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The Identity Crisis Fueling European Muslim Radicalization

June 7, 2017

The Identity Crisis Fueling European Muslim Radicalization, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, June 7, 2017

When tanks entered the streets of Istanbul and Ankara last summer in an attempt to overthrow the Turkish government, people swarmed the streets to fight them off. At the urging of their president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they pushed back against the coup, some waving Turkish flags, others waving guns. “What else would you do?” A friend in Istanbul asked me some months later. “When your government and your country are attacked, you fight back. It’s to be expected.”

Less expected, however, were the crowds of Turkish-Europeans who also took to the streets in cities like Rotterdam, where dozens demonstrated on the city’s Erasmus Bridge, waving Turkish flags and, in some cases, crying out “Allahu Akbar.” For many non-Turkish Europeans, the action felt almost threatening: Were these people Turkish or European? Could they reasonably be both? Or did they represent a fifth column, aiming to overtake Europe from within?

In Holland, members of Leefbaar Rotterdam (Livable Rotterdam), the populist political party founded by the late Pim Fortuyn, determined to address the issue head-on. They held a public panel discussion last week to debate the question of who these demonstrators were: traitors? Dual citizens with torn allegiances? Could they be true to both their Turkish heritage and to the Dutch culture in which they were born and raised?

Left unspoken were the more pressing questions, the ones the non-Turks really meant: do Dutch Turks identify more with the Islamist policies and values of Erdogan and his regime, or with the secular Enlightenment, the democratic culture of the West? What, after all, to think of the fact that the vast majority of European Turks voted for Erdogan in the November 2015 elections, and again voted against democracy in Turkey’s April 16 referendum, which gave him virtually limitless powers until 2029?

While this particular debate took place in Rotterdam, once the home of the Renaissance humanist Erasmus, these questions have hovered over all of Europe since the 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid and, even more, the 2005 attacks in London – and not only about the Turks, but about Muslim immigrants in general.

With Europe facing a near-continual onslaught of Islamist terrorist attacks often perpetrated by homegrown extremists, those questions feel more urgent than ever.

But both the issue and its urgency are far more complex than a matter of allegiance. For many second- and third-generation immigrant youth, especially those from Turkey and Morocco, it is also a matter of identity. As dark-skinned immigrants with names like Fatima and Mohammed, they are often discriminated against in their home countries. The values of their families and their religious leaders do not always mesh with the values of their communities and governments. But when they visit their cousins and grandparents in Anatolia and rural Morocco, they find they don’t fit in there, either.

Many counterterrorism experts maintain that this situation makes Muslim European youth especially vulnerable to radicalization and recruitment by terror groups. As Belgian-Palestinian jihad expert Montasser AIDe’emeh has noted of Belgian Moroccan extremists such as the Paris and Brussels attackers, “The Islamic State is giving them what the Belgian government can’t give them – identity, structure. They don’t feel Moroccan or Belgian. They don’t feel part of either society.” And speaking to PBS’s Judy Woodruff, Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, observed that “the cause [of radicalization] is ultimately a conflict of identity. It is about second- or third-generation descendants of Muslim immigrants no longer feeling at home in their parents’ or grandparents’ culture, at the same time not being accepted into European societies.”

If this is true, then what to make of the Turkish-European dual citizens choosing, as most have, to support Erdogan’s Islamist policies while living in the liberal West? Are they integrated, assimilated, into the cultures in which they live, as most insisted during the Rotterdam debate? Or are they rather true to the norms of a Turkey that is becoming increasingly religious, turning increasingly eastward, and to a president who is gradually unraveling the secular Western vision of the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk?

At the same time, does waving the Turkish flag when the country is attacked mean they are not actually Dutch? Should Dutch Jews not fly the flag of Israel, or Dutch-Americans have left their stars and stripes at home after 9/11?

“It’s more than just flags,” Ebru Umar, a Dutch-Turkish journalist who moderated last week’s event, explained in an e-mail. “The flags symbolize who they are…. They claim to be soldiers of Erdogan.” Hence, she said, “the people [demonstrating] on the [Erasmus] bridge were and are seen as not integrated. Ask them and they’ll answer they are integrated. And [yet] they tell you of course they adore Erdogan.” Indeed, she noted, they even stated it at the debate: “‘You can’t ask a child whom they love more: mum or dad.'”

It is a false equivalency, however. This is not about loving one parent more than another, but about accepting one of two opposing sets of values: those of secular democracies, or those of Islamist theocracies. There is no combining the two. There is no compromise.

Which is what makes these questions so very critical right now – not just for the Dutch, but for all Europeans, as they confront a complex, existential dilemma. Should they continue to alienate the growing population of young Muslims, and should those same young Muslims continue to resist assimilation, they will together be laying out the welcome mat for recruiters for jihad. But should Europe instead accept the Islamist leanings of those same Muslim youth, it will soon discover there was a fifth column after all – a movement to Islamize the West. And it will have succeeded.

Categories: Belgian Moroccan extremists, Erdogan, Europe and Islamists, Europe and Turks, Islam and conquest, Islam and democracy, Islam and terrorism, Islam in Europe, Islam in Turkey, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Europe, Turkey and Europe, Turkey and human rights, Turkey's constitutional referendum, Turkish democracy, Turkish immigrants
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Europe: Denying the Threat of Islamic Imperialism

May 11, 2017

Europe: Denying the Threat of Islamic Imperialism, Gatestone Institute, Maria Polizoidou, May 11, 2017

The UN report and Erdogan’s rhetoric both evidently expresses the Muslim world’s thoughts about what it apparently thinks should be the fate of Israel and Europe. So far, not a single Muslim state has condemned or opposed Erdogan’s aggression against Judeo-Christian civilization.

The enemy is already inside the gates; many European regimes seem unaware that there is even a threat.

The logic of much of Europe’s religious and political community seems to be that if the elephant in the room is spoken to nicely and made to look cute and adorable, people will not think of it as a threat to their safety.

The Western world can no longer ignore the latest elephant in the room: Islamic imperialism. Europe has gone so far as to hamper free speech on the subject, apparently preferring to put the safety of its citizens at risk over admitting that the elephant exists.

