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Germany-Turkey rift grows

March 26, 2019 | Expert Insights

Berlin wants to sever the financial and institutional ties between local Muslim communities and the Turkish government as part of a bold campaign to help German Muslims develop a homegrown version of Islam. 

Background

German–Turkish relations have their beginnings in the times of the Ottoman Empire and have culminated in the development of strong bonds with many facets that include economic, military, cultural and social relations.

With Turkey as a candidate for the European Union, of which Germany is the biggest member, and the existence of a huge Turkish diaspora in Germany, these relations have become more and more intertwined over the decades. Relations with Turkey significantly deteriorated after the 2016–17 Turkish purges and Turkey's turn to authoritarianism including the arrest of journalists such as Die Welt's Deniz Yücel. In July 2015 The Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that German federal prosecutors were looking into claims that three men - two Turks and a German national - were instructed by MIT to spy on Erdogan critics in Cologne, particularly Kurds and members of the Muslim minority Alevi community.

In October 2017, according to German press reports officials working in Germany's immigration authorities pass on information about Turkish asylum seekers to Turkey. In many cases, even their locations were also revealed, that even their families did not know for security reasons. These incidents showed that Turkish spies may have infiltrated German authorities.

Analysis

Marcus Kerber, the top civil servant in the German interior ministry, is the official in charge of relations between the government and the country’s 4m-strong Muslim community, added: “Our goals are: to reduce foreign influence — both financial and personal — on Germany’s Muslim community; to ensure that imams preaching in Germany are trained in Germany; and to ensure that Muslims are better integrated in German society when it comes to issues of everyday life.” 

“What we need now is an Islam for German Muslims that belongs to Germany,” Markus Kerber, said. “That does not mean that we want to develop a new theology. It means that German Muslims have to decide: what kind of Islam do we want here?” 

Integrating the German Muslim community and combating Islamist extremism have emerged as important challenges for policymakers in Berlin. Part of the urgency is linked to the 2015-16 refugee crisis, which led to the arrival of more than 1m migrants from Muslim countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. At the same time, a marked rise in political tensions between Berlin and Turkey has tested the loyalties of the German-Turkish community, unsettling an established Muslim community that has made Germany its home since the early 1960s. 

Turkey continues to play an outsized role in the affairs of Germany’s Muslim community, thanks largely to the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, or Ditib, the largest Islamic organisation in the country. Ditib, which is a branch of Turkey’s own state directorate for religious affairs, runs 900 of the 2,400 mosques in Germany. Its imams are sent from Turkey, mostly preach in Turkish and are paid by the Turkish government. 

German Muslims, he added, had the right to be preached to in German and to have imams who were familiar with the realities of daily life in Germany. “Take the question of whether piercings and tattoos are compatible with the teachings of the Koran. If an imam cannot provide answers to questions like these then there is a real danger that young Muslims will turn to an imam on the internet — and that can quickly lead into dark waters.” The German government’s desire to play a larger role in the development of Islamic life in Germany has been welcomed by liberal Muslim scholars but sparked criticism from other sections of the Muslim community.

A conference of Islamic scholars organised by Ditib this year warned in a joint statement that any attempt to introduce a “German Islam” or “European Islam” stood in “contradiction to the universality of Islam which illuminates all ages and places at the same time”. Ditib did not respond to a request for comment.

Assessment

Our assessment is that the growing rift between Turkey and Germany is a major contributing factor to Erdogan’s pivot from the EU to a more Russia-centric regional policy. We believe that German-Turkish relations will be a major political talking point before the next Federal Election in 2021. 

 

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