In the fight against political Islam, Germany must finally shed its naivety! Germany must see the actors in the Islamist movements as part of the problem and not part of the solution, must recognize their language, narratives and methods and act accordingly.
And it starts with the fact that the muezzin call in Cologne is not to be marketed as an expression of tolerance and religious freedom! Rather, it represents a demonstration of power by political Islam, which is primarily interested in gaining more visibility in Germany in order to influence our politics and society. [Note: The muezzin is a caller who calls all devout Muslims in a community to prayer in the mosque five times a day. The call to prayer is usually in Arabic.]
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As a Muslim, I grew up in a society where the muezzin calls to prayer five times a day. Loud and visible to all. Because of this presence alone, religion has always been a central part of my life. When I came to Germany, as a Muslim, I learned to appreciate the fact that I could express my religiosity in other ways. Much more intimate, personal and without constant reminders of what religious duties I have to follow. It is precisely this way of dealing with religion that many Muslims in Germany experience as a relief, as a relaxed way of dealing with religion, and as an expression of freedom. But the protagonists of political Islam want to change exactly that:
They long for visibility and power to influence the Muslims living here and, moreover, the politics of our society. They speak of freedom and tolerance, but want to establish an understanding of Islam that despises freedom and only exploits our democracy. If you look at the countries where political Islam rules, it is obvious that freedom and democracy never existed in these countries. The best examples of this are Gaza, Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
Operation Allah: How political Islam wants to undermine our democracy
In contrast to these countries, Europe is not currently threatened with immediate Islamization and the end of democracy, least of all with the muezzin call. The protagonists of political Islam are not aiming for a system change in the coming decades, but want to exert influence at the local level. You want to act as a contact for politicians when it comes to questions about Islamic life in Germany. They want to achieve visibility, exclusivity and, above all, an uncritical view of their own structures. So it does not come as a surprise that the Ditib community in Cologne, of all people, took their chance and applied for permission to call muezzin in their community. With the approval, she not only gets the opportunity to call for prayer, but also symbolically the recognition and legitimacy from politics and society that she needs to continue to establish herself.
Outwardly, the Islamists find nice words, argue with our Basic Law and religious freedom, with precisely those values that have been missing from them in recent years. Tolerance towards homosexuals,? Criticism of Erdogan, none! Religious freedom seems to be a one-way street.
For many Muslims of Turkish origin, who sometimes dared to criticize Erdogan and his Islamist policies, the Ditib mosque has been a no-go area for years.
And that should be a place of integration, a place of arrival for Muslims in Germany? A mosque where people are educated to see Erdogan as their president? And that despite the fact that you were born and grew up in Germany? A place that symbolically creates distance and exclusion from Germany and its values on the very day it opens, by being opened by Erdogan himself instead of the German Federal President or other German politicians?
A mosque that speaks of tolerance and religious freedom and wants to represent all Muslims in Cologne does not preach anti-Semitism, does not campaign for a tyrant from Turkey and does not use its structures to exclude and defame criticism of its machinations.
But it is precisely these aspects that the mayor of Cologne deliberately ignores and lets a problematic minority speak for the majority of all Muslims. If that’s not meant to be naive, then it’s an expression of anticipatory obedience to political Islam in Germany. Ms. Henriette Reker fades out all criticism, celebrates herself as more tolerant and cosmopolitan than her critics and symbolically establishes a practice with her actions that is neither necessary from an Islamic point of view nor helpful for living together in Germany.
It would be much better to wait and see and engage in dialogue with the local people, to involve them in the decisions and to act in the interests of the people and with the people. It’s actually a very fundamental question that Germany doesn’t want to answer.
Events like the muezzin call in Cologne are a sore point for every European. They force him to think about his own identity and to make a decision: is Europe Christian? Secular? What identity does Europe want to convey to the outside world? Should all religions be considered and treated as perfectly equal? And if so, how visible should religions be in a multi-religious society? What relationship should politics have to this?
Europe is keen to evade these fundamental but crucial questions and is unwilling to think them through to the end! Because behind the question of the visibility of Islam in Europe lies the question of Europe’s actual identity. And as long as Europe does not find an answer to this, or rather does not want to find one, such debates as in Cologne will be held on behalf of others and create considerable uncertainty among the population.
Ahmad Mansour is a psychologist and author from Berlin. Born in Kfar Saba in 1976, he has Israeli and German citizenship. In 2018, Mansour founded MIND prevention (Mansour Initiative for Democracy Promotion and Extremism Prevention), which conducts workshops on extremism prevention. He works with inmates of correctional facilities and with refugees.
Mansour is also persistently opposed to anti-Semitism. In 2015 his book “Generation Allah. Why we have to rethink the fight against religious extremism” was published, followed in August 2018 by “Plain Text on Integration – Against False Tolerance and Scaremongering”. His new book “Operation Allah: How Political Islam Wants to Undermine Our Democracy” was recently published.
If we want to deal honestly with the question of European identity, then we must continue to ask ourselves questions such as:
Can a federal state like Berlin finance its Christmas lights with tax money? And if so, should it also do so on Muslim high festivals like Ramadan? As long as these questions are not openly discussed and clarified, there will always be proxy debates, which not only lead to nothing, but are also used and abused by representatives of political Islam to gain more visibility and to try to convince Muslims in Europe to to gain a one-dimensional, conservative Islamic identity.
