Category Archives: Germany

Nazis attack German Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two young neo-Nazis wielding baseball bats attacked a group of Muslims on their way to a mosque in the eastern German state of Thuringia, police said Sunday. A 23-year-old required medical treatment for injuries to his arm after the attack on Saturday evening in Nordhausen, some 250 kilometres southwest of Berlin. The assailants fled after hurling verbal abuse at their victims from Morocco, Russia and Pakistan, a police spokesman said.

Attacks on foreigners are not uncommon in the eastern part of Germany, where unemployment is high and right-wing groups have an easy time recruiting new members. In a case that made international headlines last year, a mob of Germans chased a group of Indians through the eastern town of Muegeln and tried to kick down the door of the restaurant where they sought sanctuary.

Earth Times, 22 June 2008

The racism behind integration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

IRR report cover“In most European countries, integration is simply a euphemism for assimilation, the report says. The driving force is the notion of a national culture. In Germany this expresses itself through blood-based citizenship and a Leitkultur(dominant culture) and in France through citizenship by birth and earth and by laïcité (secularism). Norway has the idea of likhet (sameness); the Netherlands has verzuiling (religious/cultural blocs).

“One expects the extreme right to embrace such notions, but the report finds centre-left parties also using these racist sentiments to strategise. They may be liberal about immigration but, when it comes to Muslims, they fall prey to an Islamophobia that is ‘nourished by a mixture of feminism and secularism’.”

Ziauddin Sardar reviews Liz Fekete’s Integration, Islamophobia and civil rights in Europe, a new report published by the Institute of Race Relations.

New Statesman, 22 May 2008

‘Anti-mosque initiatives tap into a fear of Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spiegel Online interviews Oliver Geden, an expert on right-wing populism at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Regarding the tactics of far-right parties like the BZÖ and FPÖ in Austria, Geden states:

“These parties are very clever. They usually focus on the question of minarets, so they can say: ‘We’re not calling for a ban on Islam, but Muslims don’t need minarets to pray.’ If they claim that mosques or even small prayer halls should be banned, then many people would say that was going too far…. The man in the street has probably never thought about minarets before, but it taps into his fear of Islam and he can easily relate to the issue. The right-wing populist parties have an underlying narrative which is against Muslims, but in public they only say that they are against minarets, which they see as symbols of Islamic superiority. Then, if they are accused of being racist, they can counter by saying: ‘Well, we’re only against minarets – what’s your problem?'”

Far-right groups launch anti-Islamisation campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamisation of cities demoFar-right groups are calling for a ban on the building of new mosques as part of a new campaign to stop the spread of radical Islam in Europe. Belgium’s far-right Vlaams Belang party teamed up with radical groups from Austria and Germany on Thursday to launch a Charter to “fight the Islamisation of West-European cities”.

“We are not opposed to freedom of religion but we don’t want Muslims to impose their way of life and traditions over here because much of it is not compatible with our way of life,” Vlaams Belang’s Filip Dewinter told Radio Netherlands Worldwide. “We can’t accept headscarves in our schools, forced marriages and the ritual slaughter of animals.”

In particular, the coalition called for a moratorium on new mosques, which they say “act as catalysts for the Islamisation of entire neighbourhoods.”

“We already have over 6,000 mosques in Europe, which are not only a place to worship but also a symbol of radicalisation, some financed by extreme groups in Saudi Arabia or Iran,” Mr Dewinter explained, citing a large new mosque being built in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. “Its minarets are six floors high, higher than the illuminations of the Feyenoord soccer stadium!” he cried. “These kinds of symbols have to stop.”

However, it is unclear how the group plans to tackle perceived threats such as the teaching of the Koran, apart from holding rallies in European cities with high immigrant populations.

Aside from Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), there was a notable absence of other political heavyweights during the press conference in the Flemish city of Antwerp. A spokesman for Italy’s Allianza Nazionale said he was unaware of the Charter, though his party too was looking at the issue of the new mosques. Dutch right-wing maverick politician Geert Wilders, who is currently producing a film about the danger of the Koran, also stayed away.

But Mr Dewinter seems unruffled by the paltry political support: “This movement may be small today but I am convinced it will grow into something major.”

Radio Netherlands, 17 January 2008

Anti-Islamic party is playing with fear

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Koln (2)The four young men look unremarkable in Cologne’s downtown pedestrian zone. Now and then they press a pamphlet into somebody’s hand with a smile.

These young men handing out flyers work for an organization called “Pro Cologne”. They are gathering support in the otherwise liberal-minded and open city of Cologne to protest an enormous mosque slated for construction in the district of Ehrenfeld. Around 300 members of Pro Cologne have collected more than 20,000 signatures, and a few unsavory characters on the German far right hope to use their success as a way to win seats in state parliaments.

With a new political party called “Pro NRW” (Pro North-Rhine Westphalia), stemming from the Pro Cologne movement, two leaders named Markus Beisicht and Manfred Rouhs want to win enough votes to enter the state parliament in 2010. About a dozen Pro Cologne spinoffs are already preparing local campaigns across the state – in Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen and Bottrop, among other places. Where no new mosques are being planned, Beisicht says, the party will just fight smaller existing mosques.

The methods of the anti-mosque movement have been studied by far-right groups in other countries, like Austria’s FPÖ (“Austrian Freedom Party”) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) party. In November, Markus Beisicht gave a special presentation on the Cologne movement to FPÖ members in Graz. “We will lead our fight across Europe,” he told them, “whether it’s in Graz, Cologne or Vienna.” He’s invited friends from the FPÖ, Vlaams Belang and France’s National Front to a big “Anti-Islam Congress” in Cologne next September.

