Gloves Are Off: German Vice-Chancellor Calls for Anti-Islamist ‘Culture Fight’

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10 years ago

The fight against Islamist influence will involve a comprehensive “cultural struggle,” German Vice-Chancellor and Social Democratic (SDP) party leader Sigmar Gabriel told the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Germany needs to fight a cultural battle against the growing influence of Islamism, Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told the German magazine Der Spiegel on Friday.

“If we are serious about the fight against Islamism and terrorism, then we have to also make this a cultural struggle,” he said.

Gabriel is leader of Germany’s Social Democratic (SDP) party, and serves as Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economic Affairs in the German coalition government headed by Angela Merkel.

He noted that half of the Daesh supporters who traveled from Germany to conflict areas in Iraq or Syria were Germans, often with German parents.

“We need to strengthen social cohesion and ensure that urban areas are not neglected, villages do not deteriorate and people don’t become increasingly radicalized,” Gabriel said.

Speaking in the aftermath of last month’s Berlin terror attack by failed Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, who had pledged allegiance to the Daesh terror group, Gabriel also took a hard line against Islamic clerics who preach extremist ideology.

“Regarding this issue I’m zero tolerance. Salafist mosques must be banned, the communities dissolved and the preachers expelled as soon as possible,” Gabriel said.

The comments are not the first time Gabriel has sought to present a tough line on Islamic extremism. In December 2015 he stated that Germany would no longer turn a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s alleged involvement in funding Islamic radicalism, including extremist mosques and communities all over the world.

In August it was reported that Saudi Arabia had been forced to close a controversial Islamic school in Bonn and halt the construction of another school and mosque in Berlin after the institution was denied state accreditation.

The school had been accused of inculcating “fundamentalism Islam inside and outside the school,” by the local government in North Rhine-Westphalia.

In July German police raided a mosque in the city of Hildesheim believed to be a “hot spot” for Salafist extremists. The mosque was owned by the Islam Circle of Hildesheim (DIK) group, which police suspected of having links to terrorist and extremist organizations.

In October German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere imposed a ban on “Die wahre Religion” (The True Religion), a Salafist extremist group. At the same time police raided around 200 apartments and two mosques in ten different states thought to belong to the group.

The growing threat of Islamic extremism, and concerns about security amid the influx of over over one million refugees and migrants to Germany since 2015, have contributed to the rising popularity of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Gabriel’s tough line on the Islamist threat may be seen in the context of German federal elections to be held in autumn 2017. Following a string of state election successes last year the AfD currently enjoys the support of 13-15 percent of Germans ahead of the federal elections, according to polls conducted on January 5. The polls found that 20 percent of voters are currently planning to vote for Gabriel’s SDP.