Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that published the anti-Islam cartoons in the interests of defending “free speech”, has now published an approving article reporting attempts to get the Qur’an banned in Germany.
Category Archives: Germany
“Danish cartoons enrage the Arab world, a German immigrant test singles out Muslims and opposition grows to admit Turkey and its 70 million Muslims into the European Union – a ghost is haunting Europe, the ghost of Islamophobia. At least that’s what Islamic organizations across the continent say. Does Europe face a clash of cultures?”
Muslim undesirables need not apply
Baden-Württemberg is described in the guidebooks as having more universities than any other German state as well as a “rich cultural and religious diversity.” I am afraid the cultural diversity bit won’t go down well these days – at least not among German liberals and Muslims, who are outraged over a questionnaire that the state proposes to put before those seeking German citizenship. In Germany the states have say in these matters.
Not every applicant has to fill out the questionnaire. If you are Portuguese applying for German citizenship, chances are you wouldn’t have to bother with it. But since January, if the authorities have some reason to think that you might not make a good citizen, then you might find yourself being grilled. For the instructions say that if the naturalization authority doubts that the applicant has really understood the content of his or her declaration, or doubts that the answers reflect “inner convictions,” then the authorities will “conduct a conversation with the applicant.”
Defenders say Baden-Württemberg is being careful to screen out undesirables, and that only people the authorities have reason to be suspicious of would be questioned. But critics are sure the questionnaire is specifically aimed at Muslims. “This questionnaire is a very dangerous thing and has to be stopped,” one of the best-known politicians of Turkish origin in Germany, Cem Ozdemir, told me. Ozdemir, a member of the European Parliament, says the danger comes from the discretionary powers it gives junior officials. Baden-Württemberg’s government would never say it wanted to make it harder for Muslims to become citizens. But the tone of the questionnaire would lead underlings to assume that was the intention, according to Ozdemir.
“When you read these questions you see the mind of the bureaucracy and German society, not what Muslims may think,” said Barbara John, who was for 20 years involved with migration and integration affairs here in the state of Berlin.
Christian Hoffmann, a convert to Islam who is chairman of the Muslim Academy in Germany, says: “The spirit of these questions is so Islamophobic and ethnically biased. It is an assault against underprivileged people.” Educated people would smell out the trap, he said.
One question asks applicants to comment on the following statements: “Humanity has never experienced such a dark phase as under democracy. In order to free himself from democracy, man has to understand first that democracy cannot offer anything good to him.” Monarchists might agree, but that’s not the group the questions were designed to catch.
The next holocaust
Islamophobia is not a uniquely British disease: across Europe, liberals openly express prejudice against Muslims. Do new pogroms beckon? Ziauddin Sardar reports from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
New Statesman, 5 December 2005
See also Yusuf Smith’s comments: Indigo Jo Blogs, 2 December 2005
‘5,000 suicide bombers in Germany’, Bavarian interior minister claims
Germany is home to between 3,000 and 5,000 potential Islamic suicide attackers, a senior security official touted as the country’s next interior minister has been quoted as saying.
Guenther Beckstein, currently interior minister in the German state of Bavaria, said on Monday in an interview with the online Netzeitung newspaper that he was worried small cells of “fanatics” could prepare attacks without detection.
“In Germany we have between 3,000 and 5,000 of these Islamists who are prepared to use violence and do not shrink from suicide attacks,” Beckstein was quoted as saying.
He said they included individuals who are ready to fight in Iraq and Chechnya.
German state plans hijab ban for teachers
Female Muslim teachers in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia will be banned from wearing hijab at schools from next summer, according to a German press report. Officials in the State told Wednesday’s edition of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung that the hijab ban would take effect from August 2006, Reuters reported.
“Female and male teachers are not allowed to express any world views or any religious beliefs, which could disturb or endanger the peace at school,” North Rhine-Westphalia schools minister Barbara Sommer said. “That’s why we want to forbid (female) Muslim teachers at state schools from wearing headscarves.”
Muslim public holiday? Appeasement of Islamist fanatics, says Mark Steyn
“Responding to Islamist terrorism in Britain and elsewhere, Germany is considering introducing a Muslim public holiday. As Mathias Dopfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, put it: ‘A substantial fraction of Germany’s government – and, if polls are to be believed, the German people – believe that creating an official state Muslim holiday will somehow spare us from the wrath of fanatical Islamists’. Great. At least the 1930s’ appeasers did it on their own time. But, in recasting appeasement as yet another paid day off, the new proposal cunningly manages to combine the worst instincts of the old Europe and the new.”
In an article that is even more incoherent and rambling than usual, Mark Steyn fulminates against the “German Islamist Appeasement Bank Holiday Weekend”.
We need to talk less, listen more, to Muslims
We need to talk less, listen more, to Muslims
By Haroon Siddiqui
Toronto Star, 14 July 2005
Germany has been as vociferous as France among the G 8 nations in opposing the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. It has also been increasingly skeptical of Washington’s war on terrorism.
Germany also has a sophisticated understanding of, and good relations with, the Muslim world. In addition, it considers itself the closest European ally of Israel. The German perspective on terrorism, especially on young European jihadists, is, therefore, useful.
“We need a dialogue with the Muslim world but there’s too much distrust,” said a very senior policy official in Berlin in a lengthy and candid interview, given on condition of anonymity, and conducted before last week’s bombings in London.
“There’s distrust because of our double standards,” he said, citing the Arab-Israeli dispute, and because of what he called the Bush administration’s “hegemonic” policy: Occupying Iraq to control the oil and the region, especially Iran, and controlling Afghanistan to have access Central Asian oil and gas reserves.
Worse, the Americans are carrying out the policy “in such a blunt way that they can’t see that they are destroying everything in their path … When the American soldiers see Iraqi women and children in a car, how can they shoot?”
Yet, he said, Washington wonders: “‘Why do they hate us?’ Easy. They hate us because of the policies.”
Anti-hijab party wins elections
In an unhappy outcome for German Muslims in the largest regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the conservative anti-hijab Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won state elections Sunday, May 22, triggering a decision to hold a snap general election across Germany in the autumn.
The CDU’s resounding victory sent shock waves among the Muslim minority in NRW, home to one million of Germany’s 3.4 million Muslims. During the election campaign, Christian Democrat leader in NRW Juergen Ruettgers said he would swiftly ban hijab from state schools.
Ruettgers’s plan to ban hijab within three weeks of his election victory, despite opposition from other parties, was not the only reason for Muslims’ concern. His anti-Muslim drive is shown in many statements he made in the run up to state elections and even before.
Late last month, he told a German news channel that he is a Catholic who believes Christianity presented the best image of man and should therefore be leading all other religions worldwide.
Two German states reject hijab ban
The legislatures in two German states have turned down proposals by the opposition Christian Democratic Party to ban Muslim school teachers from wearing hijab. The parliament of Nordrhein-Westfalen, western Germany, rejected the party’s request as having no legal merit.
The Christian Democratic Party claimed that hijab places woman at a lower status and was a political symbol not entrenched in the Muslims’ holy book, the Noble Qur’an. Thomas Kufen, the party’s immigration affairs officer, alleged that disputes could emerge in schools over the issue of hijab and that a legislation was needed. The party, yet, said nuns should be exempted for any ban on religious dress codes.
The Socialist and the Green parties, the ruling coalition, as well as the Free Democratic Party had opposed the proposals. They particularly took issue at the Christian Democratic Party’s attempt to exempt nuns’ wear from the ban as a violation of the constitution which demands equal treatment for citizens irrespective of their religious affiliations.