Muslim Integration
Fighting the Preachers of Hate
By Dominik Cziesche, Barbara Schmid and Holger Stark
DER SPIEGEL 48/2004 - November 26, 2004
URL: spiegel.de
Germany is afraid of a clash of cultures within its own borders. How can it be avoided? A new tough stance against radical Islamists is helping. But how far can a democracy push in its fight against radical beliefs?
DPA
A mosque in Berlin. Germany is increasingly addressing the question of how to live peacefully with its Muslim population.
No one likes to have guests like Hodja, a Turkish citizen who traveled to Germany for the sole purpose of contributing to the spiritual edification of his fellow Turks. "America is a great Satan, Great Britain is a lesser one, and Israel a blood-sucking vampire," he yelled into a prayer room in Bavaria.
Then the immigrant imam explained his vision of the future of Muslims in Germany: "Things will happen behind the scenes. You must be ready for the right moment. We must take advantage of democracy to further our cause. We must cover all of Europe with mosques and schools." His comments were greeted with loud applause from his audience of devout Muslims.
That was two years ago, at a time when, in the wake of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the security services had just begun taking a closer look at the inner workings of German mosques. At the time, however, politicians were still avoiding issues that were considered sensitive. The left wing was doing its utmost to protect its ideology of a peaceful, multicultural society, while the right wing held fast to its conviction that foreigners are guests who don't really belong.
After Sept. 11, the public debate about how people from different cultures will live together in the future began on a relatively furtive scale. People were too worried that criticism of Islamists could be misinterpreted as xenophobia.
It was only after the gruesome murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh three weeks ago in Amsterdam that decades of repressing the issue came to an end. The uproar in the Netherlands has brought the conflict closer and made it much more visible. Last week, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a harmless, mainstream mosque in the southern German town of Sinsheim.
The incidents have opened many people's eyes to the dangers of religious extremism, and politicians of almost every stripe are now demanding a tougher stance against those believed to be responsible.
Using the mainstream to combat the fringe
Germany's leaders are also now realizing that the country's approximately 2,000 Muslim congregations and houses of worship are the key to peaceful coexistence. If the imams preach reconciliation and distance themselves from terrorism, it will force militant Muslims to the periphery. At the very least, this approach will help separate the radicals from peaceful, law-abiding Muslims. However, if the imams preach hatred, Germany is likely to face the same kinds of conflicts that are now happening in the Netherlands.
DPA
20,000 German Muslims demonstrated for tolerance and peace -- and against terrorism in Cologned on Sunday.
Steps have been made and German authorities have now classified the country's mosques in an attempt to identify the more extreme ones. About a hundred mosques are considered "centers of radical teaching and recruitment," and are being closely observed, with plans in the works for a tougher approach toward these kinds of mosques.
However, the case of a Pakistani mosque in Frankfurt shows just how difficult this is. In May of last year, an informant reported that the mosque's imam had incited his congregation to commit suicide attacks and to fight the Americans. The police searched the mosque's prayer rooms and seized various audio tapes. The authorities hoped to use the information to close the mosque, whose Afghan-born imam was already notorious. But there were no calls to holy war on the cassette tapes. The case boiled down to the word of one man against that of another. In mid-September, after an investigation lasting more than a year, the Frankfurt district attorney's office closed its case against the imam for lack of sufficient evidence.
Tape recordings of such radical sermons would probably provide authorities with enough evidence for conviction. Mosques, however, are rarely bugged. According to a high-ranking government official, a bugging operation is only considered appropriate in extreme cases, because it ties up "far too much personnel; we really have other things to worry about."
Catching a "hate preacher" on camera
Two weeks ago, a camera team working for a German television network managed to succeed -- more or less by happenstance -- where security agencies often fail. The journalists were filming a sermon by Berlin imam Yakup T., who was berating Germans in the heart of Berlin's largely Turkish Kreuzberg neighborhood. He called them useless infidels whose armpits stink because they don't shave.
Late last week, the Turkish-born imam was able to experience that smell at closer range in the offices of German government agencies. He was ordered to appear before officials at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (FOPC), police officials and German immigration law experts, all of whom now want to deport him as quickly as possible. Yakup T. is now being investigated for incitement to hatred and violence and has been suspended from his job as an imam.
