Foreign Neighbours
Muslims between Isolation and Integration

Ali K. is seventeen and has lived between Turkish and Arab immigrants in the Berlin district of Neukölln since his childhood. The young Turk didn't graduate from school and doesn't yet know what to do with his future. His daily life is characterised by gang wars in his district and the rap music he composes. Every day, Ali goes to a little mosque in the myriad of backyards of an old building, where he helps his father, an Imam, to pass on the teachings of the Koran, and where he generally stays until afternoon prayers. "If I didn't spend so much time there, I'd be out getting up to no good with my friends," he says. For youths like Ali, Islamic organisations offer a wide spectrum of leisure activities, from summer holiday camps which focus on the Koran or Arabic to job mediation. Best-known is the organisation Milli Görüs, which is by far the largest Islamic organisation in Germany. According to a report on the protection of the constitution, it operates "what in reality is disintegrative youth work. This and its politics which only appear to be aimed at integration, support Islamic milieus in our country," the report continued.

More and more people in our country fear these developments. The Egyptian Chaban S. is waiting in vain for permission to build a large Islamic centre in Berlin. He wants it to comprise a mosque and numerous rooms for a cultural centre. The young Egyptian doesn't want it to be "just a meeting point for Muslims," but "first and foremost, a place of inter-religious dialogue." The German authorities are of course of a different opinion: "The investors backing the project should be "Islamic".

It's not only the construction of new mosques or Islamic centres, but also the issue of whether Muslim girls should be allowed to wear headscarves in school or whether they should have to participate in swimming classes, which have become topics of escalated debate over the past months. Is it even possible to integrate those with strong Muslim beliefs into German society? Or is the country already home to an Islamic parallel world in which the values and rules of a modern, central-European society are ultimately levered out.

The fight over the deportation of the Islamic leader Metin Kaplan in the city of Cologne has only served to fire this long-standing conflict. In this heated situation, ZDF writer Chiara Sambuchi spoke with Muslims who have decided between integration and isolation. The majority have long considered themselves at home in Germany.

The debate also hears from women's rights activist and lawyer Seyran Ates, constitutional lawyer and Islam expert, Professor Mathias Rohe, and EKD (Evangelic Church in Germany) council Chairman, Bishop Wolfgang Huber.