German Politics Thread

How about you are decoupling yourself the the interests of Bavaria first you blue-white Weißhanswurst

Actually, Seehofer's being the proverbial broken clock in that case.

Turkey's influence on German Muslim communities has been a problem for a while, something that has been acknowledged by German Muslims.

This is also in the context of him being a guest speaker at the Islam Conference, so why should he talk about Bavaria there instead of - you know - Islam?

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Nov 27th 2018 at 5:54:36 PM

Yeah, as much as I hate to give Seehofer any credit, he is actually right in this case.

The Moschee in Cologne is an ample example for this. Politicians in Cologne have fought for years to built it. It's opening could have been an opportunity to show that Muslims are part of the community of Cologne and that giving them a place to worship doesn't equal them building a parallel community. Instead the politicians who fought for it weren't even invited to the opening, but Erdogan made a political event for himself out of it. Can you really blame the people of Cologne that they were not thrilled with that outcome?

Imams from Turkey and elsewhere, which preach ideas which go right against our constitution, money from Saudi-Arabia, there were Refugees from Syria which were shocked about the kind of ideas which were preached because they were more conservative (to put it nicely) than what they were used to.

So why not support Muslims organisations like the LMD instead of allowing the most conservative people possible to dictate what it means to be a Muslim in Germany? Why not support the development of a distinctive German Muslim community instead of having a Turkish Muslim community within Germany?

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 27th 2018 at 9:22:00 AM

So, in the city where I still live (unfortunately, I freaking hate this place), a group of brutal gang rapists was sentenced to laughably short prison terms https://www.dw.com/en/group-jailed-over-series-of-schoolgirl-gang-rapes/a-46457134 German sex crime law REALLY needs to change.

It's because of their youth. But yeah, this is laughable. What confuses me the most is that one who was judged as an adult got one of the lowest punishments.

Frankly, there should be a law change that in cases like this all participants can be judged for the action of the group. Otherwise you run into the problem that some of them get away with lower punishment for having been "less involved" so to speak. And I honestly DON'T get how the judge ended up with a LOWER punishment then requested. So in a way the problem isn't even the law, the problem is the judge. YET AGAIN!!!!

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 27th 2018 at 1:09:22 AM

I also note that for *some* reason this seems to have not been as much in the media than similar cases like in, say, Freiburg. <.< Gee, I wonder why.

In other news, apparently The Left is having a bit of a internal tiff...as in the rank and file are really getting fed up with Wagenknechts BS (including her trolling to try and steal people from the Af D) where they openly would have made a fight about the left agreeing to the new UN Migration pact (Wagenknecht is against it for some really inane reasons) and there were even rumors of the party splitting given the rising internal tensions.

Ignore me as I stand aside from that and just go 'Fight. Fight. Fight.'

Edited by 3of4 on Nov 27th 2018 at 10:42:03 AM

I'm not sure I understand. What's about Freiburg?

The Left? You mean, Die Linke? And they're trying to poach from the AfD?

Sometimes, the jokes just write themselves. The Horseshoe Effect is in full force, I see.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Nov 27th 2018 at 4:44:37 AM

I'll join you!

There was a rape there which involved a refugee as culprit and it has been reported over for weeks. Meanwhile, the article above in Essen was the first I heard of that.

And from what I read it's mostly Sara Wagenknecht doing some völkisch-ish rethoric especially in regards to refugee's and shit and the rank and file are getting quite pissed about it.

Edited by 3of4 on Nov 27th 2018 at 10:55:43 AM

Google News has actually a lot of cites for this case, but I am not sure how much it is compared to the Cologne events.

Incidentally, how common are such penalties in Germany? I know that in Switzerland the maximum penalty is 10 years or fine per 189§, 190§ and 191§ penal code for equivalent.

On the matter of the German muslim community, I will have to throw my support to the LMD. If you make it clear that islam and western society can coexist, you'll take away the platform of a lot of people, especially the islamophobics; at the same time, realigning teachings to better fit with german society can help out to make clear to the muslim community what can and what cannot be tolerated, thus preventing the radicals from gaining traction.

Besides, there could be a legitimate concern about foreign meddling by Turkey via the muslim community, and you really don't want to give ammo to the worst sections of the politcal theater.

Can Germany effectively come down on the Wahhabi imams for spreading their anticonstitutional messages?

They could, if they would finally treat them the same way we treat other religions in this country. Germanys relationship and problems with its muslim community is a weird case of too much tolerance on a federal level and intolerance on a social one.

Let me elaborate: In germany, in order to become a priest in your community, be it catholic or protestant, you also have to make a state-exam, as well as your credentials from the church. This way it is ensured that no radical of fanatic preaches against the law and disrupts social life. The founding of cults and mini-churches is also mostly prevented this way. Problem is, that for Imams this rule does not apply. Anyone can become an Imam in germany, there is not goverment-oversight on this. Which leads to crackpots, radicals and foreign imams taking over the muslim community in large parts of the country. And the government does not enforce the same treatment and control on Imans, because they fear political backlash and accusations of religious oppression (never mind, that this just standard procedure).

Add to that social intelorance for many muslim communities and not a few of them flock to those radical or heavily conservative preachers and get radicalized themselves.

It is not an easy problem, especially since it is difficult to tackle the now existing precedent that was created politically. But, if we do not do quality control on the spiritual leaders, we will never have a "german" muslim community.

Edited by TheNohen on Nov 27th 2018 at 8:31:03 PM

And that is exactly what p... me off. We should have a Stateexam for Imams, period. We didn't introduce that rule for sh... and giggles, we did it because we wanted to avoid religious unrest in the country. It runs deeper, though, because there is zero support for what can be considered a form of German Islam, like the LMD, while the high ranking Muslims we get to see as "speaker" for the Muslim community so to speak, they tend to be the most conservatives ones. And the ones who don't fall under the category have deal with a lot of backlash from the Turkish community if they fight for a different way - and we just stand there and watch instead of ensuring that THEY are the ones who get a platform. I really don't see why our öffentlich rechtlichen constantly invite this Erdogan schill so that he can spread his lies.

