Germany’s Turkish community expressed “disappointment” Monday at newly-appointed Interior Minister Hans- Peter Friedrich playing down the role of Islam in Germany.
“There is no historical evidence for the notion that Islam belongs to Germany,” Friedrich said at a press conference on Thursday, just hours after he was appointed interior minister.
That comment had caused “great disappointment” amongst local Islamic organizations, Turkish community leader Kenan Kolat was quoted as saying in Monday’s Berliner Zeitung newspaper.
The resurgent debate about the role of Islam in Germany comes barely a week after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned compatriots during a visit to the German city of Dusseldorf against losing their culture.
Friedrich, who belongs to Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union, has refused to back down from his statement. But he has since adopted a more conciliatory tone.
Successful integration requires “knowledge about the social reality in Germany - which includes around 4 million Muslims - and a clear awareness of Christian-occidental culture,” he said.
But Kolat remained sceptical of a promise by Friedrich to continue a series of discussions with Islamic leaders, known as the Islam Conference, that took place under his predecessor Thomas de Maiziere. The next such meeting has been scheduled for March 29.
The Turkish community leader said he hoped this was a serious offer, and that Friedrich was prepared to participate in an “honest debate” about the historic influence of Islam on Europe.
Friedrich’s remark on Thursday contradicted a statement by President Christian Wulff last year, who was lauded by Muslim groups at the time when he said that Islam “belonged” in Germany, just as Christianity and Judaism did.
“Islam is a part of Germany,” Wulff reiterated in an interview with Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera last week, days before Friedrich took over as interior minister.
Friedrich has been backed by members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), with whom the CSU is allied in government.”
Islam did not shape our society and does not shape it today. Islam therefore does not belong to Germany,” the parliamentary head of the CDU and CSU, Volker Kauder, told Passauer Neue Presse.
Friedrich was appointed interior minister in a cabinet reshuffle after former defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned last week.