IN the backdrop of the increasing Islamophobia across the world, Germany’s leading political party seems to have taken a right step towards analysing the problem and its offshoots.
The ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), having occupied the chancellor’s office for 57 of the 72 years of the Federal Republic of Germany’s existence, and part of the largest parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), has approved a wide-ranging strategy paper to contain the spread of political Islam in Germany.
The strategy paper, “Preserving Free Society, Promoting Social Cohesion, Fighting Political Islamism,” asserts that a growing number of areas in Germany, where Sharia law overrules German law, are in danger of becoming “parallel societies.”
The paper also warns that certain foreign governments control many mosques and Islamic associations in Germany, which threaten Germany’s liberal democratic order.
The authors of the paper argue that a recent wave of “jihadist” attacks in Germany and elsewhere in Europe require urgent measures to stop the “poison” of extremist ideology from gaining further ground on the continent.
The New Strategy
The paper, which whole-heartedly commends law-abiding Muslims who respect Germany’s democratic order, argues that the debate about Islamism in Germany is often reduced to violence and terror, but that it is necessary to focus more on ideology.
The proposals include improving research and analysis of political Islam in Europe and the methods by which it spreads; banning the foreign funding of mosques; and reducing the number of foreign imams active in Germany.
Arguably the most important proposal involves reversing the German government’s long-standing policy of supporting extremist groups in Germany, which, under the guise of promoting dialogue, has legitimised those groups and fuelled the spread of political Islam in Germany.
The paper says, “Focusing only on the violent part of Islamism, Islamist terrorism, does not do justice to the overall problem. Islamism — like other extremisms — has an ideological basis and the aim must be to explore this ideological underground.”
Action Plan
The strategy paper offers a Five-Point Action Plan aimed at understanding and fighting political Islam:
First, it calls for supporting basic research on political Islamism in Germany and Europe. This includes: establishing academic chairs to focus on Islamism and its structures, implementing a scientific study to better understand the extent to which political Islamism is influencing children, young people and adolescents.
Secondly, it urges terminating state cooperation and contractual relationships with organisations of political Islamism.
Thirdly, it calls for training Imams in Germany. The proposal calls for providing academic and spiritual training for imams in Germany, while maintaining religious freedom and the separation of state and religious communities.
Fourthly, the paper calls for increased transparency of membership structures and financing flows, including donations, subsidies, contracts and collaborations, to the federal tax office by the mosques functioning in Germany.
Finally, it calls for Preventing radicalisation, through improved cooperation between federal, state and local governments and civil society. Through investigating the risk of radicalisation processes in the penal system in Germany; and expanding information and awareness programs for specialists from the areas of police, justice, school and education, social work, youth welfare and refugee aid, among others.
Mouhanad Khorchide, a Lebanese-Austrian Islamic theologian and sociologist who is a professor of Islamic pedagogy at the University of Münster in Germany, speaking to Soeren Kern of the New York-based Gatestone Institute said that the policy paper reflects a growing awareness of the problem of political Islam in Germany……
