Rasmus Paludan, a lawyer, founder of the Danish far-right party Stram Kurs (Hard Line) established in 2017.Much of the party’s agenda focuses on building an anti-Islam narrative and engaging in provocative acts t towards Islam and Muslims. The party uses social media platforms and public gatherings to further their agenda. The Stram Kurs also seeks…
On August 31, 2015, Angela Merkel uttered a phrase that many1 have come to see as defining her 15-year tenure in power: in response to growing numbers of refugees arriving primarily from war-torn Syria and Iraq, the German Chancellor stated that “Germany is a strong country. The motive we’re approaching these things with has to…
Public broadcasters’ political talk shows are a staple of the German television landscape, routinely racking up top spots in TV ratings. Yet although there are a large number of competing programmes on offer, these shows have been criticised for being monothematic. As journalist Dunja Ramadan wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, programming abides by the principle:…
In 2018, German sociologist Aladin El-Mafaalani scored a somewhat surprising best-seller: his book Das Integrationsparadox (‘The Integration Paradox’) shot into the top ten of German book sales, providing a counterweight to gloomy and populist pamphlets on immigrants’ failure to ‘integrate’ and of Germany’s impending ‘Islamisation’ otherwise dominating the commanding heights of the book market. Successes…
Several weeks after his controversial photo shoot with Turkish President Erdoğan, Germany international football player Mesut Özil has broken his silence. In the aftermath of an early exit from the World Cup, it had above all been Özil who had been blamed for the team’s poor performance. The racially charged recriminations against Özil mostly focused…
