Germans and the murder of a Muslim
Germans' apathetic response to the murder of an Egyptian woman in a courtroom reveals a double-standard.
It would not be fair to say that al-Sherbini’s murder is a reflection of a society that is fundamentally hostile to Muslims. But it does shed light on a relationship — between the majority of German society and its Muslim minorities — that is often fraught with tension.
Aiman Mazyek, secretary of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, disputed on Thursday the government spokesman's claim that the facts of the murder were unclear. "The evidence of an Islamophobic crime is overwhelming," he said. "Caution is fine, but that sounded close to wriggling out."
Earlier, at the bedside of al-Sherbini's husband, Mazyek spoke of the "inexplicably sparse" reaction from both the media and politicians.
Germany has hosted a significant population of Turkish residents since the 1960s. The problem is that in many instances the Germans are still, decades later, playing host, because they declined to welcome the new arrivals as fellow citizens. The original immigrants from Turkey were accorded the status of guest workers and expected to return when they were no longer needed in Germany. German citizenship laws have hindered even second- and third-generation descendents from earning a German passport.
There was no provision made for the fact that they might stay and bring their families along with them. Nearly 3.5 million Muslims now live in Germany — about 4 percent of the population — and often their political and emotional connection to Germany, and vice-versa, is nebulous.
Other immigrant groups have escaped the legal limbo encountered by the majority of Muslim Turks. Al-Sherbini’s attacker was himself born in Russia, but he had been granted a “right to return” to Germany as a German citizen because he could trace family members from hundreds of years previous that had direct ties to the German state. He faces no risk of deportation for his crimes.
While Russians have immigrated to Germany at a steady clip since the fall of the Soviet Union — about 200,000 per year arrived in Germany during the 1990s — they do not draw the same ire that Muslims do for being insular and isolated, for being uninterested in contributing to German society, for failing to learn the language.
The German government has recently tried to ameliorate the deficit, convening a council of prominent Muslims over the course of the past year to explore ways that the religion might be better integrated into society. Some school districts are introducing a class on Islamic theology, an alternative to the Christian courses that are a standard part of the curriculum.
It is their country. No Muslim is forced to live there. They are free to 'try out' France.
For a guy named after a Jewish war hero, David Osedach is surprisingly xenophobic. People like him are the reason that Germany and countries like it are like waning stars, headed for the dustbin of history.
Countries that attract the best and brightest immigrant minds from around the world have always had strong, vibrant economies. Before World War II, Germany actually was such a place. Its universities were among the world's most advanced, with many of its scientists pushing the limits of technology. Nowadays, however, few people would say that Germany is at the forefront of anything among the world's economies, except perhaps vacation time.
Let's face it - immigrants work harder, in general. Lazy people stay home. Who is more likely to work harder: someone who has to travel thousands of miles from his birthplace just to work for you, or someone who only had to get on the bus? The United States would be wise to learn from the mistakes of previous civilizations, and continue to make its shores a relative safe haven for people of all cultures.
You are right that the response to this murder reveals a double standard, but not the one you think.
A couple of weeks ago, an 11-year-old Pakistani boy was murdered while attending church, simply for being a Christian. This was no isolated incident, but part of a much larger pattern. Christian minorities (almost always indigenous) in Muslim lands are murdered in hate crimes all the time, for drinking from the same water as the Muslims, for perceived "disrespect", or simply because they were Christian, like that 11-year-old boy.
Where are all the editorials and diplomatic protests about them? The tragic death of this woman has received a vast amount of media coverage, which you claim is too little, but how many articles do you think where written about that boy in the international and Pakistani press? Hardly any, but his life wasn't worth any less.
Egypt's double standard is especially glaring. Egypt's indigenous Coptic Christians face constant mob violence, laws that officially discriminate against them and hundreds have been killed in (known) hate crimes in recent years. Yet Egypt has the hypocrisy to collectively accuse the Germans of prejudice over a single tragedy, despite the countless other tragedies suffered by the Copts on a constant basis, and the author of this article seems either ignorant or indifferent to this double standard. The Egyptians took to the streets to protest the death of this woman, but do not seem to do so when a Copt is the victim.
The author says that "indifference is its own sort of crime", if this is true, than the author should be more aware about the indifference facing the victims of hate crimes committed by Muslims in Muslim majority lands and communities, or else risk seeming to commit the crime of indifference himself. If the 11-year-old Pakistani boy's murder and murders like his received even half as much attention as the murder of the 32-year-old woman in Germany, then we would never hear an end to it.
This is a good piece. It gives a little more context to what - to outsiders at least - is a baffling case. There are still so many outstanding questions around this situation, but this article hints at some of the root causes of the conflicts facing German immigrants, and why so little is being done by the Governments involved. Very interesting piece to me.
Although I agree with Mr. Abadi that the integration of immigrants in Germany needs improvement, I still find his article lacking in accuracy in several areas.
The case of the beating of the elderly man which he mentions was widely covered, but the key topic wasn't muslims (only one of the young men was a muslim, the other wasn't), but youth crime and the fact that the young men had a long list of previous offenses and supposedly were a symbol for judges that are too soft on youth crime. Conservative politicians who tried to exploit the case to drive anti-immigrant sentiments in an upcoming election at the time actually lost a lot of voter support.
The murder of the young Egyptian woman was covered in all major newspapers and magazines, it was clearly stated that the murderer was a sympathizer of right-wing parties and what was also reported was WHY they were in the court room in the first place. Mrs. al-Sherbini had been insulted by the man with racist slurs, which she had reported and why he had been sentenced. He was appealing the sentence and that's why she was in court to testify again against him. I find it a bit odd that Mr. Abadi fails to mention this. Probably because it would undermine his line of reasoning that muslims don't have equal rights in Germany.
Germany actually has a pretty low tolerance for racists and muslims and non-muslims alike can fight against them.
What I do find scandalous on the other hand is that a murder like this could happen in a courthouse, that the accused wasn't checked for weapons and that the police wasn't able to subdue him in time to save Mrs. al-Sherbini. The incompetence of the police in this case is frightening and I can only hope that measures will be taken to ensure that something like this won't happen again.
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