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"A recent conference in Germany intended to build bridges between the federal German state and the German Muslim population raised questions about conservative Muslim organizations' claims to represent "the" Muslim community. Individuals defining themselves as "cultural Muslims" have challenged the influence of such groups. Existing German Muslim organizations in some cases advocate restrictive practices that contravene the German constitution; yet, paradoxically, they have emerged in conformity with Germany's corporatist system of representation. Meanwhile, the globalization of religion indicates that the "supermarket" principle, such as exists in the US, will increasingly become the norm in Europe too."Muslims in the WestGermany's "Islam conference", a two-part summit meeting between representatives of the Federal German State and Muslim organizations in Germany that took place in September 2006 and May 2007, was a serendipitous failure. What failed was the attempt to give Islam in Germany an official status, in other words, to give it the standing of a quasi-Church. An official Muslim body was to have been modelled on the Central Council of Jews in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland), which in turn was based on the example of the Christian Churches. In the case of the Central Council of Jews, doubts arose following Jewish immigration from Russia and eastern Europe whether its spokespeople were genuinely representative. Similar doubts were even more pronounced with the Muslims, who are more heterogeneous and without clerical organization. This diversity and lack of organization among Muslims cannot easily be overcome – neither from above, through the agency of the German state, nor from within; "contact people" with whom it is possible to discuss education, social questions, and not least security are still to emerge. The experiment was a serendipitous failure, that is a partial success, precisely because Muslims do not have to speak with one voice and can no longer be characterized in monolithic friend-foe images (as in der Spiegel's "Mecca Germany" issue [13/2007], whose cover showed the Islamic crescent hanging over Brandenburg Gate). Now, the religious-theological, ideological-political, institutional-social, and ethnic-national diversity of the Muslim faith is visible. More important still, the lively debate among Muslims has frustrated forceful appropriation by the reactionary forces of conservatism, Turkish nationalism, and male chauvinism. These forces should not be allowed to direct the public legal bodies that the German state and organized Muslims hope to create so that Islam in Germany may be granted a long overdue status of legal equality. Moreover, foreign organizations such as the Turkish state, Egyptian brotherhoods, and Saudi financiers must stand back if a European Islam is to take shape.
By Claus Leggewie
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As in the days of Noah....
