“They know everything – and still do nothing about it”

WELT “They know everything – and still do nothing about it” Till-Reimer Stoldt • 34 million • 4 minutes reading time When will German politicians finally fight the dangers of political Islam with sufficient seriousness? This is what many critics of Islamism are asking themselves. They have now founded a working group against religious radicals to make recommendations to politicians. Many critics of Islamism have recently joined together to form a “Political Islam Working Group”. It is intended to advise politicians on how to push back reactionary and Islamist Muslims. One of the founders is the journalist Lale Akgün. Her criticism: politicians tolerate local Islamists in order not to alienate their foreign supporters. But will the “AK Polis” be able to change anything about this? WELT: Ms. Akgün, in 2013 you dared to make a prophecy: "I fear that in 15 years Germany will be divided on the question of 'Muslim or not'. Who is Muslim and what is Islam will be defined by the conservative associations. In 15 years no German politician should say that he didn't know anything about it." Has your prediction come true? Lale Akgün: I am amazed at how farsighted I was back then (laughs). The ultra-conservative and Islamist associations are deepening the divide within Muslims and between Muslims and those of other faiths, politicians are still ignoring this problem - and an extremist Tiktok Islam has now overtaken the problematic associations and is preaching even more radically the separation from the supposedly unbelieving German society. On the Internet, in shisha bars or martial arts schools, these extremists are proselytizing mainly young people. They are also gaining influence on the boards of mosque associations. WELT: What threatens us if it continues like this? Akgün: Then the division will become ever deeper, then we will be a divided country because nothing unites us anymore, not even the roof of a common liberal-democratic legal order. This is the declared enemy of the fundamentalist Islam influencers. They are also ticking time bombs because you don't know when and how the poison they inject into their followers in the form of extreme enemy images will take effect. WELT: By problematic Muslim associations, do you mean DITIB, for example? Akgün: Yes, DITIB, which is controlled by the Turkish state, is constantly spreading political messages in religious garb. This also applies to the Islamic Community Milli Görüs (IGMG), which originates from the Turkish-Islamist Milli Görüs movement. WELT: Nevertheless, federal states such as Rhineland-Palatinate, Hamburg and Bremen are concluding state treaties with the associations. And in states like NRW they are allowed to help shape Islamic religious education. Just last week, the former CDU federal chairman and former NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet was invited to an event at DITIB. Akgün: Even the Federal President came to Cologne for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers and called the founding of the association "a day of religious history". For my taste, that's too much of an honor for the VIKZ. As far as Laschet is concerned, I'm very disillusioned. He should know better. WELT: He stands pars pro toto for a policy that wants to hold on to the problem associations. Akgün: A huge mistake! The argument that the associations represent the majority of Muslims in Germany is obviously wrong. WELT: But they represent the majority of organized Muslims. Akgün: Yes, the old problem. We liberal Muslims have not been able to change that. WELT: Is the history of liberal reform Islam in Germany a history of its failure? Akgün: At least the liberal, humanist Muslims have not organized themselves successfully, that's true. WELT: There were or are quite a few of them: the Liberal Islamic Union, the Association of Democratic European Muslims, the Ibn Rushd Goethe Mosque, the "Muslim Community in the Rhineland" that you co-founded... Akgün: Yes, their membership numbers are no longer in the mini range, but in the micro range (she sighs). Even reform scholars like Mouhanad Khorchide have not managed to bring about a turnaround. We all wanted to change the mood in the Muslim community and in the majority society by setting an example of an enlightened, friendly interpretation of Islam. That didn't work. WELT: Back to the apparently iron determination of politicians to cooperate with the problem associations: How do you explain that? Akgün: If the states and the federal government did not have the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, then you could almost think that the federal and state governments did not know who they were dealing with. But that is of course wrong. They know how dangerous the associations are. They know everything - and yet do nothing about it.