DPA
Metin Kaplan, the infamous "Caliph of Cologne," was deported in October for preaching hatred.
Despite the prompt reaction, his sermon triggered a heated debate. The German government is taking a much harder look than ever before at its relationship with the Muslim segment of the population. The central issue of the debate is this: How far should tolerance of such hate preachers go?
Should the Muslims distance themselves more decisively from radical elements in their ranks, as German President Horst Koehler is demanding? Koehler believes that "something has gone wrong" between Christians and Muslims. Interior Minister Otto Schily, echoing the sentiments of politician Guenther Beckstein, the Interior Minister of Bavaria, was a little more direct when he said that "tolerance doesn't mean tolerating intolerance."
The chancellor has also made his thoughts clear on the matter. In a speech over the weekend, he said, "We in Europe must defend the principles of the Enlightenment as the cornerstone of our policies." The Muslims, according to Schroeder, must "clearly and unmistakably declare their support for our legal system and our democratic rules of conduct."
Unhelpful suggestions
Many of the other proposals made last week, however, seemed overly hasty and unhelpful. The market for political ideas was beginning to look like an oriental bazaar and some highly controversial suggestions were discarded as quickly as they were proposed. A few examples:
* The minister of education of the southern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Annette Schavan, demanded that imams only be permitted to preach in the German language. Critics immediately began asking whether that meant that Catholic priests couldn't celebrate mass in Latin and Rabbis couldn't speak Hebrew. Probably not.
* Green Party politician Hans-Christian Stroebele and fellow party member Juergen Trittin proposed adding a Muslim holiday to the German calendar. It was a ridiculous suggestion that was greeted with general derision and Trittin was rebuked by none other than Chancellor Schroeder himself.
* Joerg Schoenbohm, a member of the conservative CDU party from the state of Brandenburg, called for revoking the German citizenship of imams who preach hatred. Schoenbohm's idea, however, seems as unconstitutional as Schavan's demand that imams preach in German.
DPA
While most of Germany's Muslim population is peaceful and mainstream, the German authorities are taking a harder look at the extreme fringe.
The Green Party's chief representative in the European parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, summed up these hot-headed proposals by calling them a "cowboy discussion in which everyone is shooting from the hip" and called for a "more relaxed approach."
It was a week of fear: fear of terrorism, of a parallel foreign world in one's own country, of waking up from a dream of "multicultural bliss," as Otto Schily calls the many years of non-critical tolerance.
But it was also a week of rapprochement. In Cologne, the Turkish association of mosques, Ditib, joined politicians in calling for a march against terrorism. Until now, Muslim groups have been more likely to demonstrate for the right to wear a head scarf than against Islamist violence. But now, in many towns, signs are emerging that most Muslims are beginning to distance themselves from more extremist elements within their community.
As the Muslim community becomes less welcoming to Islamic fundamentalists, the government is also clamping down. Last week, Otto Schily explained exactly what this means: rapid deportation. This week, the conservative CDU/CSU opposition coalition plans to introduce an eight-page motion in the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, under which imams who preach hatred will no longer be given visas.
Radical videos are difficult to stop
Yet even if Germany makes it more difficult for radical imams to enter the country, there is one thing the authorities will have trouble stopping: the sale of their sermons on video. Germany is already awash with large numbers of videotapes made by hate monger Abu Katada, now imprisoned in England, who believes that the only possible relationship Muslims can have with infidels is one "of blood and the sword."
The approach the Germans now plan to take is one the French have been using for some time. Last year, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin had about a dozen imams deported. In many cases, however, the agitators are not immigrants, but traveling preachers from Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia who enter the country on temporary visas. To help prevent this from happening in Germany, a delegation of German members of parliament visiting Turkey last summer asked the Turkish prime minister to prohibit these radical imams from leaving the country.
The CDU/CSU coalition also hopes to increase pressure on German Muslims to battle fanatics within their own ranks. In the motion it is filing in the Bundestag, the CDU/CSU criticizes Muslims, claiming that while they are more likely than the general population to witness radical activities, they are less likely to report them.
