More than a year after the election, Minister Seehofer starts a new round of the German Islam conference. It comes to the better Integration of Islam into German law. Exciting new composition.
German Islam conference in November 2016
This took a long time. About a year after the Bundestag election, more than 20 months after the last plenary session of the German Islam conference (DIK), along comes the panel this Wednesday in Berlin, for the first time in a new round. A good twelve years after the Start of the first German Islam conference by the Federal government, the competent interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) focuses on new faces and emphasized new themes. But the Reason the conference remains the same: a better religious and social Integration of the approximately 4.5 million Muslims in Germany.
In the case of the two-day event, it goes to a kick-off round with the Minister – officially to the promotion of integration and the Imamausbildung in Germany. However, this last point questions has already been attracting a number of Connection, certainly in the years leading up to the end of the legislative session for Controversial: the Situation of Islamic theology at German universities, the funding of imams and mosques from abroad, the question of greater financial contributions by the mosque communities.
Mosque tax?
The new Central mosque in Cologne – inaugurated by the Turkish President, Erdogan. The stands for the influence from abroad.
“The goal must be that the mosques in Germany are financial assistance from foreign countries,” said the beginning of the week the Secretary of state in the Ministry of the interior, Markus Kerber, the “image”-newspaper. Whether this could be an official tax from the Muslims, like the Christians in Germany, a Church tax to pay, and thus the work of their respective Church Finance? Kerber pointed out, that’s it for the official levying of a tax a prerequisite is that the mosques would have to fulfill the basic requirements of German Law. Until then – so much seems clear – it is still a long way to go.
And his boss Seehofer formulated shortly before the conference, this claim explicitly: The Muslim religion should organize communities so that they satisfied the requirements of the religion constitutional law for cooperation with the state, he writes in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ). Organization and funding would have to be responsible for it in Germany, it had to be reliable resistance and contract loyalty to the state.
In 2012, the University of Tübingen established as the first German University with a degree in Islamic theology.
In addition to the substantive aspects of personnel decisions. They correspond to the title of a concluding panel discussion, “Muslims in Germany – German Muslims”. It is customary that each new round of the German Islam conference, i.e. after the beginning of a parliamentary term, new members named. Since the first round in 2006, cooked in the days prior to the start of the conference the dispute within the Muslim community in Germany is high, and occasionally it came to Distancing and Boycott. Basically, it was always the Power and influence of the Islamic associations in Germany – of which no one exactly can tell how many of the Muslims they represent.
Individuals
At the start of the fourth DIK-round Seehofer, the Minister of the interior, also for the religions responsible, demonstrative on Muslim individuals, which will form a counter-weight to the Association representatives. The founder of the liberal Ibn-Rushd mosque in Berlin, Seyran Ates, and the psychologist and Islamism expert, Ahmad Mansour, among others. Both are in Germany, prominent for a secular Islam. And the representatives of influential organizations, including the Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, Aiman Mazyek, and Abdurrahman Atasoy of the Turkish-Islamic Union of the institution for Religion (DITIB), will have to face and deal with.
In order to better understand how serious this step is, a glance at the composition of the previous Islamic conference. Her was from 2013, not a single individual personality, instead of solely Islamic Association representatives. Accordingly, it was not about fundamental issues of freedom of and from Religion, but rather pragmatic, but is certainly very important accents. Welfare work, for example, youth work, Muslim chaplains in prisons.
Islam…
A picture from the beginning of time. In 2006, the first Islam conference started, here’s a scene from the deliberations in 2008.
For the high importance that gets the new conference, the Name of Markus Kerber. The 53-year-old economist had set in 2006 with his former boss, Minister of the interior Wolfgang Schäuble, at great personal involvement in the Islam conference is on Track. In 2011, Kerber left the political apparatus and moved into the top leadership of the Federal Association of German industry. A few months ago brought back, quite surprisingly, Seehofer him. Kerber, officially the home of Secretary of state, will want to bring in “his” project-Islam conference now, where it is fundamental.
…and Germany
And he is important as a corrective or as a Sherpa for his boss. Seehofer had announced in March, fresh in the office: “Islam belongs to Germany.” Germany was shaped by Christianity. His message was that “Muslims must live with us, not beside us or against us,” the CSU man, chose at that time still in the mode of the Bavarian state Parliament election campaign, like hard words. Days later, Angela Merkel said in her first government Declaration as a re-elected Federal Chancellor on the subject – and the CDU-Chairman, disagreed with more or less clearly to the CSU leader. Unquestionably, the historical imprint in our country is “Christian and Jewish”. But with around 4.5 million Muslims in Germany Islam had become “a part of Germany”.
Occasionally, differences of opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU).
Today, the sounds also Seehofer different than in March. As the home Minister he would support the German Muslims in all their diversity and with the instruments of his Ministry “to strengthen its German and Muslim identity and to promote identification with their German homeland.” The goal is a Islam, and for Germany to be””.
Little Comparable
With all the dispute in the run-up – even twelve years after the Start of the Islam conference is in its attempt, the Muslim community in Germany to map and integrate well in an international comparison, unusual. Only Austria, which has for more than 100 years, an official Islam of the law, and this request 2015 reformed, in each of the areas. So imams need to be in the Land of the mosque communities are funded.
There is in many countries “organised talks between the state or state Authorities and Muslims or their representatives and associations,” said a spokeswoman for the interior Ministry of the German wave. And you called it Austria, the Netherlands, the UK and France. But the relevant formats were to be compared to “hardly any of the German sites”. In the countries of southern Europe there is no government-organized meetings with Muslims to discuss Islamic issues, Lluis Flaquer, a sociologist in Barcelona, the German wave. In Spain and France, for example, it is currently a self-organization of the Muslims.