Second German Islam Conference takes place after weeks of controversies

The continuation of the German Islam Conference is worthwhile, writes Loay Mudhoon for Qantara. The public row over those attending and the new orientation of the second session of the conference must not be allowed to overshadow the meeting’s success up to this point in advancing Muslim integration in Germany, the author argues.

The circumstances in which German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière officially opened the second session of the German Islam Conference last Monday (17 May 2010) could hardly have been worse. The exclusion of the Council of Islam and the withdrawal of the Central Council of Muslims has undoubtedly inflicted serious damage on the credibility of the Islam Conference.

The absence of these two groups meant that the Islam Conference had failed to fulfill one of its primary goals, namely to discuss effective ways and means of “naturalising Islam” in Germany, on an equal footing with all representatives of the Muslim community in Germany.

When de Maizière’s predecessor Wolfgang Schäuble opened the first Islam Conference, for the first time in German post-war history, a German interior minister conceded that Islam has a place in Germany. While the prerequisites for a formal recognition of Muslims as a statutory body under public law are still lacking — the sense that Muslims have that they are being recognised in public life has increased tangibly, something that if nothing else was evident from the increasingly critical reactions to Islamophobic tendencies in the mass media.

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