Meanwhile, Muslim countries make not the slightest effort to hide their intentions, as recent actions of 18 such states at the United Nations illustrate. They cooperated in the preparation of the report released in March by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), which accused Israel of “the crime of apartheid,” despite knowing full well that such a baseless claim would be rejected by the world body now that Donald Trump is at the helm of the free world. The reason they went ahead with it anyway was to convey to the West that delegitimizing the Jewish state was merely the first step in a master plan to unravel all of Judeo-Christian civilization and values.

For a body such as UNESCWA to declare the State of Israel in an official Institute’s report, as being guilty of “the crime of apartheid” according to international law, shows that Islamic expansionism is a real and an active political problem.

UNESCWA must have had some idea, before publishing the report, that such a loopy conclusion could not be adopted, even by the UN, which has been doing its utmost to rewrite historical facts. In the last few years, UNESCO has repeatedly declared pre-Islamic historical sites Islamic.

Nevertheless, UNESCWA proceeded to pass this surreal political concoction, probably to declare to the Western world again its attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel and all the freedoms it represents in the Judeo-Christian world that might threaten the expansion of Islam.

It was an attempt to project power.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, which even before his new, absolute powers, wanted to represent all of Sunni Islam, shows to the Western world the true face of Islamic imperialism and the conventional, irregular and cyber war it appears to have declared on the Christian world.

The UN report and Erdogan’s rhetoric both evidently expresses the Muslim world’s thoughts about what it apparently thinks should be the fate of Israel and Europe. So far, not a single Muslim state has condemned or opposed Erdogan’s aggression against Judeo-Christian civilization.

ANKARA, TURKEY – APRIL 17: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan gives a referendum victory speech to his supporters at the Presidential Palace on April 17, 2017 in Ankara Turkey. Erdogan declared victory in Sunday’s historic referendum that will grant sweeping powers to the presidency, hailing the result as a “historic decision. 51.4 per cent per cent of voters had sided with the “Yes” campaign, ushering in the most radical change to the country’s political system in modern times.Turkey’s main opposition calls on top election board to annul the referendum. OSCE observers said that a Turkish electoral board decision to allow as valid ballots that did not bear official stamps undermined important safeguards against fraud. (Photo by Elif Sogut/Getty Images)

According to Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu, “[T]here will soon be religious wars inside Europe”. The enemy is already inside the gates; many European regimes seem unaware that there is even a threat.

Corrupted elites, with the help of many in the international community, try to suffocate Israel economically; and the biased and dishonest media seem to be trying to hide from the public that they work as proxies of Islamic imperialism, promoting Islamic ideology and condemning the values of the West.

Pope Francis and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew use Jesus’s phrase “Love each other as I have loved you” as a religious justification to love people who are ordered — under threat of eternal hellfire — not only never to love you, but to have nothing whatever to do with you, apart from trying to win you over to their firmly-held belief:

“O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them.” — Qur’an 5:51

The logic of much of Europe’s religious and political community seems to be that if the elephant in the room is spoken to nicely and made to look cute and adorable, people will not think of it as a threat to their safety.

Left-wing ideologues and unwitting fellow travelers hide the nature of the elephant. This was the approach of President Obama, who, along with European leaders, provided space in which the elephant could operate, grow and undermine the fabric of Western societies.

Key to this enabling has been a Western focus on fake politics — such as the obsession with issues such as transgender bathrooms and rights for women who are already blessed with rights — while Islamists are actually oppressing gays and women in the most rigid fashion.

The Obama administration metamorphosed real politics into fake politics, where people talk — instead of about freedom and democracy — about feminism, gender studies, transgender bathrooms, feeling offended and endless vaginology.

Christian leaders have also been trying to deflect from the threat. Both Pope Francis and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I use Jesus’s phrase, “Love each other as I have loved you” to disguise and minimize it.

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room gets bigger and bigger and is ready, according to the Turkish president’s statements, to destroy the house.

The West seems addicted to prettying up terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the PLO. Wishing away danger is nothing new to the West. It was not until President Ronald Reagan exposed the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” for example, that the threat of Communism began to be taken seriously. Within six years, the USSR collapsed.

The behavior of many Western political leaders, jumping from one definition to another about the “true nature of Islam,” has so far been disastrous. The tenets of Islam are there or all to see; people in the West seem not to want to look.

What are we Westerners doing trying to tell Muslims what their religion is, in the first place? Do they try to tell us what “real Christianity” is?

Sadly, too much of what we have seen of Islam in the West has been violent. Countless attacks, with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” have been claimed in the name of Islam. In terms of what their religion stands for, you at least have to give them credit for being forthright. We in the West are the ones who have lied.

Ultimately, if we do not confront this problem, this problem will confront us.

Categories: Erdogan and Islamism, Erdogan and Israel, Islam and conquest, Islam and democracy, Islam in Europe, Islam in Turkey, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic war on Christians, Islamisation of Europe, Islamist objectives, Israel and Europe, Israel and UN, Turkey and Europe, Turkey and human rights, Turkish democracy, Turkish immigrants, UN and Islamism
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Europe: More Migrants Coming

May 5, 2017

Europe: More Migrants Coming, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 5, 2017

Müller added that only 10% of those currently on the move have reached Europe: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

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“In terms of public order and internal security, I simply need to know who is coming to our country.” — Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka.

Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants either way: with Europe’s permission by means of visa-free travel, or without Europe’s permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.

The migrants arriving in Italy are overwhelmingly economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very small number appear to be legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing warzones.

The director of the UN office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The European Union has called on its member states to lift border controls — introduced at the height of the migration crisis in September 2015 — within the next six months.

The return to open borders, which would allow for passport-free travel across the EU, comes at a time when the number of migrants crossing the Mediterranean continues to rise, and when Turkish authorities increasingly have been threatening to renege on a border deal that has lessened the flow of migrants from Turkey to Europe.

Critics say that lifting the border controls now could trigger another, even greater, migration crisis by encouraging potentially millions of new migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to begin making their way to Europe. It would also allow jihadists to cross European borders undetected to carry out attacks when and where they wish.