Spiegel Onlne, 3 January 2008

German Muslims angry at ‘anti-foreigner’ campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BERLIN – German Muslim groups on Wednesday accused a senior politician in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party of stirring up hostility against foreigners in a bid to win a regional election.

Roland Koch of the Christian Democrats (CDU) has focused his campaign for re-election as premier of the prosperous western state of Hesse on crime, in particular offences by foreigners. He reacted to an assault on a German pensioner by two youths – one Greek, one Turkish – in a Munich railway station by saying Germany had too many young foreign criminals and urging an end to “multicultural” coddling of immigrants.

The brutal attack, caught on a surveillance camera and played repeatedly on German television in recent days, prompted calls for tougher sentencing, boot camps and even the deportation of criminals of foreign origins.

“The debate is shameful and scandalous,” head of the TGD Turkish Communities in Germany Kenan Kolat told Reuters on Wednesday, saying the deportation issue was “political arson”. “This is pure populism,” he said, urging Merkel to speak out against it.

Germany is home to about 15 million people with an immigrant background – about 18 percent of the population – and Merkel has talked often about the need to integrate the country’s 3.2 million Muslims, most of whom are of Turkish origin. But she says immigrants must accept German culture and won rapturous applause at a conference of her mostly Roman Catholic party last month for saying mosques should not dwarf churches.

Reuters, 2 January 2008

Update:  See also criticisms by Stephen Kramer of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who has said that Koch’s campaign “can hardly be distinguished from the NPD,” a neo-Nazi party.

To believe in a European utopia before Muslims arrived is delusional

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It has become a Europe-wide habit to refer to Muslims in particular and migrants in general as though they are barbarians who must either be civilised or banished, before they pollute the egalitarian societies in which they were either born or now live. Lacking all sense of humility, self-awareness and historical literacy, Europe’s political class acts as though these communities not only manifest homophobia, sexism, antisemitism, political violence and social unrest, but also as though they invented them and introduced them to an otherwise utopian continent….

“Herein lies the problem with Enlightenment values, as they have been promoted in recent years. The values are fine. But those who champion them most fervently also do so most selectively. They embrace Muslim women campaigning against sexism, but ignore those fighting racism, Islamophobia or war. They attack Muslim fundamentalist homophobes on housing estates, but align themselves with Christian fundamentalist homophobes in the White House. They demand secularism and assimilation, but view every action by Muslims and immigrants as essentially foreign or religious.”

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 10 December 2007

Muslims slam Merkel’s mosque remark

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Angela MerkelBERLIN — German Muslims have hit out at Chancellor Angela Merkel for suggesting that mosque minarets should not be higher than church steeples, saying her provocative remarks were politically motivated.

“We must be on guard against sparking artificial discussions for political purposes which have little connection with reality,” Bekir Alboga, spokesman for the Coordination Council of Muslims, an umbrella organization for Muslims in Germany, said.

Merkel, a Lutheran pastor’s daughter, told a congress of her conservative Christian Democrats that “we must take care that mosque cupolas are not built demonstratively higher than church steeples”.

Merkel’s fellow conservatives in Bavaria have been saying for months that minarets should not dwarf steeples. Local residents are up in arms about plans to build mosques in Berlin, Munich and Cologne. Christians in Cologne do not want the city’s skyline – now dominated by one of the world’s largest cathedrals – to be altered by two tall minarets.

Islamophobic remarks have gained momentum after Merkel’s conservative party came to power in November 2005. In statements endorsed by Merkel’s party last June, Germany’s top cardinal warned against “uncritical tolerance” which could lead to Islam enjoying equal standing with Christianity in the country.

Islam Online, 7 December 2007

German neo-Nazis stage mosque protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NPD mosque protestBERLIN — Members of a German neo-Nazi party demonstrated Saturday in Frankfurt against the construction of a mosque in an area which already has two.

About 200 people marched shouting “Stop the Islamisation of Germany,” said Joerg Krebs, a spokesman for the local branch of the NPD, a neo-Nazi party. “We don’t want a big mosque in Hausen,” a Frankfurt quarter, “as there are already two mosques.”

The mosque is expected to cost about 10 million euros. Germany is home to some 3.4 million Muslims and there are 159 mosques scattered over the country. Some 900 people in the city held a counter-demonstration Saturday against the neo-Nazi rally.

AFP, 20 October 2007

Campaigns for ban on mosques across Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Koln demoFrom London’s docklands to the rolling hills of Tuscany, from southern Austria to Amsterdam and Cologne, the issue of Islamic architecture and its impact on citadels of “western civilisation” is increasingly contentious.

The far right is making capital from Islamophobia by focusing on the visible symbols of Islam in Europe. In Switzerland it is the far-right SVP that is setting the terms of the debate.

Next door in Austria the far right leader Jörg Haider is also calling for a ban in his province of Carinthia, even though there are few Muslims and no known plans for mosques. “Carinthia,” he said, “will be a pioneer in the battle against radical Islam for the protection of our dominant western culture.”

In Italy the mayors of Bologna and Genoa last month cancelled or delayed planning permission for mosques after a vociferous campaign by the far-right Northern League, one of whose leaders, Roberto Calderoli, threatened to stage a “day of pork” to offend Muslims and to take pigs to “defile” the site of the proposed mosque in Bologna.

While the far right makes the running, their noisy campaign is being supported more quietly by mainstream politicians and some Christian leaders. And on the left pro-secularist and anti-clericalist sentiment is also frequently ambivalent about Islamic building projects.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has voiced his unease over a large new mosque being built for the city’s 120,000 Muslims in the Rhineland Roman Catholic stronghold. A similar scheme in Munich has also faced local protests.

The Bishop of Graz in Austria has been more emphatic. “Muslims should not build mosques which dominate town’s skylines in countries like ours,” said Bishop Egon Kapellari.

Guardian, 11 October 2007