Kommentar von Florian Klenk
Kommentar von Florian Klenk
Some time ago this remark that captures Germany’s current mood would probably have been greeted with raised eyebrows in this liberal round.But now it is received with nods of agreement. A series of educated, cosmopolitan people – cultivated journalists, professors, and business people – met not too long ago at one of these Hanseatic receptions and discussed the world. And then the sharp-tongued liberal political scientist spoke out: “Do you know,” he complained, “that Muslims here not only eat differently, they not only dress differently, they not only pray differently: a number of them live here in Hamburg and are called Mohammed Atta!” Last August this scoffer must have felt that his feelings were confirmed. Surveillance cameras in Cologne railway station had recorded pictures of a Lebanese student. In his Michael Ballack football shirt he looked like a true German World Championships fan. But then the student put a suitcase containing a propane gas bomb that he had built himself in a train. Hundreds of passengers were intended to die, because this Islamic fundamentalist with the World Championships shirt was angered by the Danish caricatures of Mohammed. Fortunately this warrior of god was too stupid: his detonator had not been put together properly. Mohammed Atta, Hamburg cell, suitcase bomb, sleeper: these things influence a society in which, even without Islamic terror, 60 per cent are of the opinion that there are too many foreigners in the country. There is a dominant atmosphere of distrust and unease, but also a feeling of worry about those who rotate their doner kebab in Kreuzberg or Neukölln, fall on their knees in the mosque or want to wear a headscarf at school. And on the other side resentment is growing also. “How come,” many Muslims ask exasperated, “how come you Germans constantly suspect us of being terrorists? Why do we repeatedly have to distance ourselves from Islamist fanatics that we ourselves want to have nothing to do with?” Since the eleventh of September, since the “West” has started looking at the so-called parallel societies, many German social researchers are afraid that the country – at least in the cities – is drifting apart. For it is not the multi-cultural society that has established itself, as many conservatives would like us to believe, but cultures that live beside each other and observe each other with distrust. Here the Germans without a “migration background”, low birth rates, single children, 90 per cent have completed secondary education, no real religious affiliations, still relatively prosperous.
And there are the Muslims, most of them Turks. Even at an early age, they come into conflict with the law more often, they are poorer and less educated – and have little opportunity for advancement. As the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony has found out they experience more violence in the family and are themselves quicker to solve conflicts with their fists. Half of them attend run-down secondary schools, where the teachers (as was shown by the example of the Rütli school) can no longer handle the kids. In the afternoon they often sit in front of violent video games. Increasingly they get their money from the social welfare office, their German is poor, and they are almost illiterate. They look at their grandparents who, despite working hard, have not managed to make their way into Germany’s elite. Sociologists warn that if no social reforms are introduced, this third generation will not find a place in Germany’s “midst” and will remain among themselves – and belong to a macho culture that in the cinema at night applauds during “Tal der Wölfe” when Jews die. Many nativeborn Germans will regard them therefore as anti-Semitic terrorism sympathizers – although naturally that is nonsense. Statistically speaking, Muslims have no German friends, although they would like to. They increasingly represent a different view of the world, of the role of women and of the family. The Federal Ministry for Family Affairs recently asked 143 Turkish women about their husbands. Every second woman (!) told that her husband had been chosen for her by her parents. Every fourth (!) woman said that she did not know her husband before they married. How should Germany react to all of this? No one really seems to know. Germany is only slowly beginning to realise that it is an emigration country and that social questions are simply not being answered, indeed they are not even being asked. Fortunately there are not (yet?) populists such as Haider in Austria who are beginning to stir things up publicly – the NPD is a phenomenon of the East where there are hardly any Moslems. Politicians attempt to remedy this state of affairs with typical German bureaucracy. Immigration authorities draw up Kafkaesque questionnaires half quiz, half interrogation to test the future citizens of Germany on their values and their relationship to Germany. Guest workers should suddenly be able to name “three rivers, three philosophers and three low mountain ranges” in Germany or to explain “the rights of homosexuals” or “Israel’s right to exist” – as if this would make them better citizens. In fact it merely frightens off those that have already opted for Germany.
Of course, such grotesque approaches are merely a screen for helplessness and lack of orientation. Both left and right recognise that integration – even of the third generation – is not working. Because Muslims have been challenged too little, say the right wing, because they have been assisted too little say the left. Where can this lead? A situation like in France with riots in the suburbs – this is one possible scenario. But, all the same, French immigrants were fighting to be accepted as citizens of France. Then there is the British scenario: in the left-wing liberal “Guardian” a study was recently quoted according to which 30 per cent of Muslims in London (who were regarded as particularly well integrated) had some sympathy with the aims of the so-called “home-grown terrorists”, that is those Islamists, born in England, who blew up British people in the buses and underground trains in London. And in Germany? Those who safeguard our constitution reassure us that the Turks are Kemalists, less fanatical – and that therefore one cannot compare them with extremists in other countries. A current study produced by the conservative Konrad Adenauer Stiftung about women who wear the Moslem headscarf stated that the heads under these scarves think completely “normally”. So everything is ok. Well, not really: last year the “Islamarchiv e. V.” asked a few hundred Moslems whether they believed that the Koran and basic German constitutional law could be reconciled with each other. Only 41 per cent said yes. In 2004 the result had been very different, at that time two-thirds regarded the constitution of the state and the Koran as compatible. Something has changed. The progressive answer to all of this? It can be put very briefly: “It’s the economy, stupid!” Education, language teaching and an understanding of democracy must be pushed – at kindergarten stage would be best. Ghettos must be “broken up”, children of migrants must be assisted at an early age and given new role models. “Little Mehmet must be given the chance to play with Max and Moritz”, says criminologist Christian Pfeiffer. He must “learn German by playing and find German friends”. Above all, his parents must also be encouraged to take part in society in order to get to know it. And on the other hand, many Germans must recognise that “the Muslims” do not exist as such, but that there is a growing army of disoriented young people that are being incited by radical anti-Semitic fanatics in television and Internet. These young people must be drawn away from the radical mosques; they must be wooed, so to speak. Then liberal political scientists, too, will no longer have such great fear when a Muslim eats or prays somewhat differently, or looks entirely different.