The end of exoticism
It was evident from the most recent referendum Sunday that foreign (religious) communities are facing growing mistrust. Are our media, which used to be inclusive, now stoking fears of parallel societies?
Column The recent referendum Sunday showed that foreign (religious) communities are being met with increasing mistrust. Are our formerly inclusive media now stoking fear of parallel societies? The guardians of the times have a new scare word: it's called "parallel society" and supposedly threatens the internal security of Western European and North American countries. The British Home Secretary mumbles it into the microphones when Pakistani youths riot in central England, and his Parisian colleague uses the French equivalent to explain anti-Jewish resentment among young North Africans. German constitutional protectors and police experts, on the other hand, worry about Turkish ghettos in which the spirit of the Basic Law is being replaced by the message of an intolerantly interpreted Koran. In short: bridgeheads of a coming civil war are forming in our neighborhood - at least that's what they want us to believe.
It is astonishing how little resistance the mass media is putting up to this alarmism. After all, the press, radio and television were just some of the most naive propagandists of a multicultural society. A visit to China Town in San Francisco and a stroll through the New York neighborhood of orthodox Jews were a must for cosmopolitan tourists. And the orientalization of Berlin's Kreuzberg district was virtually celebrated as the neighborhood's redemption from German provincialism. It couldn't be exotic and different enough for such folklore fans.
Now everything is suddenly different. "Nine Eleven" has changed the public perception and assessment of the stranger. Mistrust and suspicion have taken the place of harmless hedonistic pleasure. Even those who recently vehemently opposed the demand to impose a "dominant culture" for everyone are now talking about the threat posed by parallel societies. Where
integration seems to be the panacea against social fragmentation, what was thought to be true yesterday is quickly forgotten.
Against such volte-face of the zeitgeist, it should be noted that Western societies have long since turned into collections of parallel societies. Part of modernity is the pluralization of lifestyles, which are also lived out in corresponding milieus. Neighborhoods are chosen according to whether the environment is right. Milieu-specific norms, behaviors and fashions have long been commonplace. Anyone who only perceives the headscarves of Islamic women as a sign of conscious differentiation and allows themselves to be provoked by them,
overlooks the fact that there are similarly large differences within the domestic population.
A glance at a well-stocked newsstand is enough to recognize the extent to which society today is a construction in which many subsystems establish a balance through demarcation rather than through submission to some guiding culture (to be defined by whom?). In any case, the media industry profits from the fragmentation into ever new, parallel reader societies. And the advertising industry also thrives on the creation of distinctly different living environments. Only those heavy-blooded editorialists who still like to stylize themselves as generalists for the common good articulate their anger about this.
So let's stop moaning about a development that has led to the gains in freedom of modern bourgeois societies. Instead of getting tangled up in endless debates about integration obligations, it would be better to define a few (limited) boundaries that inhabitants of parallel worlds are not allowed to cross, because otherwise they will affect the well-being of their neighbors. An efficient police force and a functioning judiciary are quite sufficient.
> Heribert Seifert is media and culture correspondent for the NZZ
in Germany.
It is astonishing how little resistance the mass media is putting up to this alarmism. After all, the press, radio and television were just some of the most naive propagandists of a multicultural society. A visit to China Town in San Francisco and a stroll through the New York neighborhood of orthodox Jews were a must for cosmopolitan tourists. And the orientalization of Berlin's Kreuzberg district was virtually celebrated as the neighborhood's redemption from German provincialism. It couldn't be exotic and different enough for such folklore fans.
Now everything is suddenly different. "Nine Eleven" has changed the public perception and assessment of the stranger. Mistrust and suspicion have taken the place of harmless hedonistic pleasure. Even those who recently vehemently opposed the demand to impose a "dominant culture" for everyone are now talking about the threat posed by parallel societies. Where
integration seems to be the panacea against social fragmentation, what was thought to be true yesterday is quickly forgotten.
Against such volte-face of the zeitgeist, it should be noted that Western societies have long since turned into collections of parallel societies. Part of modernity is the pluralization of lifestyles, which are also lived out in corresponding milieus. Neighborhoods are chosen according to whether the environment is right. Milieu-specific norms, behaviors and fashions have long been commonplace. Anyone who only perceives the headscarves of Islamic women as a sign of conscious differentiation and allows themselves to be provoked by them,
overlooks the fact that there are similarly large differences within the domestic population.
A glance at a well-stocked newsstand is enough to recognize the extent to which society today is a construction in which many subsystems establish a balance through demarcation rather than through submission to some guiding culture (to be defined by whom?). In any case, the media industry profits from the fragmentation into ever new, parallel reader societies. And the advertising industry also thrives on the creation of distinctly different living environments. Only those heavy-blooded editorialists who still like to stylize themselves as generalists for the common good articulate their anger about this.
So let's stop moaning about a development that has led to the gains in freedom of modern bourgeois societies. Instead of getting tangled up in endless debates about integration obligations, it would be better to define a few (limited) boundaries that inhabitants of parallel worlds are not allowed to cross, because otherwise they will affect the well-being of their neighbors. An efficient police force and a functioning judiciary are quite sufficient.
> Heribert Seifert is media and culture correspondent for the NZZ
in Germany.