At a press conference in Brussels on May 2, the EU Commissioner in charge of migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, called on Austria, Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden — among the wealthiest and most sought after destinations in Europe for migrants — to phase out the temporary controls currently in place at their internal Schengen borders over the next six months.

The so-called Schengen Agreement, which took effect in March 1995, abolished many of the EU’s internal borders, enabling passport-free movement across most of the bloc. The Schengen Agreement, along with the single European currency, are fundamental pillars of the European Union and essential building-blocks for constructing a United States of Europe. With the long-term sustainability of the single currency and open borders in question, advocates of European federalism are keen to preserve both.

Avramopoulos, who argued that border controls are “not in the European spirit of solidarity and cooperation,” said:

“The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen Area. This is our goal, and it remains unchanged. A fully functioning Schengen area, free from internal border controls. Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to protect it.”

The temporary border controls were established in September 2015, after hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in Europe, and when EU member states, led by Germany, gave special permission to some EU countries to impose emergency controls for up to two years. Since then, the European Union has approved six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, at Austria’s frontiers with Hungary and Slovenia and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. (Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.) Since then, several countries have argued that they need border controls to combat the threat of Islamic militancy.

On May 2, Sweden, which claims to conduct the most border checks among the EU countries, announced that it will lift controls at its border with Denmark. Sweden received 81,000 asylum seekers in 2014; 163,000 in 2015; 29,000 in 2016, and the same is expected for 2017.

On April 26, Austria called for an indefinite extension of border controls. “In terms of public order and internal security, I simply need to know who is coming to our country,” Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said. Austria, which accepted some 90,000 migrants in 2015, also called for a “postponement” of the EU refugee distribution program, which requires EU member states to accept a mandatory and proportional distribution of asylum-seekers who arrive in other member nations.

On March 9, Norway extended border controls for another three months.

On January 26, Denmark extended border controls for another four months. Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said that his government would extend its border controls “until European borders are under control.”

On January 19, Germany and Austria announced that border controls between their countries would continue indefinitely, “as long as the EU external border is not adequately protected.”

Meanwhile, the number of migrants making their way to Europe is once again trending higher. Of the 30,465 migrants who reached Europe during the first quarter of 2017, 24,292 (80%) arrived in Italy, 4,407 arrived in Greece, 1,510 arrived in Spain and 256 arrived in Bulgaria, according to the International Office for Migration (IOM).

By way of comparison, the number of arrivals to Europe during each of the first three months of 2017 exceeded those who arrived during the same time period in 2015, the year in which migration to Europe reached unprecedented levels.

The trend is expected to continue throughout 2017. Better weather is already bringing about a surge of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Europe. During just one week in April, for example, a total of 9,661 migrants reached the shores of Italy.

The migrants arriving there are overwhelmingly economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very small number appear to be legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing warzones. According to the IOM, the migrants who reached Italy during the first three months of 2017 are, in descending order, from: Guinea, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Somalia and Eritrea.

In February, Italy reached a deal with the UN-backed government in Tripoli to hold migrants in camps in Libya in exchange for money to fight human traffickers. The agreement was endorsed by both the European Union and Germany.

On May 2, however, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel reversed course by saying the deal ignored the “catastrophic conditions” in Libya and would not curb migration. He said that Germany now favored tackling migration by fighting instability in Africa:

“What we are trying instead is to help stabilize the countries on the continent. But that is difficult. We will have to show staying power, stamina and patience. This is in the interest of Africans but also in the interest of Europeans.”

Gabriel’s long-term solution — which in the best of circumstances could take decades to bear fruit — implies that mass migration from Africa to Europe will continue unabated for many years to come.

Italy has emerged as Europe’s main point of entry for migrants largely because of an agreement the European Union signed with Turkey in March 2016 to stem migration from Turkey to Greece. In recent weeks, however, Turkish authorities have threatened to back out of the deal because, according to them, the EU has failed to honor its end of the bargain.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €3 billion ($3.4 billion), as well as grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey’s 78 million citizens, and to restart accession talks for Turkey to join the bloc. In exchange, Turkey agreed to take back all migrants and refugees who reach Greece via Turkey.

After the deal was reached, the number of migrants reaching Greece dropped sharply, although not completely. According to data supplied by the European Union on April 12, a total of 30,565 migrants reached Greece since the migrant deal took effect. Only 944 of those migrants have been returned to Turkey. Still, this is in sharp contrast to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who entered Greece at the height of the migration crisis. Turkey’s continued cooperation is essential to keep the migration floodgates closed.

On April 22, Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs, Ömer Çelik, issued an ultimatum, warning the European Union that if it does not grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel by the end of May, Turkey would suspend the migrant deal and flood Europe with migrants.

On March 17, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu warned that his country would “blow the mind” of Europe and renege on the deal by sending 15,000 Syrian refugees a month to Europe:

“We have a readmission deal. I’m telling you Europe, do you have that courage? If you want, we’ll send the 15,000 refugees to you that we don’t send each month and blow your mind. You have to keep in mind that you can’t design a game in this region apart from Turkey.”

In February 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had already threatened to send millions of migrants to Europe. “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses,” he told European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. In a speech, he signaled that he was running out of patience:

“We do not have the word ‘idiot’ written on our foreheads. We will be patient, but we will do what we have to. Don’t think that the planes and the buses are there for nothing.”

In February 2016, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (left) threatened to send millions of migrants to Europe. “We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses,” he told Jean-Claude Juncker (right), President of the European Commission. (Image source: Turkish President’s Office)

European officials say that to qualify for the visa waiver, Turkey must meet 72 conditions, including the most important one: relaxing its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used to silence critics of Erdoğan, especially since the failed coup in July 2016. Turkey has vowed not to comply with the EU’s demands.

Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, recently reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and “many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe.”

Other analysts believe Erdoğan views the visa waiver as an opportunity to “export” Turkey’s “Kurdish Problem” to Germany. According to Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder, millions of Kurds are poised to take advantage of the visa waiver to flee to Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Erdoğan: “We are importing an internal Turkish conflict,” he warned. “In the end, fewer migrants may arrive by boat, but more will arrive by airplane.”

