Islam with a German accent

Muslim conference opens in Berlin

Yesterday at noon, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Wolfgang Schäuble, opened the first conference of representatives of local Muslim communities in the Charlottenburg Palace in German history. Representatives of the five largest Muslim associations in Germany were selected to participate in the conference, including the Ankara-controlled Turkish-Islamic Union, the Islamic Council and the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. The forum organizers also invited a group of ten representatives of “modern secular Islam.” Among them are human rights activist Seyran Ates, critic of Islam and publicist Necla Kelek. From the state, 30 representatives of all levels of government - federal, land and municipal - were allocated for the conference.

Moreover, only 15% of German Muslims are united in religious organizations, none of which express the interests of the majority. This was a source of serious tension among the conference participants even before its official opening. “We need good relations between the state and Muslim religious communities,” said Minister Schäuble. He hopes the conference will begin a “communication process” lasting two to three years.

Adherents of Islam became visible in German society with the growth in the number of post-war guest workers. At first, few people worried about the problems of their integration, because in the 1950s Italians and Greeks went to Germany to work. The Turks who followed them - these were, as a rule, people from lower social strata - introduced an alien culture. Of the approximately 3.2-3.5 million Muslims living in Germany, 1.8 million are of Turkish origin, the number of Arabs is insignificant. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, over 800 thousand Muslims are citizens of Germany.

Statesmen propose various ways of their integration - from the requirement of compulsory holding of services in mosques in German to the study of Islam as a subject in schools. This was demanded, in particular, by the Vice-President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse. “If German is spoken in mosques, many prejudices will disappear on their own,” he said in an interview with German radio yesterday. True, the Turkish community has already managed to express its “misunderstanding.” In an interview with the CDF TV channel, its chairman Kenan Kolat said that “Muslims themselves must decide in what language they should read sermons.” The search for a common language between Muslims and the state in Germany is hampered by a significant circumstance, which was pointed out by political scientist Bassam Tibi, who considers himself a “liberal Muslim”: “Muslims are accustomed to this form of dialogue, during which they make accusations without allowing any objections from European side."

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin