German Anti-Muslim Voices Louder in 2004

Dealing with the Muslim community became the overriding concern of German officials against the backdrop of the murder of anti-Islam filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in neighboring Holland and the Madrid blasts.

They jumped on the anti-Islam bandwagon across Europe and came up with plans and ideas on the best way to contain the Muslim community security-wise.

All of a sudden, Muslim issues like hijab and integration were deliberately brought to the fore as if Muslims were the thorn in the government’s side.

Interior Minister in the state of Bavaria Guenter Beekstein was in the vanguard of officials attacking Muslims, accusing the sizable Turkish community of living in “parallel societies” with their own cultural and social activities.

Warning that the “Turkish ghettos” were posing a threat to German society, the minister called for placing restrictions on immigrants, including mastering the German language and adapting to the prevailing Christian culture.

His colleague Aneeta Schavan, the Culture Minister in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, pressed for enacting laws obliging imams to deliver their sermons and preach in German and deporting those who allegedly incite violence.

No sooner said than done: the new immigration law, under which immigrants are bound to attend language and culture classes, comes into force on Monday, January 3.

The law further provides for deporting imams inciting racial hatred against non-Muslims, particularly Jews.

It appears as if the anti-immigrants politicians follow in the footsteps of former chancellor Helmut Schmitt who said that contemporary German governments “committed the mistake of giving access to Muslim workers who are of different cultural backgrounds.”

Islam comes third after Protestant and Catholic Christianity. There are some 3.4 million Muslims in Germany, including 220,000 in Berlin alone.

An estimated two thirds of the Muslim community are of Turkish origin.

Though German Minister of Economics and Labor Wolfgang Clement said in June that Turkish investments help create 300,000 new jobs for Germans a year, 80 percent of the Turkish community feel discriminated against, according a recent study.

Anti-Hijab Drive

Like France, hijab took central stage in Germany during 2004 with several states passing laws banning the Muslim veil either in state schools or at workplace.

The legislature in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg voted almost unanimously in April for a law banning public school teachers from taking on the Muslim headscarf.

Lower Saxony followed suit after the state parliament, dominated by a coalition of the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the liberal Free Democrats, pressed for a similar law with the support of the opposition Social Democrats.

Of the six states which put forward anti-hijab measures, four have already put the drafts into effect.

Incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder voiced his opposition to civil servants wearing hijab, but made clear he was not against students taking them on in schools.

Former German president Johannes Rau said that there was nothing wrong for Muslim women to put “a piece of cloth” atop of their heads in obedience to their religion.

He stressed that if hijab was banned, all crosses and other religious signs should be taken off as well.

Only Berlin banned hijab, viewed in Islam as a religious obligation, and religious insignia like crosses and skullcaps in state-run schools and institutions.

The Brussels-based European Commission expressed its deep concern that the German anti-hijab drive was running counter to the European anti-discrimination laws.