The European Union now finds itself in a Catch-22 situation. Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants either way: with Europe’s permission by means of visa-free travel, or without Europe’s permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.

Greek officials recently revealed that they have drawn up emergency plans to cope with a new migrant crisis. Turkey is hosting some three million migrants from Syria and Iraq, many of whom are presumably waiting for an opportunity to flee to Europe.

Italy is also bracing for the worst. Up to a million people, mainly from Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Syria are now in Libya waiting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to the IOM.

The director of the United Nations office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In an interview with The Times, Møller, a Dane, said:

“What we have been seeing is one of the biggest human migrations in history. And it’s just going to accelerate. Young people all have cellphones and they can see what’s happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet.”

German Development Minister Gerd Müller has echoed that warning:

“The biggest migration movements are still ahead: Africa’s population will double in the next decades. A country like Egypt will grow to 100 million people, Nigeria to 400 million. In our digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our prosperity and lifestyle.”

Müller added that only 10% of those currently on the move have reached Europe: “Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way.”

Categories: Erdogan, European Union, Islamic invasion, Turkey and Europe, Turkey and human rights, Turkish immigrants, Turks in Europe, Visa-free travel for Turks
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Erdogan: Soon Europeans ‘Will Not Walk Safely on Their Streets’

March 22, 2017

Erdogan: Soon Europeans ‘Will Not Walk Safely on Their Streets’, Breitbart, Chris Tomlinson, March 22, 2017

OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned the European Union (EU) that if the diplomatic spat between Turkey and several European countries continues, Europeans won’t be able to walk their own streets safely.

President Erdoğan made the comments Wednesday in what is another increase of tensions between Turkey and the EU that began when Germany and the Netherlands banned several Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies for the upcoming Turkish referendum. Erdoğan has threatened Europe before, but this time he threatened the safety of Europeans if the row continues, Die Welt reports.

“If you continue to behave like this, not a single European, not a single Westerner will be able to take a step on the road safely anytime in the world,” Erdoğan said at a press conference adding: “We as Turkey are calling on Europe to respect human rights and democracy.”

Erdoğan did not go into specifics of the threat, though many Turks living in countries like Germany and the Netherlands have expressed massive support for him following the failed coup attempt last year.

Shortly after the coup, tens of thousands of Turkish expats attended a rally in Cologne, Germany, to express support for Erdoğan. On the night two Turkish ministers were refused entry in the Netherlands earlier in March, hundreds of Turks flooded the streets of Rotterdam and rioted.

Following the actions of the Netherlands, Erdoğan and his government have suspended high-level diplomatic relations with the Dutch and even accused the country of being complicit in the Srebrenica massacre calling them “Nazi remnants“.

(Video at the link. — DM)

Germany has also seen heated rhetoric from Ankara and pro-Erdoğan Turkish press who depicted German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a Nazi on the cover of newspaper Gunes.

Many in Europe are concerned what effect the row will have on the migrant deal made between the EU and Turkey last year. The deal rapidly slowed the number of migrants crossing from Turkey to Greece from hundreds a day to dozens.

The Turks have made it clear that the deal is on the table and have threatened to scrap it and send 15,000 migrants a month to Europe.

Erdoğan said the political bloc can “forget about” the migrant deal and that it is, for all intents and purposes, dead.  The Turkish government has threatened the deal before when Ankara became frustrated with the lack of visa-free access to the bloc for Turkish citizens.

More troubling has been a recent report that showed an abnormal increase in the number of migrant arrivals over the past week. Some have attributed the rise in sea landings to improved weather conditions, while others question whether this may be the first signs of the end of the migrant deal.

Categories: Erdogan, EU and Turkey, Europe and Islamic terror, European Union, Threats to Europe, Turkish democracy, Turkish immigrants
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The West has finally woken up

March 17, 2017

The West has finally woken up, Israel National News opinion, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, March 17, 2017

Erdogan was insulted personally, as it suddenly appeared that the Dutch have their own will, and even worse, a sense of self-worth! They actually refused to continue their obeisance to the Sultan!

Holland is not alone: Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland do not support Erdogan’s desire to become all-powerful, and have also applied limitations to the arrival of his spokesmen to their territories. Erdogan is now calling for international bodies to punish the Netherlands.

Are we witnessing the beginning of a struggle for the soul of Europe, fought between the newly-strengthened Right and those trying to effect an Islamic takeover? 

Is this the beginning of a change in the process of Europe’s Islamization?

Does Europe have a European future?

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Holland’s current ruckus with Turkey is only the tip of the European iceberg, most of which is already under water.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to take a step backwards, look at reality from a distance, and see the larger picture, taking in the whole forest rather than just the individual trees. If we attempt to review what has been going on in the world since the British decision to leave the European Union and since Donald Trump’s November 16th election victory, it is just possible that the picture emerging is that of a West beginning the fight against Islam after 8 years of submission disguised by a fragile mask of political correctness.

A not insignificant number of factors add up to a wide and inclusive picture: the fact that it is now permissible to say the words “Islamic terror” in the USA, the attempts to limit Muslim immigration to that country, Trump’s decision to finish off ISIS, the strengthening of rightist parties in Europe, the unsuccessful but serious possiblity that Geert Wilders might have been elected in Holland, the discovery of a gigantic weapons cache in Spain – these are only a small example of the issues that have been part of public discourse over the last few months.

It seems that the West has decided to wake up and shake off the Muslim takeover of the public and political agenda. More and more anti-Islamist phenomena are being seen in Europe and America, those called “Islamophobic” by Muslims and their support groups, who define them as irrationnal fears of Islam and Muslims. Opponents of Islam are not only members of shaven-headed gangs, neo-Nazis, tattoo-covered beer drinkers, but ordinary people, upstanding and honest citizens, who have become seriously anxious about what is happening in Europe and the USA.

They observe the cultural change flooding Europe with troubled eyes, noting the immigrants, many of whom come to live off government benefits, the increase in violence, the abusive and negative attitude towards European women in particular, the damage to the younger generation. The average European is very disturbed by Muslim women’s face-coverings, he sees that custom as a cultural red line. Western culture is based on revealing oneself in interpersonal contacts and covering one’s face contradicts this basic premise. In the West’s perception of things, those who hide their faces are criminals – like bank robbers or murderers with face masks – and this is the reason for the instinctive dislike Europeans have for seeing Muslim women wearing face-coverings in public places.

