Am I racist?
Noteworthy: In addition to Dutch-inspired self-doubt, our author also has a heartfelt Christmas wish for the press.
Column In addition to Dutch-inspired self-doubt, our author also has a pious Christmas wish for the media. Anyone who read the newspapers and watched the television coverage in the first few weeks after the murder of provocateur Theo van Gogh could believe that the media's self-correcting mechanism was working after all: Suddenly, both left-wing and emphatically liberal papers discovered that the eloquent silence about pre-civilizational customs and traditions in some Muslim immigrant milieus was probably a misinterpretation of the principle of tolerance.And on the other side of the political-publicistic spectrum, there were not just shrill calls for cultural warfare, but also differentiating insights that could clear the way for an integration policy that does not demand that immigrants give themselves up. Apparently, the shock of the Amsterdam massacre was so profound that even hard-boiled ideologues were prepared to correct cherished certainties.
Both phenomena gave me hope that my own guild doesn't just see the world through tunnel vision after all. For a few days now, however, I've been plagued by doubts again. Because now that the initial shock has passed, I am once again reading all the creepy nonsense that I thought I had just overcome. And the abuses that have just been discovered are becoming normal again. Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for example, is still living underground. The police are unable to provide the elected representative with sufficient protection to allow her to pursue her political work and lead a private life. This is a scandal that goes beyond the infamous death threat against the writer Salman Rushdie, as it shakes the very foundation of the political system on which Western Europe rests.
And the media? A few embarrassed reports, the odd dutiful comment, that's about it. Instead, the heyday of Muslim apologists and anti-racism alarmists has dawned again. A national German newspaper, for example, is printing pages of epistles with admonitions not to fall into "Islamophobia" now. The hard-won realism regarding the problems in and with immigrant milieus is once again under suspicion.
Of course, there is no shortage of relevant "experts" who have to secure the flow of funding with correspondingly alarmist "studies". One of them claims to prove that 60 percent of the population believe that there are already too many foreigners living in Germany. Be that as it may, one thing is certain: we are not even allowed to talk about a "load limit" that attempts to differentiate between socially integrable and risky immigration. The ultimate nonsense was delivered by a Green minister in Berlin: in order to promote the integration of Muslims, German children should be taught Islam. Just as if a fanatical Christian child had killed a pious Sufi in Amsterdam, which is why he and his kind should be taught more about Islam.
Even this suggestion, which seems like a Harald Schmidt parody to an unbiased mind, is shrugged off. Apparently, the reflex that makes journalists feel like advocates and protectors of migrants is only temporarily suspended. While in the media reaction to right-wing extremism, every volunteer is allowed to waffle on about "extremism that comes from the middle of society", there is a total ban on making connections between extremism and milieu when it comes to Muslim migrants.
Of course, blanket judgments are not allowed, but precise questions are, especially when there are as many occasions for them as there are these days. Or maybe I'm just saying that because I'm basically a racist too?
> Heribert Seifert is the NZZ's media and culture correspondent in Germany.
Both phenomena gave me hope that my own guild doesn't just see the world through tunnel vision after all. For a few days now, however, I've been plagued by doubts again. Because now that the initial shock has passed, I am once again reading all the creepy nonsense that I thought I had just overcome. And the abuses that have just been discovered are becoming normal again. Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, for example, is still living underground. The police are unable to provide the elected representative with sufficient protection to allow her to pursue her political work and lead a private life. This is a scandal that goes beyond the infamous death threat against the writer Salman Rushdie, as it shakes the very foundation of the political system on which Western Europe rests.
And the media? A few embarrassed reports, the odd dutiful comment, that's about it. Instead, the heyday of Muslim apologists and anti-racism alarmists has dawned again. A national German newspaper, for example, is printing pages of epistles with admonitions not to fall into "Islamophobia" now. The hard-won realism regarding the problems in and with immigrant milieus is once again under suspicion.
Of course, there is no shortage of relevant "experts" who have to secure the flow of funding with correspondingly alarmist "studies". One of them claims to prove that 60 percent of the population believe that there are already too many foreigners living in Germany. Be that as it may, one thing is certain: we are not even allowed to talk about a "load limit" that attempts to differentiate between socially integrable and risky immigration. The ultimate nonsense was delivered by a Green minister in Berlin: in order to promote the integration of Muslims, German children should be taught Islam. Just as if a fanatical Christian child had killed a pious Sufi in Amsterdam, which is why he and his kind should be taught more about Islam.
Even this suggestion, which seems like a Harald Schmidt parody to an unbiased mind, is shrugged off. Apparently, the reflex that makes journalists feel like advocates and protectors of migrants is only temporarily suspended. While in the media reaction to right-wing extremism, every volunteer is allowed to waffle on about "extremism that comes from the middle of society", there is a total ban on making connections between extremism and milieu when it comes to Muslim migrants.
Of course, blanket judgments are not allowed, but precise questions are, especially when there are as many occasions for them as there are these days. Or maybe I'm just saying that because I'm basically a racist too?
> Heribert Seifert is the NZZ's media and culture correspondent in Germany.
