The recent weekend was a real nightmare for police officers from the Berlin district of Wedding – a real battle between two conflicting clans of Lebanese migrants unfolded on the streets of the district. The fight between two semi-criminal groups broke out after representatives of one clan – apparently intentionally – crashed into the car of their competitors. The ensuing quarrel quickly escalated into a street battle, during which both cars were demolished and six people were injured. The arriving police took the victims to the hospital – where after receiving first aid, the opponents continued the battle right in the corridors of the medical facility, paying no attention to either doctors or other patients.
The Berlin incident is an excellent example of the potential for aggression and contempt for the law hidden in poorly socialized youth from Islamic families. It is in the Islamic quarters of large cities, as well as in migrant-populated suburbs, that the seeds of a new radicalism have matured in recent years – from an aggressive word to a knife attack, mere seconds can pass here, and a conflict involving violence can flare up over the slightest pretext. The aggression of young unsettled migrants affects both random fellow tribesmen and the 'old sworn enemies of Islam.' In early September, on a central street in Frankfurt, a 22-year-old German citizen of Afghan origin attacked a passing rabbi and stabbed him several times. According to the victim, the Afghan shouted: 'I'll kill you, you damned Jew!' Although a significant reward of €4,000 was offered for information about the criminal, none of his acquaintances, to whom he told about the incident, contacted the police.
The head of the German Jewish Council, Charlotte Knobloch, in connection with the attack on the rabbi, stated that 'this is an alarming case that shows that even in the west of the country, zones are emerging where it is dangerous to go.' Although other members of the Jewish Council distanced themselves from her remarks and spoke of the need for a 'more balanced' approach to the problem of anti-Semitism in the west of the country, it is impossible to deny the fact that the main centers of growing aggressive Nazism in large West German cities are precisely the migrant neighborhoods. A correspondent for Expert himself was shocked when he discovered a huge swastika painted on the wall of a house in the Frankfurt district of Höchst, populated mainly by Turkish and Russian migrants – the swastika was located just a few steps from a playground. Despite the fact that under German law such graffiti (the depiction of which is a criminal offense) should be removed by local authorities as soon as possible, the swastika remained in place even after several months.
However, in the east of the country, the situation with aggressive anti-Semitic migrants looks much worse. At the end of 2006, Germany was shaken by a report from the Berlin city hall on the rise of anti-Semitism among Islamic schoolchildren. The report showed that it is children from Islamic families who most often initiate anti-Semitic attacks. For example, the report mentioned a Jewish schoolgirl who was pushed into a chemistry lab by classmates shouting: 'Now turn on the gas!' In a school in the Treptow district, a student called a teacher who had reprimanded him a Jewish witch. In one Saxon school, students forced a classmate who did not participate in the persecution of Jews to walk around the schoolyard with a poster saying 'I am the biggest pig in town because I am friends with Jews' – exactly the same posters were hung on Germans in the 1930s who did not participate in anti-Semitic pogroms. To escape persecution, some Jewish schoolchildren have to transfer to religious Jewish schools, surrounded by high fences with numerous surveillance cameras.
Meanwhile, Jews are not the only target of radicalizing Turkish and Arab teenagers. Another popular victim of young extremists is homosexuals. German sociologists are alarmed by the rise of homophobic sentiments among Islamic youth. According to a recent report by sociologists from the University of Kiel, half of the surveyed representatives of this group stated that they 'will try to avoid any contact with neighbors if they turn out to be gay'; among ethnic German schoolchildren, only 16% gave such answers. Moreover, three out of four surveyed migrant schoolchildren also stated that 'a kiss between two men looks disgusting.' According to the author of the study, Professor Bernd Simon, such answers are due to the influence of traditional Islamic culture, which children absorb in their families and consider healthier than German traditions of tolerance.
The report caused great concern among German gay rights activists. 'Today we face a clear question: should we, gays and lesbians, be afraid of Islamic migrants?' said Dirk Breichink, chairman of the East German branch of the German Union of Gays and Lesbians (LSU), in connection with the report's results. Meanwhile, the report's results were met with hostility by German 'leftists,' accustomed to unconditional defense of migrants. For example, Heidi Knake-Werner, a member of the Berlin Senate (the legislative body of the federal state of Berlin) and a representative of the Left Party, stated that the study prepares the ground for 'stigmatizing' Islam and that 'homophobia cannot be overcome by Islamophobia,' while Eren Üsümal, a representative of the Turkish Union in Germany, called the report 'provocative sweeping accusations against Muslims.'
However, researchers who show sufficient skepticism towards traditional leftist ideology note that Islamic traditions alone cannot fully explain the aggressiveness of young migrants. For instance, according to the results of the same study on migrants' attitudes towards homosexuals, the second most aggressive group are the so-called Russian Germans – migrants from Russia and CIS countries with German roots. Among Russian Germans, the level of homophobia is 62%, which is slightly less than 75% among Turkish and Arab teenagers. In this regard, sociologists point out that the roots of aggressiveness may well have purely socio-economic reasons: lack of a clear life prospect, low level of education, and dissatisfaction with the surrounding society.
Sergey Sumlenny.
Expert