Sarrazin or Saracen?

Christina/ October 6, 2010/ Culture

It is obvious: the similarity between the name of a german who became infamous recently and the saracens, an arabic tribe which has already defied the cruisaders and which should have been converted to christianity at that time. Is somebody trying a similar attempt to the muslims in Europe? Honi soit qui mal y pense? It is remarkable though that a namesake of a medieval arabic tribe is just now ranting against the lack of willigness of muslimes to integrate into the German culture and lifestyle.

If it is even worth discussing such questionable statements of Sarrazin like Sarrazin explains in an interview that “Arabs and Turks did not have any productive function other than trading fruits and vegetables” is hard to say. However, it is much worse that such testimonies get an open forum through the mass media and thus have a chance to get out of an old’s man brain into the glittering light of the public.

The debate about not integrable muslims had barely started in Germany or Europe when magazines struggeling against decreasing circulation just jumped at the topic with “Zwangsverheiratet” (Nr. 37/10, 13. September 2010).

The question that bothers me is whether the interest in the fate of European muslims – keywords: headscarf-, niqab-, Burqa- or chador debate – is really that big? Is it really about giving surpressed women a voice? Is it news like the article from the “Neuen Züricher Zeitung” (NZZ) “Applaus aus Kairo für das Nikab-Verbot” (NZZ, Nr. 228 vom 01.10.2010, Seite zwei), where egyptian islamicists and – academics of the renowned Al-Azhar-Mosque support the french ban of the niqab that we want to read?

And where have all that horror-stricken eye-witness account, bestseller and outcries from the republic with topics such as “dowry murder”, killing Hindu-women, the raping of muslim women during the war in Yugoslavia or the mass rapings of women in Congo? That’s just not our beer because it is too far away, out of sight? Well, how about these figures then: 40% of all women in Germany suffered from physical or sexual abuse from the age of sixteen, 25% of all German women suffered from violence through current or former partner (domestic violence) and violence against women is often praticed by the partner or former partner and is carried out at home. Still not an issue? What I mean is: mind your own business first before you start instructing others. And concerning the distorted and single-edged description of the media can cause became visible during the floodwaters in Pakistan: suddenly the German donation hero became stingy and big German TV stations refused to aire fundraising galas. I wonder if anybody has a right idea about what taxes are spent for and what kind of wars and injustices are financed by it. Did you think about it lately..?

Or is the comparison more obvious if we talk about Germany’s most favourite vacation island Mallorca, also called the seventieth federal state of Germany and how about the German not willing to integrate into that culture?

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