28 July 2016
Terror Attacks in Europe
The differences and similarities between France and Germany.
by Lynda Goetz
France has the largest Muslim population in Europe. With 5 million Muslims in a current population of nearly 66 million, this represents over 7.5% of the population. Germany, with a population of 80 million, had a Muslim population of just over 4 million (4,119,000) in 2010, although this was of course before the massive influx of refugees encouraged by Angela Merkel last year. As a percentage of the population that translates to between 5% and 5.5%. In the UK, the roughly 3 million Muslims account for 4.8% of the population. According to the Pew Foundation (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/19/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/) Muslim populations in Europe over the next 25 years are likely to increase from an overall 6% of the regions inhabitants in 2010 to 8% in 2030.
So much for cold statistics; but given the recent spate of atrocities in France and Germany, what could this mean for these countries and for Europe as a whole? Perhaps the first point to consider is that 3 million of the foreign-born Muslims in France are from the former French colonies of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia (the Maghreb), whereas in Germany 3 million of those who are Muslims are of Turkish origin, many originally encouraged into the country as gastarbeiter in the post war boom of the 1960s to supply a source of cheap labour for factories. A study by the Gatestone Institute (https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8321/germany-turks-integration) throws up some interesting but somewhat terrifying statistics which give the lie to the fact, as Germany claims, that the Turks are well integrated into German society. France too would like to claim that their Muslim citizens are assimilated, but is that view supported by the facts and by recent events? Even small percentages of those populations with extremist views could provide hundreds of thousands of jihadist attacks.
According to the Pew Foundation research referred to above, a survey carried out only this year showed that although there were quite negative views of Muslims in Eastern Europe (where one does have to consider a different history), in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands the majority gave Muslims a favourable rating. As we are all by now aware, there is a difference in views between those who would consider themselves right-wing and those who call themselves left-wing, with the left-wingers and younger generations responding more favourably and tolerantly.
The fact that many of France’s Muslims are from their former colonies does add a different dimension to the problem not present in other European countries. The alienation caused by the Algerian War in the 1950s and the heavy-handed disdain evinced by the French colonialists for local customs is not readily forgotten by older generations of immigrants. There is also a population of around 800,000 harkis and their descendants. These were the Algerian Muslim auxiliaries who fought for the French during the 1954 to 1962 Algerian War of Independence, many of whom were effectively abandoned by De Gaulle to the appalling retributions of the Algerian nationalists. Their role was not recognised by the French government until this century. France ruled Morocco from 1912 until 1956 and Tunisia from 1881 to 1956. Many Muslim Moroccans and Tunisians as well as the pied-noirs (a slightly pejorative generic term of unknown origin for all those Christian and Jewish French settlers who came back to France after the independence of the North African countries ruled by France) flooded into France in the 60s, 70s and beyond, lured by the more promising economic conditions.
In Germany the history is different. West (although not East) Germany invited ‘guest’ workers into its country in the 1950s and 60s, following the loss of Eastern bloc labour when the Iron Curtain came down. The idea originally was that these often low-skilled workers would stay for two years and then return home to be replaced by new workers. According to an EU report in 2009, as many as 14 million workers came into the country under the system. Not all wanted to leave. Nor did many employers wish to retrain new staff. As a result, many stayed and their families were permitted to join them. However, the systems under which this happened were not really thought through, and continue to cause resentment on both sides to this day. Although some of the workers came from Italy and Portugal, most came from Germany’s former ally in World War I, Turkey. One of the resentments is caused by the fact that, unless of EU or Swiss nationality, it is not possible for a citizen to have dual nationality beyond the age of 23. Many would like to retain their dual nationality – a view the Germans often take as yet another indication of the Turks’ disinclination to become assimilated.
Another factor contributing to problems in Germany is the different attitudes in what was the former East Germany. In this part of the country there were no guest workers and much less contact with foreigners. Does this in part explain the rise of more xenophobic attitudes here? PEGIDA, a right wing organisation founded in 2014 (the name is an acronym for the German meaning Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) was founded in Dresden, a city which some observers believe has an even longer history of xenophobia. Although the younger generations in the city stage counter demonstrations and have even offered to share their homes with immigrants, the rise of far-right organisations of this sort is disturbing and is mirrored in France by Marine Le Pen’s Front National.
Tuesday’s killing of an elderly priest inside a church in the small Normandy village of Saint-Etienne-de-Rouvray has, I think for most of us, crossed yet another line in a crisis where it seemed most lines had already been crossed. Whatever the differences historically between the Muslims in France and those in Germany, it seems that the rise of actions by the lone terrorist or at least of alienated individuals who have become radicalised and supported by small cells, is endemic and extremely hard (if not almost impossible) for the security forces to anticipate. These individuals are using Daesh, or Isil as we more often refer to it, as a raison d’être for their simmering resentments, their grievances against perceived injustices and their own inadequacies. However one looks at it, though, there is no getting away from the fact that the future political stability of Europe could be threatened by an organisation that has, as a central tenet, the idea of setting up a worldwide caliphate based on extremist Muslim principles. Con Coughlin in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ points out that with elections due in both France and Germany next year, the prospect of Right-wing nationalists ‘exercising real political power… is one that even the most ardent Brexiteer will view with dismay’. This unappealing prospect does become a possibility if a public, increasingly disillusioned with its political elite, sees its way of life constantly under attack.
France may have kept Church and State apart for a long time (indeed its secular nature has prompted the law, so resented by the Muslim community, against veils being worn in public) but it is still a predominantly Catholic country and it might not take much for the tinder box of ‘tit for tat’ retribution to be lit. Likewise in Germany, and indeed here, people see ‘foreigners’ (and a particular type of ‘foreigner’) as responsible for atrocities unacceptable in the 21st century. This is nevertheless not a time for any sort of Crusade, but for vigilance from all of us to preserve a European way of life, a way of life which allows for tolerance and equality. That vigilance might need to include watchfulness against our own vigilantes who, pushed beyond endurance, might tip over and set off the descent into chaos towards which Daesh appears to be working.
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