On September 16, Germany began extending momentary controls alongside all its borders, to the chagrin of its European Union neighbours. Inside Minister Nancy Faeser clarified that the transfer is supposed to not solely curb “irregular” migration, but in addition to cease what she referred to as “Islamist terrorism and severe crime”.
The announcement got here within the aftermath of a lethal knife assault that killed three individuals in Solingen, western Germany; the attacker, a Syrian refugee who had been denied asylum standing and was presupposed to be deported, was accused of belonging to the ISIL (ISIS) group.
Some could also be shocked that such a draconian measure has been imposed by the liberal-left coalition made up of the Social Democrats, the Greens, and the Liberals. However the actuality is there’s a shift to the suitable throughout the German political spectrum accompanied by raging Islamophobia.
Analysts have pointed to the rise of the far-right Various for Germany (AfD) as a driver of the rightward shift. Certainly, the social gathering has been making important features on the nationwide and state ranges. At the beginning of the month, it received the elections within the japanese state of Thuringia with 32.8 p.c. Within the japanese state of Saxony, it got here second with 30.6 p.c, simply 1.3 share factors behind the centre-right Christian Democrats.
However the electoral successes of the AfD aren’t a driver; they’re a symptom of a common tendency in German politics to normalise and interact within the demonisation and scapegoating of Muslims.
Members of the ruling coalition have repeatedly denounced “Islamism” in Germany. The chief of the Inexperienced Celebration within the Bundestag, Katharina Dröge, went so far as claiming in a latest assertion that “the poison of Islam reaches individuals’s minds additionally right here, not simply overseas”; later correcting herself that she meant “Islamism” as an alternative of “Islam.”
Phrases of warning about an “Islamist risk” aren’t simply within the mouths of German politicians, they’re additionally throughout official paperwork and coverage declarations of German establishments. For instance, the web site of the Federal Workplace for the Safety of the Structure, a key home intelligence company, warns: “Islamists purpose to utterly or partially abolish the free democratic fundamental order of the Federal Republic of Germany by invoking their faith”.
The Bavarian department of this federal workplace has gone even additional and launched on its web site the notion of “legalist Islamism”, which it defines as a technique to pursue “extremist objectives by political means inside the current authorized system”. It clarifies: “Legalist Islamists try to affect politics and society by lobbying [and] current themselves as open, tolerant and open to dialogue to the skin world, whereas anti-democratic and totalitarian tendencies persist inside the organisations.”
Basically, this idea can criminalise any group of Muslims who organise politically or socially and conduct their actions inside the bounds of the legislation. It marks any expression of tolerance or openness by Muslims as suspect as a result of it may be a “legalist Islamist pretence”.
Utilizing these ideas as a framework, varied establishments on the state and federal ranges have created “de-radicalisation” programmes which have focused solely Muslims. Whereas such initiatives have been criticised and opposed in nations like the UK and the USA by many social justice staff, in Germany, on the entire, they’re perceived as well-justified and efficient.
One such programme, the Bavarian Community for Prevention and Deradicalisation, just lately produced a video about “Salafi radicalisation” that includes racist tropes about Muslim males exploiting Muslim ladies.
Earlier this month, the video was posted on social media by the Bavarian state authorities – presently managed by the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) – and instantly sparked criticism of its hateful illustration of Muslims.
The choice to publish made clear that the German authorities understand the outwardly observing Muslims as a safety threat and a hazard to German society.
The clip was finally taken down and the Inside Ministry issued an announcement to the media, apologising for the “irritation and misunderstandings” and claiming the video tried “to point out the method of Salafists and different Islamists to garner new, younger followers”. It additional stated that some scenes of the video can be “revised”.
What in all probability hastened the Bavarian authorities’s choice to take away the video was the response of some commentators who noticed parallels between its imagery and that of anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. Particularly, the scene of a bearded man with evil-looking options devouring a girl appears to be like very near Nazi representations of a Jewish man devouring ethnic Germans.
The anti-Semitic tint of Islamophobic imagery produced by German establishments is hardly shocking. As Israeli-German thinker Moshe Zuckermann has written, Islamophobia is the projection of an unutterable anti-Semitism.
The emotions mirrored in Germany’s previous anti-Semitism can’t be publicly expressed anymore as a result of state’s official embrace of philo-Semitism. That’s the reason they’re channelled by Islamophobia. What can’t be achieved to the Jew anymore, can simply be achieved to the Muslim.
The historic parallel right here is difficult to overlook: far-right forces are rising, as a racist hysteria concentrating on one racialised group of individuals spreads by the German state and society. Historical past could not repeat itself absolutely. Mass extermination could also be changed by mass expulsion because the far-right idea of “remigration” is rapidly gaining floor; it has lengthy left the far-right fringe to turn out to be more and more extra mainstream.
As German politicians of varied stripes and hues soar on the bandwagon of Islamophobia, they might do nicely to do not forget that their predecessors doing precisely the identical nearly a century in the past didn’t finish nicely for them. Hate isn’t a “successful” technique.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.