http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-402/i.html
Baden-Württemberg's Conscience Test
Zeitgeist of Fear and Prejudice
The conscience test, conceived by the interior
ministry in the German state of Baden-Württemberg to
check whether potential German citizens have the right
moral convictions, reflects current German attitude
towards Muslims, says Ülger Polat
Since the beginning of this year, a so-called
"conscience test" has been sent out to all the 44
regional offices of the state of Baden-Württemberg.
The test is to serve as a guideline for checking
whether Muslim immigrants fulfil the conditions for
naturalisation as a German citizen.
The test, which was developed by the state interior
ministry, consists of thirty questions which should be
asked orally of the applicant, and which should give
an indication of the applicant's attitude towards
democracy and basic democratic values.
Testing the migrants
In this questionnaire, applicants are tested as to
their religious tolerance as well as to their
tolerance towards other ethnic groups and people with
homosexual tendencies.
In addition, they are asked to make clear their
attitude to religiously motivated terrorism, to the
issue of social and political equality and
self-determination for women, as well as to possible
culturally defined codes of honour, customs and
traditions.
The answers are noted down and given to the applicant
to sign, so that the answers they have given can be
referred to, if necessary, in future years.
Following intense criticism on the part of Muslim
organisations, as well as from political parties, it
has been decided to modify the questionnaire, and to
extend it to all immigrant groups.
All the same, when the test was first introduced, it
was justified as a response to what was seen as a
purely "Muslim" problem. According to the interior
minister of Baden-Württemberg, Heribert Rech, the
questionnaire was needed because it could be assumed
that, when Muslims stated their commitment to the
German constitution, as all applicants for citizenship
are required to do, the commitment did not match
"their deepest convictions."
Rech justified this assumption on the basis of reports
of the maltreatment of Muslim women in Germany by
their husbands or other male relatives. His initiative
came right in the middle of a public discussion about
so-called honour killings and forced marriage among
Muslim immigrants.
Anti-Islamic mood as background to the debate
It is no mere accident that this discussion has become
the justification for a new naturalisation procedure.
The discussion itself emerges from an anti-Islamic
mood which is currently being felt across the whole of
Europe.
The causes can obviously be found in the terrorist
attacks of 11th September 2001 in New York, as well as
the attacks which brought terrorism to Europe on 11th
March 2004 in Madrid and 7th July 2005 in London. A
turning point in public perception of Muslim migrants
in Europe occurred when the Dutch film maker Theo van
Gogh was murdered on 2nd November 2004 by a Muslim
migrant.
Since then, as never before, members of the majority
communities in Europe feel themselves threatened by
Muslims and the threat seems to face them right in
front of their own front door. In addition, according
to a report in March 2005 by the International
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, the number of
Muslim migrants who complain against discrimination
and stigmatisation in daily life has never been as
high as it is now.
Specifically in Germany the report shows that more
than 80 percent of those questioned associated the
term "Islam" with "terrorism" and "oppression of
women."
Looking at migrants as merely a cultural phenomenon
In this emotionalised atmosphere, individual migrants
have been able to make a killing with tearful reports
of their own maltreatment by members of their Muslim
families. Among them was Necla Kelek, who is now an
advisor to the federal interior ministry and had a
major role in the concept behind the Baden-Württemberg
"conscience test."
It seems to be a symptom of the current overheated
climate that Kelek's tendentious and populist
presentation has put entirely into the shade a
forty-year-old tradition of migration studies in
Germany. It's a tradition of scholarship which itself
has only with difficulty and with considerable effort
emerged in the last few years from a culture-based
approach to Muslim migrants.
The test itself also seems to reflect the current
zeitgeist of fear and prejudice, rather than to be
based on a rational analysis of the conditions under
which Muslim migrants actually live. With alarming
openness, the test has taken over all the current
clichés about Muslims which are currently doing the
rounds of German society and its institutions.
Muslim applicants find themselves now in a situation
in which they have to justify themselves in the face
of characterisations and accusations which are not
just personally insulting on account of their
religious and cultural origin, but which also
implicitly draw an unbridgeable moral gulf between the
values of the majority society and those of the Muslim
minority.
If they want to pass the test, applicants are required
to distance themselves from a specific conception of
what Muslims are like. They are confronted with a
catalogue of negative characteristics and behaviour
patterns which, it is assumed, they are likely to
identify with.
Among the least offensive accusations are that they
will have a limited ability to deal with criticism of
religious positions, and that they will display a
tendency to disregard German law on the grounds of
their ideological biases.
In effect, simple membership of the Muslim religious
community is linked with the oppression of women,
forced marriage, honour killings, polygamy, terrorism
and racism towards other minorities, especially
Africans and homosexuals.
A negative social signal
This "conscience test" does not communicate "knowledge
about our constitution, our culture and our values,"
as Maria Böhmer, the federal official responsible for
the integration of foreigners, expects of such a test.
It does not take the slightest notice of the realities
of migrants' lives or of their efforts to integrate
into German society. On the contrary, Muslim
applicants for citizenship are tested as to whether
they are civilised enough to be able to become German.
The signal which is sent out by this irresponsible and
defamatory test could scarcely be more worrying. It
shows a climate of disrespect and racism on the part
of state institutions. It is a climate which makes
dialogue with Muslim fellow-citizens and organisations
a dialogue which has never been more urgently needed
than now only more difficult.
Such a test once more provokes mistrust among Muslim
migrants towards German institutions, if not towards
German society in general, and encourages them to turn
towards extremist groups.
The current atmosphere also makes daily work with
migrants on the social level more difficult and
hinders efforts to establish a differentiated picture
of their situation, to understand their problems and
conflicts in the context of their lives, and to look
for solutions. What is at stake is no less than the
peaceful coexistence of Germans and Muslim migrants in
Germany.
By now, the main conditions for integration are well
known: education and work. But it is precisely these
two resources which are inadequately available to
migrants.
That fact in its turn gives rise to social problems
and conflicts, such as unemployment and poverty and
the family and personal problems which are a
consequence of these. Social conflicts have to be
solved objectively, without generalised, defamatory or
culture-based attempts to explain behaviour which are
remote from the understanding those concerned have of
their daily reality.
For that to come about, there is a need for a policy
of integration which, on the one hand, sees Muslim
migrants as a part of society, and, on the other,
takes concrete measures to promote their educational
and vocational integration.
Ülger Polat
© Qantara.de 2006
Translated from the German by Michael Lawton
Dr. Ülger Polat researches migration issues and
teaches intercultural social work at Hamburg Technical
College. She is also working as a social work
psychologist with Turkish women and girls.
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