The good thing is that I think on the federal level there is finally some movement to actually do something. Part of the reason why Imams got away with just preaching in Germany was the lack of a proper Staatsexamen, so the universities have now established one.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 28th 2018 at 12:04:59 PM

It should be in Germany's interest to promote liberal academics who in return will promote a liberal islam and defend it intellectually against the conservative from e.g. Kairo. Germany is still pretty good when it comes to producing reknown Christian theologians, so it should not be a stretch to do the same for other religions.

Sure, if the federal government was willing to put in the work.

I remain skeptical that this is even remotely the case. It's far more politically safe to pathologize than to make proper long-term solutions.

Edited by math792d on Nov 28th 2018 at 2:33:25 PM

To be fair, that would require Islam to have a formal church organization of some kind (or else for Germany to establish official Islamic authorities, which the current imams would tell their followers to avoid).

Not that I'm not in favor of integrating Islam into the German system, but it's going to be a challenge finding religious leaders who everyone can agree on and who are compatible with the German constitution. If Germany organizes an Islamic Council (or three Islamic Councils for the big three denominations in Germany) to organize Islamic education, collect their church tax, and so on, and most of Germany's Muslims go free-church, then it's just going to embarrass everybody involved.

One step after another. We don't need to do everything at once. But while we are at it, we could take a close look at the relationship between the Christian church and the state, too.

Also, we don't need to find religious leaders "everyone" is agreeing with, we need a threshold religious leader have to pass in order to be allowed to act as such within Germany.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 28th 2018 at 6:11:52 AM

Since we mentioned the Church, I’ll point out that many councils such as Nicea, Calcedonia, Trento or Vatican II had to pass to allow it keep up with the times. Germany (or maybe even the EU) could give incentives for German Muslims to debate on conferences what stays and what changes, it’ll take time and patience but it might work on the long run.

At the same time, be advised that once Germany takes the first step, Turkey will respond in kind so a polarization is probably going to happen within the community.

The community already is extremely polarized. I can't see how it can get any worse, short of open warfare on the street. And if that happens, we at least have something to pin on the culprits.

Part of the problem with this approach is that Islam is extremely decentralized. Unlike Christianity, which has ordaining and other procedures for priesthood, virtually any sane, adult male can be Imam. There's no formal clergy like we understand it.

I mean, sure, you could do all of that, but what's stopping the loonies who don't like it from going ahead and forming one congregation of their own anyway? The most it would do is make the radicals go underground, and continue with the stuff no one wants them to do, while letting the rule-followers get whacked and feel resentful. (Mind you, that's the worst case scenario).

There's no easy way out of this.

Part of the problem is that they've been allowed to drift away and become more or less a separate society from the mainstream. Nowhere near as bad as Belgium or the Low Countries, but still bad. They need to be reintegrated - especially the newer entrants.

Times like these, things like Citizenship Tests and other sundries, which make people feel like they're part of the German Federation rather than XYZ Community, seem like pretty good ideas.

I do have faith that the Germany will do something about it - Dichter und Denker and all that. But it's going to be a long ride.

EDIT: What does Weißhanswurst mean? Some kind of sausage?

Edited by TechPriest90 on Nov 28th 2018 at 11:06:18 AM

A "Weißwurst" is a kind of sausage typical for Bavaria. "blue and white" are the colours of Bavaria. And a "Hanswurst" was originally "Hans Wurst", which was kind of the idiot in street theatre. Nowadays it describes someone who doesn't deserve (and doesn't get) any respect for being particularly incompetent.

So a Weißhanswurst ist basically and Bavarian Idiot.

Anyway, exactly because the Muslime are so decentralized, we have the chance to centralize them around a German version of Islam. This could serve as a bridge between Germans and Muslime too, because what we get to see are usually the extremely conservative ones, they are the most visible.

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 28th 2018 at 8:43:32 AM

One issue with the Islam Conference is that currently it represents 20, maybe 25% of German Muslims - and the groups involved are mostly very conservative.

That's something we also need to remedy.

So basically Seehofer's a Moron?

Can't say I disagree, given his particular expertise in Dontopedalogy and picking a fight with Angela Merkel, of all the people in Germany.

I thought it had some kind of Double Entendre, but eh, maybe that's just me.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Nov 28th 2018 at 11:48:00 AM

Exactly! Why shouldn't we give the LMD and other more moderate groups a voice? What they have to say is just as if not more important than what the backwards people who currently represent ALL the Muslims in the eye of the German public has to say. But in order to get their view you must know for one that they even exist and then actively seek out their publication.

The LMD for example published a very thoughtful piece for the anniversary of the Reichkristallnacht, in which they first point out that currently anti-Semitism within the Muslim community is used to play down/mask anti-Semitism within Germany society as a whole, but then ALSO went into a long examination of how anti-Semitism within the Muslim community looks like, how it is interconnected with politics and what can be done to counter it (and yes, they offer talking rounds and schoolings regarding this topic).

The obvious difference to the conservatives is that they usually stop with "you do it too", which is pretty much the universal excuse whenever someone points out that there might be a problem with aspects of their beliefs in relation to our society. (Usually especially relevant when it comes to gender rights).

Moron is a too nice word for him. But the emphasis there was that he is a Bavarian Moron. Which is a very special kind of Moron. (Basically the Bavarians are to Germany what the Englander are to the EU).

Edited by Swanpride on Nov 28th 2018 at 8:52:54 AM