Until now, most Muslims have felt the same way as Ali Kizilkaya, chairman of the Islamic Council, still feels today -- that he is not a terrorist and therefore should not be expected to explain himself: "They want us to distance ourselves. It appears that the presumption of innocence does not apply to Muslims." After all, Kizilkaya argues, Protestants and Catholics aren't being asked to apologize for the crimes committed by Christians throughout the world.
However, it is too often the case that terrorists have spent time in local Muslim congregations, like the attackers of Sept. 11, who walked in and out of Hamburg mosques for years without ever being questioned.
DDP
A peaceful mosque in the southern German town of Sinsheim was attacked with Molotov cocktails last week.
The presumed terrorist Mohammed Bensakhria also prayed in Berlin's Mevlana mosque, where Yakup T. was an imam. Bensakhria, an Algerian national, is on trial in France for his alleged involvement in the foiled attack on a Christmas market in Strasbourg. According to a dossier compiled by security forces, the Mevlana mosque served as a "safe meeting place" for Bensakhria and his group.
Germany's Muslims need to do more
Even after attacks, the statements issued by Islamic organizations often sound indifferent. This is exactly the impression conveyed by an article that the ultra-conservative Central Council of Muslims in Germany published on its homepage, in which the author writes that while the Madrid bombings are regrettable, he believes they may not have been the work of Muslims. He also writes about a "mysterious Al Qaida" no one had heard about before Sept. 11, and suggests that Osama bin Laden may have worked for the CIA.
Because organizations such as the Islamic Council and the Central Council of Muslims represent only a fraction of Muslims, Peer Steinbrueck, a member of the left-of-center Social Democrat party and premier of the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, is calling for a "legitimate representative for political negotiation." He wants Muslims to become more organized.
Members of the Green Party in North-Rhine Westphalia would like to see a "mosque registry" based on the Austrian model. They want all congregations that honor the German constitution to be documented, so that their members can elect a governing body. Johannes Remmel, Green Party chairman in North-Rhine Westphalia, believes that this would give Muslims "more rights, but also more obligations," and that the best way to institutionalize these commitments would be for the government to enter into an agreement with mosques similar to that entered into with churches.
However, this would be complicated by the fact that many mosques are organized informally. Hamburg authorities say they aren't even sure that that they are familiar with all Muslim prayer rooms in the city. Radical preachers often ply their trade in nondescript back rooms. In many cases, authorities must rely on tips provided by informants, anonymous or otherwise.
A dispute over the naturalization of Berlin imam Salem al-Rafei, 43, for example, dragged on for years. Agents reported that the Lebanese-born imam incited his congregations to violence during his Friday sermons at the al-Nur mosque. They say he asked Allah for help "so that these infidel politicians and kings will be killed." Although Rafei denied the accusations, the evidence presented in court was enough to allow authorities to deny him a German passport.
A tougher stance
The state has learned its lesson. Tarik B., a Moroccan-born German from the Bavarian city of Augsburg, got a first-hand taste of the government's newly vigilant approach. When police officers raided his apartment, they found 250 apparently amateur audio tapes of sermons. The recordings were of Koran lessons and contained unmistakable references to kaffers, slang for "infidels," including such statements as: "This is why Allah, Glorious and Exalted, has made jihad a duty, so that the earth will be cleansed of these destroyers." The Augsburg public prosecutor's office filed suit against Tarik B. for incitement to hatred and violence.
But the evidence is rarely as clear as it was in the Tarik B. case. Investigators complain that coming up with enough evidence to make radical statements hold up in court is so time-consuming that the effort is often far out of proportion with the relatively mild penalties.
Agents have also been noticing an interesting phenomenon in recent months: The tone in mosques is becoming more moderate. "The problem is, we don't know if this is a sign of caution or a changing attitude," says one intelligence agent. Agents have discovered that, in radical mosques, small groups have taken to meeting privately.
At least Yakup T., the Berlin imam with the strong sense of smell, will be keeping a lower public profile in the future. He now claims that the things he said in the past were "hurtful and wrong," and that they stem "from my personal inability to adequately explain some things to the Muslim community without denigrating other cultures and religions."
His contrite words appear to be a reaction to the threat of deportation. But it's doubtful that someone like Yakup T. would change his opinions about Germany so abruptly. After all, he's been living in the country for the past 30 years.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© DER SPIEGEL 48/2004 |