A good many Europeans have developed intense antagonism towards Islamists because of the behavior of some Muslims, mostly young ones, in the public space: noise, wild driving, male and female Islamic apparel, street prayer, mosque construction, muezzin calls to prayer in the middle of the night, burqinis at the beach and swimming pools, media reports of bigamy and polygamy among the immigrants, honor killings of girls and women, influences on school curricula and the food served to  pupils – and much more. Each one of the items listed above might have passed without making waves, but the combination of all of them draws a worrying impression of an alien culture that is increasingly threatening to overpower the West’s culture and way of life.

What can be observed in Europe and the USA today, is a counter-reaction, perhaps the shaking-up of a Western society which has succeeded in removing the mask of political correctness and has set out to battle this troubling development, in an attempt to recover its Western lifestyle, character and the once dominant public expression of that lifestyle. Will this necessarily lead to violence? Maybe not, but what not a few Muslim immigrants are about to discover is that Western socities are changing their attitudes to Muslim immigration and to Muslim demands whose purpose is the creeping Islamization of the European environment.

Holland as a test case: Enough of Erdogan

The background to what is happening today between Holland and Turkey is to be found in over 400 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries; Holland is one of the largest investors in the Turkish economy; over 2000 Dutch companies function in Turkey; trade between the two countries surpasses 10 billion dollars annually and at least a million Dutch tourists visit Turkey every year. At least 400,000 Turkish citizens, 2.5% of the Dutch population, live in Holland. Sounds good, even great, so far.

But what is happening now is the result of long years of European submission to Erdogan’s outlandish behavior, his impulsivity, crude manners and speech, and his flooding Europe with Syrian refugees and other, mostly Muslim, migrants. The Dutch were the first to protest, but the dispute has spilled over into other European countries.

The last round of bad blood between Turkey and Europe began a few days ago, when Erdogan attempted to send government ministers to Europe to encourage the millions of Turks living in Europe and who have the right to vote in Turkey, to endorse the changes in Turkey’s constitution that will strengthen his position. He intends to turn Turkey into a country where the president is not simply a symbolic figure as Erdogan is supposed to be today, but an executive holding the reins of the legislature, on the lines of the USA.

Holland is going through a process of reflection, one that has strengthened the radical right and its leader, Geert Wilders. A short five years ago, he was considered an untouchable racist, but recently, he became a serious candidate for leadership of the country. The Dutch have realized, somehwat belatedly, that their warm acceptance of Muslim migrants turned their country into a preferred destination, and are turning solidly to the right, trying to backtrack and save their homeland from an ever-growing Islamic invasion.

Despite the tense atmosphere and this growing anti-Islamism, Erdogan – head of an Islamist, Muslim Brotherhood-style party – decided to send his ministers to Holland in order to achieve even more power for himself. Did he go mad? Not at all, he simply doesn’t take Europeans into account in the slightest, has ignored them for years with impunity – after all, they let him get away with whatever he wanted to do from the day he gained power in 2002. The Dutch have decided that they have had enough of this and refused to allow the Turkish ministers to enter Holland and speak to their voters. The ministers’ intention, it should be stressed, was to reach the industrial port city of Rotterdam, which has a Muslim majority.

Erdogan was insulted personally, as it suddenly appeared that the Dutch have their own will, and even worse, a sense of self-worth! They actually refused to continue their obeisance to the Sultan! They refused to allow the plane bringing the Turkish foreign minister to land in Holland and stopped its family minister’s car at the border. They were unimpressed by Turkey’s threats of economic sanctions and the preventing of Dutch airlines from landing on Turkish soil. Erdogan compared them to Nazis and fascists, although Holland was a victim of the Nazis. At this point, the weapon chosen by both sides is that of recalling ambassadors.

Holland is not alone: Germany, Denmark, Austria and Switzerland do not support Erdogan’s desire to become all-powerful, and have also applied limitations to the arrival of his spokesmen to their territories. Erdogan is now calling for international bodies to punish the Netherlands.

Are we witnessing the beginning of a struggle for the soul of Europe, fought between the newly-strengthened Right and those trying to effect an Islamic takeover?

Is this the beginning of a change in the process of Europe’s Islamization?

Does Europe have a European future?

Time will tell, as will elections, but along with the political and public struggle, it is worthwhile for Europeans to consider having children. Without more children, the Europeans are marching proudly towards becoming a museum exhibit.

Written for Arutz Sheva, translated from the Hebrew by Rochel Sylvetsky.

Categories: Erdogan, Europe and Islam, Europe and Islamic terror, Islamisation, Islamists, Netherlands, Turkey and Europe, Turkish democracy, Turkish immigrants
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Turkey Sets Ultimatum for EU Migrant Deal

August 2, 2016

Turkey Sets Ultimatum for EU Migrant Deal, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, August 2, 2016

(Europe’s assisted suicide. — DM)

♦ Turkey has threatened to back out of an agreement to stem the flow of migrants to the European Union if Turkish nationals are not granted visa-free travel to the bloc by October.

♦ Europe is trapped in a no-win situation. European officials say that although Turkey has fulfilled most of their conditions, it has failed to relax its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used to silence critics of President Erdoğan, especially since Turkey’s failed coup on July 15.

♦ The German newspaper Bild recently reported a confidential plan to house all migrants arriving from Turkey on Greek islands. Public transportation between those islands and the Greek mainland would be cut off to prevent migrants from moving into other parts of the EU.

♦ “No matter how uncouth, how merciless, how unscrupulous Western countries act, they have no chance of keeping the migration flows under control.” — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, quoted by German journalist Wolfram Weimer.

Turkey has threatened to back out of an agreement to stem the flow of migrants to the European Union if Turkish nationals are not granted visa-free travel to the bloc by October.

Although Turkish officials have repeatedly threatened to renege on the March 18 EU-Turkey deal, this is the first time they have set a deadline.

