The sun-Allee in the Berlin district of Neukölln is booming – at the same time TV-series and excited media reports of Clan-crime to her questionable prominence helped. Right?
Sonnenallee: The lively four-lane road in the district of Neukölln, with its high proportion of immigrants and foreigners is colloquially called the “Arab street”. Arabic-language signs and flags from the Middle East are everywhere in kiosks, hookah Lounges, betting shops, and Falafel Restaurants.
Especially by a flood of Reports in the German media about criminal Arab Clans of the dubious reputation of the district in recent times has been strengthened. Reports that have been inspired by the very popular crime series such as, for example, “4 Blocks”, a mixture of “The godfather” and “The Sopranos” (the main character is even named Tony) in front of the lively backdrop of the allegedly dangerous streets of Neukölln.
This is the Sonnenallee in fiction and in the media. The residents say The reality is quite different.
Real and imaginary threats
“Please delete the series from your head,” says Hanadi Mourad, an immigrant from Lebanon, living for decades in Neukölln and for the Information of Muslim women through educational and career opportunities in Berlin.
Only one of the many Arab shops on Sonnenallee: a Syrian bakery
Contrary to the widespread view that the Syrian Clans dominate the Sonnenallee, is the Arab community is quite diverse. It includes many Lebanese and Palestinians who came in the 1970s and 1980s. In addition, about a quarter of the people with foreign nationality has a Turkish Background, just 13 per cent come from Arab countries.
And many long-time residents Worry less about which of these groups outgoing crime as another “foreign threat,” investors from outside of Berlin, the grab real estate and the cost of living.
Between vegan and halal
Mourad used to be a tour guide. She led a wealthy German tourists from Munich and Stuttgart, by the “exotic”, of workers, embossed and multi-cultural Neukölln. “Now you all live here,” she jokes.
The global financial crisis of 2008 triggered a Run on cheap Berlin real estate by investors from Germany, Europe and the Rest of the world. Neukölln was a particularly attractive target. The result: rental prices per square foot have doubled in the last ten years. The neukölln tenants must now spend an average of 37 percent of their disposable income for their apartment. In the worst case, more than half of the monthly salary goes to rent.
But the flow of money also has its advantages. The district of Prenzlauer Berg, and Kreuzberg, Neukölln, as the Top has overtaken Destination for urban Hipsters and entrepreneurs in the German capital.
This fact has not escaped the Arab and Turkish businessmen, some of whom now try the new, wealthier clientele. Today’s sun exists Allee, as Cordula Heckmann, Director of the Rütli Campus is expressed in the street, “between vegan and halal”.
Misunderstood tolerance?
Regardless of gentrification, it is undeniable that the atmosphere on the Sonnenallee significantly more rugged, and for outsiders, potentially intimidating than in the upscale city districts of Berlin. Groups of young men gather on street corners and talking loudly to each other, and the traffic is constant and aggressive, interrupted by police and ambulance sirens, and cars that honk the horn while you ride in the second row of parked vehicles around.
Activist Hanadi Mourad
Also the road is not a role model for Integration. Arab and non-Arab inhabitants and visitors of the Sonnenallee confirm that the interaction between the two groups is minimal. In a way, there’s actually a parallel societies. For Karsten Woldeit, the inner political spokesman of the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Berlin, is a cause of crime, the “lack of willingness to integrate among people from a certain culture”.
“For years, we have not addressed the Problem in the name of a falsely understood tolerance, and now comes back to haunt us bitter,” says Woldeit.
Not much is known about the clan
This part of Neukölln is really a sort of “No-Go area” ruled by a type of criminal Arab Clans, such as the “4 Blocks” are shown? The police statistics do not suggest that this is not the case. The authorities have calculated an adjusted crime rate of around 22,000 incidents per 100,000 inhabitants. That may be true for Berlin at the highest level, but it is lower than in other areas, such as the Alexanderplatz square in East Berlin, or the government district, both without similarly large Arab population.
The authorities say that not enough about the alleged criminal clan structures are known to generalize.
“I can’t follow the arguments of the AfD definitely,” says Peter Diebel, the Director of the police station 54, part of the Sonnenallee. “I don’t know, who has mainly to do with this type of crime.”
The researchers agree that the clan crime is a hypothesis rather than a fact. The criminologist Robert Pelzer of the Technical University of Berlin, says that the issue of the media “will be heavily distorted”.
“The perceptions of people are shaped by the reporting on crime without empirical basis,” said Pelzer of the DW. “The authorities begin to get a picture of the Situation.”
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Walk through Berlin’s “Arab street”
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Walk through Berlin’s “Arab street”
“Room for development”
A Person who has had experiences with crime, the fashion designer Lea Strunk, founded almost seven years ago, a Co-Working space for Creative people in the Sonnenallee. In the first days after the opening of the Arab youth in their Teens or even younger twice tried to Rob them.
But the designer remained unfazed and keeps the incidents rather childish follies. She says her business is now accepted in the neighborhood. She praises Neukölln and calls it an “experimental laboratory” for young entrepreneurs.
“There is still room for development,” says Strunk. “Here there is not so much pressure, financially and in other respects, as in other Parts of the city.”
People like Strunk are not a good fit to tabloid reports of violence on the Sonnenallee, and crime series such as “4 Blocks”. But they are very much part of the development of a part of Berlin that is often presented superficially as the focal point of a supposedly minority-driven crime.