Hostility towards Muslims. At the opening of a conference

Nicole Deitelhoff and Rainer Forst

Welcoming remarks at the opening of the conference “Muslimfeindlichkeit – eine deutsche Bilanz”, organized by the Anne Frank Educational Centre (conceived by Saba-Nur Cheema) and carried out in cooperation with Research Centre Normative Orders, the Equal Opportunities Office of Goethe University and with the support of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, November 13, 2023

Nicole Deitelhoff:

Good morning! My name is Nicole Deitelhoff and I am delighted to welcome you here on the Westend Campus together with my colleague Rainer Forst as a cooperation partner of the Anne Frank Educational Center and the Federal Agency for Civic Education to the conference “Muslim Hostility – A German Balance Sheet”.

Some may ask whether this is really the right time for such a conference. To be precise, some have asked us this question and we have discussed it long and hard. Can we really talk about hostility towards Muslims in a phase in which anti-Semitic attacks and hate speech from Muslim milieus in particular are on such a massive rise?

We believe that now is precisely the time to discuss these issues and the findings of the report by the Federal Government’s Expert Group on this topic, because we are confronted with a situation in which anti-Semitism is on the rise, but also in which hostility towards Muslims is clearly emerging: demands such as that every Muslim must make an individual commitment against Hamas or for Israel as a prerequisite for participation in Germany, or the assertion that anti-Semitism is an immigrant problem caused by Muslim migrants and the consequence of this is their expulsion or generally limiting the migration of Muslims.The claim that anti-Semitism is an immigrant problem caused by Muslim migrants and the consequence of their expulsion or generally limiting the migration of Muslims are relevant to this. These statements are currently widespread and they make it clear just how much differentiation and solidarity are needed in these times instead of further demarcation. We need to name problems clearly, but without falling prey to the temptation to make sweeping generalizations. This is difficult, especially in times of crisis, as we are currently experiencing, when fear, uncertainty and anger prevail among many.

Normative Orders was asked by the Anne Frank Educational Center whether we would participate in the conference as a cooperation partner, and we agreed because we want to promote precisely this kind of differentiated and open-minded debate. So when we talk about hostility towards Muslims today, we are discussing a form of discrimination and misanthropy that is just as despicable as other forms.

Of course, at such a conference we cannot avoid talking about October 7 in Israel and the anti-Semitism that we have had to take note of since then in Germany and far beyond. Our line on this is absolutely clear: the massacre of Jews on October 7 this year is a crime against humanity. Just like the abduction of more than 200 hostages, from babies to the elderly. The Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians can in no way justify them. They are merely the banal expression of contempt for humanity and the intention to destroy.

However, this does not mean that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip should not be criticized. Of course they can and must. It is not anti-Semitic to remind Israel’s government of its obligations under international humanitarian law, but also under general humanity, to spare the civilian population. It is anti-Semitic to derive contempt for everything Jewish from criticism of the policies of the Israeli state or to deny the Israeli state or Jews the right to exist.

Rainer Forst:

Together with Nicole Deitelhoff, I welcome you not only as Director of the Research Center Normative Orders, but also as a scholar who has dealt intensively with the history and present of tolerance and intolerance. This is another reason why I very much welcomed Ms. Cheema’s initiative for the Anne Frank Educational Centre to discuss the report of the Expert Group on Muslim Hostility and the questions it raises here at our university in cooperation with us.

For we must, to follow on from Nicole, resist a negativistic dialectic that all too easily snaps today, namely linking justified criticism of radical Islamist, anti-Semitic outbursts and incidents with the unjustified general suspicion that these radicals, who call for the caliphate and harass Jewish people, are only saying what all Muslims think. The pattern is clear: pars is taken pro toto, and the whole arsenal of stereotypes that the comprehensive and impressive report enumerates is projected onto the totum: Muslims are violent, anti-democratic, anti-Semitic and misogynistic anyway; definitely “unwilling to integrate”. And the link to restrictive citizenship laws and migration restrictions is quickly drawn. “Othering” in its purest form. The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, Mazyek, rightly warns: Be careful where you go! The images take root and reinforce stereotypical patterns.