If the EU approves the visa waiver, tens of millions of Turks will gain immediate and unimpeded access to 26 European countries. If the EU rejects the visa waiver, and Turkey retaliates by reopening the migration floodgates, potentially millions of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East could begin flowing into Greece this fall. Europe is trapped in a no-win situation.

The migration deal, which entered into force on June 1, was hastily negotiated by European leaders desperate to gain control over a crisis in which more than one million migrants poured into Europe in 2015.

Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €3 billion ($3.4 billion), grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey’s 78 million citizens, and restart accession talks for Turkey to join the bloc. In exchange, Turkey agreed to take back all migrants and refugees who reach Greece via Turkey.

Turkish officials have repeatedly accused the EU of failing to keep its end of the bargain.

In a July 25 interview with the German television broadcaster ARD, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Turkey had so far received only €2 million of the promised €3 billion: “European leaders are dishonest,” he said. “We have stood by our promise. But have the Europeans kept theirs?”

The EU insists that the €3 billion must be transferred through the United Nations and other international aid agencies in accordance with strict rules on how the money can be spent: “Funding under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey supports refugees in the country,” the EU said in a statement. “It is funding for refugees and not funding for Turkey.”

In a July 31 interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu stressed that the Turkish government wants the EU to set a “specific deadline” for lifting the visa requirements: “It can be early or mid-October but we are waiting for an exact date,” he said.

Cavusoglu said that his words are “not a threat,” but added that “if there is no lifting of the visa restrictions, we will be forced to abandon the agreement struck on March 18.”

Under the agreement, European officials promised to fast-track visa-free access for Turkish nationals to the Schengen (open-bordered) passport-free zone by June 30, and to restart Turkey’s stalled EU membership talks by the end of July 2016.

To qualify for the visa waiver, Turkey had until April 30 to meet 72 conditions. These include: bringing the security features of Turkish passports up to EU standards; sharing information on forged and fraudulent documents used to travel to the EU and granting work permits to non-Syrian migrants in Turkey.

European officials say that although Turkey has fulfilled most of their conditions, it has failed to comply with the most important one: relaxing its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used to silence critics of Erdoğan, especially since Turkey’s failed coup on July 15.

European Commissioner Günther Oettinger recently said he did not believe the European Union would grant visa-free travel for Turkish citizens this year due to Erdoğan’s post-coup crackdown.

Turkish authorities have arrested more than 15,000 people in connection with the coup attempt, and at least 60,000 civil servants, teachers, journalists, police officers and soldiers have been fired or suspended from various state-run institutions.

Turkey’s EU accession talks also have run aground after Erdoğan threatened to reinstate the death penalty in Turkey. Oettinger said: “The death penalty is irreconcilable with our order of values and our treaties. No country can become a member state of the EU if it introduces the death penalty.”

Erdoğan has indicated he is no longer interested in EU membership: “We’ll go our way, you go yours,” he said.

Meanwhile, Greek officials report a significant increase in the number of migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey since the coup attempt. Observers say Erdoğan is using the migrant flows to pressure Greece to extradite eight Turkish officers who participated in the coup and fled across the border to Greece. Athens has refused to hand them back.

As the migrant deal unravels, European officials are discussing a “Plan B.” The German newspaper Bild recently reported a confidential plan to house all migrants arriving from Turkey on Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Public transportation between those islands and the Greek mainland would be cut off to prevent migrants from moving into other parts of the European Union.

The plan, which Bild says is being discussed at the highest echelons of European power, would effectively turn parts of Greece into massive refugee camps for many years to come. It remains unclear whether Greek leaders will have any say in the matter.

The European Union now finds itself in a Catch-22 situation. Large numbers of Muslim migrants will flow to Europe regardless of whether or not the EU approves the visa waiver.

1607 (1)Thousands of newly arrived migrants, the vast majority of whom are men, crowd the platforms at Vienna West Railway Station on August 15, 2015 — a common scene in the summer and fall of 2015. (Image source: Bwag/Wikimedia Commons)

Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, recently reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and “many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe.”

Other analysts believe Erdoğan views the visa waiver as an opportunity to “export” Turkey’s “Kurdish Problem” to Germany. According to Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder, millions of Kurds are poised to take advantage of the visa waiver to flee to Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Erdoğan: “We are importing an internal Turkish conflict,” he warned. “In the end, fewer migrants may arrive by boat, but more will arrive by airplane.”

In a refreshingly perceptive essay, Wolfram Weimer, a well-known German journalist, wrote that Erdoğan is exploiting Europe’s strategic weaknesses to advance Turkish imperialism and his goal of Islamizing the continent:

“A few days ago Erdoğan said: ‘No matter how uncouth, how merciless, how unscrupulous Western countries act, they have no chance of keeping the migration flows under control.’ In short, he sees mass migration as a political weapon to put Europe under pressure. In diplomatic and military circles, the word that has been circulating for months is ‘migration weapon’ because the Turkish secret service has been deliberately and massively promoting the migration of Muslims to Europe.

“Turkey now earns tremendous amounts of money on all sorts of migration services and has allowed the refugee industry to blossom. At the same time Erdoğan is openly pursuing the Islamization of Europe. With its religious authority Diyanet [a branch of the Turkish government’s Directorate for Religious Affairs that runs hundreds of mosques in Europe], Europe (and especially Germany) are being Islamized in a planned manner; the refugees play a key role, as do mosques, to give a ‘home’ to the faithful in a foreign land.

“Erdoğan’s favorite quote comes from a poem by Ziya Gökalp [1876-1924, a father of Turkish nationalism]: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the minarets are our bayonets.’ Erdoğan sees himself both domestically and internationally as a religious cultural warrior — as the patron saint of Islamist expansion.”

Categories: Erdogan, European Union, Islamic invasion, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Turkey and Europe, Turkish immigrants
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Far-right anti-Erdogan protest allowed to go ahead in Cologne on day of demonstrations

July 31, 2016

Far-right anti-Erdogan protest allowed to go ahead in Cologne on day of demons, Deutsche Welle, July 30, 2016

(How “far left” must Germany be when voicing displeasure with Erdogan is deemed “far right”? — DM)

Some three million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, making it the world’s largest Turkish diaspora.

