third Reich by doing business with it in the 1930s "much smarter
than ours," too.
Le Pen's deeply misinformed idea that America is trying to subjugate
France blinds her to the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is at
least as despotic as Saudi Arabia; as great a sponsor of Islamic
terrorism; as intent on "putting down
Israel," and as determined to impose political Islam on the word
-- just a Shi'ite version of Islam as opposed to a Sunni version of
Islam. "Saudi Arabia supports extremist Salafists everywhere,"
Le Pen said. "It is clear that the Saudis support al-Qaeda and have
been doing so for a very long time." She however fails to mention
that the West is as much under threat from Shi'ite terrorist groups
backed by Iran, such as Hezbollah, as it is from Sunni terrorist groups,
such as al-Qaeda.
Le Pen's worldview, it seems, has been heavily influenced by the man
sitting next to her during her press conference: Aymeric Chauprade is a
45-year-old with a doctorate in geopolitics, who taught at the Joint
Defense College of the French army for ten years, until he was fired in
2009 after writing a book in which he voiced the possibility that the
9/11 attacks might have been part of a deliberate plot conceived in
Washington to start an American war against the rest of the world.
In Chauprade's view, America is just as bad as the Islamists. On
January 30, one week after Le Pen's press conference, Chauprade posted
a video of his own in which he even mentioned Israel. He said that
both the United States and Israel are the allies of the Saudis in their
attempts to destroy moderate Arab regimes that are trying to modernize
Islam.
France, Chauprade said, has six million Sunni Muslims living within
its borders. It is not in France's interest that the Saudis succeed in
radicalizing these people. Hence, France should break its relationship
with Saudi Arabia and ally itself with Iran. He added that, ironically,
the United States is quietly disengaging itself from the Saudis --
although from recent
columns in the New York Times, it would seem as if it is the Saudis
are disengaging themselves from the United States, out of fear of
America's passive support for the Iranian nuclear program -- the U.S.
must appear a deeply untrustworthy
ally. The Saudis assume Iran would target them even before Israel, in
order to acquire the Saudi oilfields. The U.S., Chauprade said, is
attempting to acquire greater influence in Iran, because the Americans
have noticed the enormous strategic potential of Iran, which in the end
might prove to be more advantageous to their imperialist goals than Saudi
Arabia.
And when that happens, Chauprade warns, the Americans might use
France's good relations with the Saudis and their sponsorship of
international terrorism as an instrument to embarrass France.
In the "geopolitical" worldview of Marine Le Pen's major
foreign policy advisor, the biggest Satan of all seems to be America; so
Israel, only democracy in the Middle East, but America's closest ally, is
therefore equally bad.
It does not come as much of a surprise, then, that Iran's nuclear
program and Hezbollah's terrorist activities do not seem to bother the FN
leadership.
Chauprade, by the way, is one of the leading candidates of the FN for
the European Parliament [EP] elections next May, and is being groomed to
become the leader of the FN group in the EP when Marine Le Pen, the
current EP group leader of the FN, moves on to the French national
parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, after the next French general
elections.
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