Anyone familiar with the history of tolerance and intolerance knows how deep-seated such patterns are, whether they concern the long history of the exclusion of Judaism in Christian societies or the reservations against Muslims. If we leaf through one of the basic books on the justification of tolerance, John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration(1689), we read there that Protestant dissenters are to be tolerated in Anglican England, but not the Catholic Church, since it places itself above the secular government, nor Islam as an organization: “It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahumetan only in his Religion, but in every thing else a faithful Subject to a Christian Magistrate, whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Costantinople; who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor, and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure.” We know who is all too happy to play this Ottoman sultan today and how this becomes an exclusionary argument that is directed against Turkish fellow citizens across the board. We live in times in which extremes build each other up and old scripts of misunderstanding and discrimination are re-enacted.

This vicious circle can only be broken if we adhere to the principles of equal respect formulated in human rights and practiced democratically and interpret them correctly. This includes the principles of a religiously neutral constitutional state. However, as we have known since the crucifix and headscarf conflicts of the 1990s, this is where the history that still determines our tolerance discussions today begins. For apart from the fact that many people in our country do not know how to draw the line between beliefs and practices that they reject, for example on religious-ethical grounds, and beliefs and practices that are absolutely intolerable because they violate human rights and basic principles of coexistence, the poison of discrimination sometimes creeps into the talk of tolerance itself.

Tolerance is then understood to mean that all “foreigners” with suspicious beliefs and customs are allowed to live in a country as long as they recognize the “house rules” of the majority. This is what I call the permission concept of tolerance: the majority determines what is valid, and if Christianity is to dominate in their eyes, then it has the right of way. This is the tolerance that Goethe called an “insult”, and this is the tolerance that said, for example, in the case of same-sex partnerships: tolerance yes, marriage no. This is the skewed, asymmetrical tolerance that says that any woman can become a teacher or judge, she just has to take off her headscarf. This is a non-neutral neutrality that underpins privileges and denies equal rights.

But there is another form of tolerance, which I call the concept of respect. Here, religious differences still exist, even profound ones, but everyone is prepared to respect others as equals, even where it hurts. Then mosques will not be banned to backyards or industrial areas, then there will be no crosses or crucifixes hanging in classrooms or courts, then teachers and lawyers who have successfully completed their training will be able to practise their profession with their visible religious and cultural identity, because they will be trusted to distinguish between religion and the exercise of their office. We also trust religiously-minded Christian judges to do this. This is constitutional neutrality understood correctly, as in other liberal-democratic countries. State neutrality means not discriminating against anyone when respecting fundamental rights.

At our conferences dedicated to these topics, I like to quote Adorno’s famous words that we should think of the better state as the one “in which one can be different without fear”(Minima Moralia, piece 66). And yes, how nice that would be. That would mean freedom and respect for girls and young women who don’t want to wear headscarves, and freedom and respect for those who do. That would be a life without discriminatory constraints on gender issues. It would be a life free from suspicion, but not free from criticism if one goes astray. But it would be clear to everyone, in language that is truly universal, what a deviation is that exceeds the limits of legal-political tolerance, namely a violation of the basic rules of human rights respect among equals. Those who remind others of this should then also be prepared to accept these basic rules themselves; this applies to minorities and majorities alike. Criticism must take place at eye level, without identity traps. Adorno once again: “Freedom would be not to choose between black and white, but to step out of such a prescribed choice.”(Minima Moralia, section 85).

I would now like to hand over to Saba-Nur Cheema, who conceived this conference, with my heartfelt thanks to her for her commitment, to all the speakers and the moderator and to everyone who contributed to it, from the educational institution and also from our center and the university – and for your attention. I wish us open and, in Adorno’s sense, free discussions.