***********************

A court in Münster has given permission for a far-right protest against Turkish President Erdogan to take place on Sunday in Cologne. Erdogan supporters will also be taking to the streets of the western German city.

erdogan protest

A spokesman for the Higher Administrative Court in Münster confirmed on Saturday that it had rejected an appeal by Cologne police to ban an anti-Erdogan demonstration called by the far-right political party Pro NRW for Sunday.

The court upheld an earlier decision by a Cologne court to allow the demonstration to go ahead, despite police fears that violent members of the HoGeSa (Hooligans Against Salafists) group could join in the protest.

The demonstration is to take place under the motto “No tributes to Erdogan in Germany: Stop the Islamist autocrat from the Bosporus” in response to a planned rally by up to 30,000 Erdogan supporters in the city on the same day.

No Erdogan live presentation

The Münster court, which is responsible for administrative disputes, also rejected an appeal by the organizers of the pro-Erdogan demonstration to be allowed to show the Turkish president live on a large screen during the event.

Police have voiced fears that such a presentation could cause participants to become over-excited.

Police in Cologne are planning to deploy 2,300 officers and have six water cannon on hand in case violence does break out at any of the demonstrations planned in the city on Sunday, which also include rallies by leftists and youth organizations affiliated with German parties.

fearÖzdemir warned of an “atmosphere of fear”

Erdogan critics ‘targeted’

In comments carried in the Saturday edition of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called on participants in the pro-Erdogan demonstration to display moderation.

Steinmeier said it was “not permissible” to bring domestic political tensions from Turkey to Germany or to intimidate people with different political views.

The leader of the Greens, Cem Özdemir, also criticized alleged attempts at intimidation ahead of the demonstration, telling newspapers of the Funke media group that critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan among Germany’s Turkish community were being targeted.

Özdemir said that demonstrations for or against Turkish leaders had to take place “on the basis of the [German] legal system.”

“An atmosphere of fear must not be created,” he said.

Turkey in turmoil

Sunday’s demonstrations come as Erdogan continues with purges of the army, judiciary, the education system and the media following a failed coup on July 15.

Critics of the president fear that he might be using the coup as an excuse to increase his already tight political grip on the country.

Some three million people of Turkish origin live in Germany, making it the world’s largest Turkish diaspora.

Categories: Erdogan, Germany, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation, Turkey, Turkey and Europe, Turkish immigrants
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Germany’s Turkish-Muslim Integration Problem

June 24, 2016

Germany’s Turkish-Muslim Integration Problem, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, June 24, 2016

♦ Seven percent of respondents agreed that “violence is justified to spread Islam.” Although these numbers may seem innocuous, 7% of the three million Turks living in Germany amounts to 210,000 people who believe that jihad is an acceptable method to propagate Islam.

♦ The survey also found that labor migration is no longer the main reason why Turks immigrate to Germany: the most important reason is to marry a partner who lives there.

♦ A new statistical survey of Germany — Datenreport 2016: Social Report for the Federal Republic of Germany — shows that ethnic Turks are economically and educationally less successful than other immigrant groups, and that more than one-third (36%) of ethnic Turks live below the poverty line, compared to 25% of migrants from the Balkans and southwestern Europe.

♦ “In our large study we asked Muslims how strongly they feel discriminated against, and we searched for correlations to the development of a fundamentalist worldview. But there are none. Muslim hatred of non-Muslims is not a special phenomenon of Muslim immigration, but is actually worse in the countries of origin. Radicalization is not first produced here in Europe, rather it comes from the Muslim world.” — Ruud Koopmans, sociologist.

Nearly half of the three million ethnic Turks living in Germany believe it is more important to follow Islamic Sharia law than German law if the two are in conflict, according to a new study.

One-third of those surveyed also yearn for German society to “return” to the way it was during the time of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, in the Arabia of the early seventh century.

The survey — which involves Turks who have been living in Germany for many years, often decades — refutes claims by German authorities that Muslims are well integrated into German society.

The 22-page study, “Integration and Religion from the Viewpoint of Ethnic Turks in Germany” (Integration und Religion aus der Sicht von Türkeistämmigen in Deutschland), was produced by the Religion and Politics department of the University of Münster. Key findings include:

  • 47% of respondents agreed with the statement that “following the tenets of my religion is more important to me than the laws of the land in which I live.” This view is held by 57% of first generation Turkish immigrants and 36% of second and third generation Turks. (The study defines first generation Turks as those who arrived in Germany as adults; second and third generation Turks are those who were born in Germany or who arrived in the country as children.)
  • 32% of respondents agreed that “Muslims should strive to return to a societal order like that in the time of Mohammed.” This view is held by 36% of the first generation and 27% of the second and third generation.
  • 50% of respondents agreed that “there is only one true religion.” This view is held by 54% of the first generation and 46% of the second and third generation.
  • 36% of respondents agreed that “only Islam is able to solve the problems of our times.” This view is held by 40% of the first generation and 33% of the second and third generation.
  • 20% of respondents agreed that “the threat which the West poses to Islam justifies violence.” This view is held by 25% of the first generation and 15% of the second and third generation.
  • 7% of respondents agreed that “violence is justified to spread Islam.” This view is held by 7% of the first generation and 6% of the second and third generation. Although these numbers may seem innocuous, 7% of the three million Turks living in Germany amounts to 210,000 people who believe that jihad is an acceptable method to propagate Islam.
  • 23% of respondents agreed that “Muslims should not shake the hand of a member of the opposite sex.” This view is held by 27% of the first generation and 18% of the second and third generation.
  • 33% of respondents agreed that “Muslim women should wear a veil.” This view is held by 39% of the first generation and 27% of the second and third generation.
  • 31% of female respondents said that they wear a veil in public. This includes 41% of the first generation and 21% of the second and third generation.
  • 73% of respondents agreed that “books and movies that attack religion and offend the feelings of deeply religious people should be banned by law.”
  • 83% of respondents agreed that “I get angry when Muslims are the first to be blamed whenever there is a terrorist attack.”
  • 61% of respondents agreed that “Islam fits perfectly in the Western world.”
  • 51% of respondents agreed that “as an ethnic Turk, I feel like a second class citizen.”
  • 54% of respondents agreed that “regardless of how hard I try, I am not accepted as a member of German society.”

The study also found that Turks and native Germans hold radically different perceptions about Islam:

  • While 57% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with human rights, only 6% of Germans do.
  • While 56% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with tolerance, only 5% of Germans do.
  • While 65% of Turkish Germans associate Islam with peace, only 7% of Germans do.

Based on the answers provided, the authors of the survey concluded that 13% of respondents are “religious fundamentalists” (18% of the first generation and 9% of the second and third generation). Although these numbers may appear insignificant, 13% of the three million Turks in Germany amounts to nearly 400,000 Islamic fundamentalists, many of whom believe that violence is an acceptable means to spread Islam.

The survey’s findings mirror those of other studies, which show that Turkish migrants are poorly integrated into German society.

In 2012, the 103-page study, “German-Turkish Life and Values” (Deutsch-Türkische Lebens- und Wertewelten), found that only 15% of ethnic Turks living in Germany consider the country to be their home. Other key findings include:

  • Nearly half (46%) of Turks agreed with the statement, “I hope that in the future there will be more Muslims than Christians living in Germany”; more than half (55%) said that Germany should build more mosques.
  • 72% of respondents said that Islam is the only true religion; 18% said that Jews are inferior to Muslims and 10% said that Christians are inferior.
  • 63% of Turks between the ages of 15 and 29 said they approve of a Salafist campaign to distribute a Koran to every household in Germany; 36% said they would be willing to support the campaign financially.
  • 95% of respondents said it is absolutely necessary for them to preserve their Turkish identity; 87% said they believe that Germans should make a greater effort to be considerate of Turkish customs and traditions.
  • 62% of respondents said they would rather be around Turks than Germans; only 39% of Turks said that Germans were trustworthy.

The survey also found that labor migration is no longer the main reason why Turks immigrate to Germany: the most important reason is to marry a partner who lives there.

Meanwhile, a new statistical survey of Germany — Datenreport 2016: Social Report for the Federal Republic of Germany (Datenreport 2016: Sozial-bericht für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland) — shows that ethnic Turks are economically and educationally less successful than other immigrant groups.

The report, produced by Germany’s official statistics agency, Destatis, in cooperation with several German think tanks, shows that more than one-third (36%) of ethnic Turks are living below the poverty line, compared to 25% of migrants from the Balkans and southwestern Europe (Spain and Portugal). The average income of ethnic Turkish households is €1,242 ($1,400) per month, compared to €1,486 ($1,700) for non-Turkish migrants and €1,730 ($1,950) for German households.

Only 5% of ethnic Turks earn more than 150% of the average German income, compared to 21% of migrants from Eastern Europe, 18% of those from southwestern Europe and 11% of those from the Balkans.

1662An open-air market in the heavily-Turkish Kreuzberg district of Berlin. (Image source: The Berlin Project video screenshot)

The report also shows that Turks have a lower educational attainment than other migrant groups in Germany. Only 60% of ethnic Turks complete secondary school (Hauptschulabschluss), compared to 85% of migrants from Eastern Europe. Moreover, only 8% of ethnic Turks between the ages of 17 and 45 earn a Bachelor’s degree, compared to 30% of migrants in the same demographic from Eastern Europe. Education is a determinative factor for successful integration, according to the report.

German multiculturalists often blame the lack of Turkish integration on the Germans themselves. Writing for Die Welt, economist Thomas Straubhaar argues that most Germans view Turks as guests, not as fellow citizens, an attitude which discourages Turks from integrating:

“Ethnic Turks are essentially treated as guests — hence the controversy over whether their faith belongs to Germany or not. Their immigration is seen as temporary. Their contribution to German culture is seen in a negative light.

“Those who treat migrants as guests should not be surprised when they behave as such. Guests are not expected to have any emotional devotion to the host, nor does the host feel any obligation to show irrevocable loyalty to the guest.

“Guests will not be willing to put all their cards on the table of the host country and take full responsibility for successful integration. Guests assume that sooner or later they must return home again. In everything they do, they will always consider their guest status and be only halfheartedly engaged. This applies to investments in language, culture, friendships, social contacts and professional career.”

Others counter that those who act like strangers should not be surprised if they are treated as strangers. Sociologist Ruud Koopmans argues that one of the most determinative factors in successful integration involves the cultural gap between host and guest. The greater the distance, the greater the integration challenge.

In a recent interview with WirtschaftsWoche, Koopmans criticized multiculturalists who for normative reasons insist that culture and religion should not be factored into the debate on integration:

“In all European countries, Muslim immigrants lag behind all other immigrant groups in almost every aspect of integration. This applies to the labor market, but also to educational achievement, inter-ethnic contacts, i.e., contacts with the local population, and identification with the country of residence.

“Three decisive factors determine cultural distance: language skills, inter-ethnic contacts — especially those involving marriage — and values about the role of women. They all have something to do with religion. This of course applies especially for ideas about the role of women, which are derived directly from the Islamic religion. The greater the cultural distance between groups — especially when there are cultural taboos — the more complicated inter-ethnic marriages become. Such taboos make it virtually impossible for a Muslim, and especially Muslim women, to marry a non-Muslim. Statistics from various European countries show that less than ten percent of Muslim marriages are inter-ethnic.”

Detlef Pollack, the author of the University of Münster study cited above, blames the lack of Turkish integration on discrimination: “The message to the majority German population is that we should be more sensitive to the problems encountered by those of Turkish origin,” he told Deutsche Welle. “It is our view that the feeling of not being accepted is expressed in the vehement defense of Islam.”

Koopmans rejects the link between discrimination and radicalization:

“This is a common assertion. But it is wrong. In our large study we asked Muslims how strongly they feel discriminated against, and we searched for correlations to the development of a fundamentalist worldview. But there are none. Muslim hatred of non-Muslims is not a special phenomenon of Muslim immigration, but is actually worse in the countries of origin. Radicalization is not first produced here in Europe, rather it comes from the Muslim world.”

Categories: Germany, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic law, Multiculturalism, Turkish immigrants
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