Governing Muslims and Islam in Contemporary Germany. Race, Time, and the German Islam Conference

282 Pages·2018·2.05 MB·English

by  Luis Hernández Aguilar

Governing Muslims and Islam in Contemporary Germany
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Muslim Minorities
Editorial Board
Jørgen S. Nielsen (University of Copenhagen)
Aminah McCloud (DePaul University, Chicago)
Jörn Thielmann (ezire, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)
volume 26
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/mumi
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Governing Muslims and Islam in
Contemporary Germany
Race, Time, and the German Islam Conference
By
Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: “Original lemon stollen from Dresden”. Photo by Feriel Bendjama, 2015.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hernandez Aguilar, Luis Manuel, author.
Title: Governing Muslims and Islam in contemporary Germany : race, time, and
the German Islam Conference / by Luis Manuel Hernandez Aguilar.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018] | Series: Muslim minorities ; v.
26 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017061431 (print) | lccn 2018000001 (ebook) | isbn
9789004362031 (eBook) | isbn 9789004362024 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: lcsh: Muslims--Germany. | Deutsche Islam-Konferenz. | Islam and
state--Germany.
Classification: lcc bp65.G3 (ebook) | lcc BP65.G3 H47 2018 (print) | ddc
305.6/970943--dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017061431
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1570-7571
isbn 978-90-04-36202-4 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-36203-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing.
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This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
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No person shall be favoured or disfavoured because of sex, parentage, race, lan-
guage, homeland and origin, faith, or religious or political opinions. No p erson
shall be disfavoured because of disability.
Article 3, §3, Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (emphasis added)
∵
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Figures xi
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction 1
Race, Religion, and the State 8
The German Islam Conference 19
Part 1
Figuring the Past—on the Muslim Question
Introduction to Part 1 29
1 Who are These Muslims? About the Past and the New Orient 32
1.1 About the New Orient 32
1.2 Canvassing Muslim Life in Germany 33
1.3 Can Anyone Wave a German Flag? Youth, Race, Gender,
and Nationalism 46
2 Becoming a Problem 69
2.1 Problematic Ontologies 69
2.2 The Narration of a Problem 70
2.3 Gender Justice in the Swimming Pool 83
Part 2
Reconfiguring the Present—Integration as the Answer
Introduction to Part 2 93
3 Integration 96
3.1 Integration as Assimilation 96
3.2 Structural and Cognitive Integration 99
3.3 Emotional Integration 105
3.4 Social Integration or How to Re-socialize Muslims 109
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viii Contents
4 Integration, Security, and Prevention 123
4.1 Defending German Society 123
4.2 Trust and Transparency 129
4.3 Responsibility and Togetherness 133
4.4 Suffering Incorporation 145
5 The Glossary of the Conflictive Present 149
5.1 The Social Polarization of Germany 149
5.2 A Polarized Society: “Muslim anti-Semitism”, “Islamism”,
and “Hostility against Muslims” 151
Part 3
Projecting Germanness into the Future—Tolerance and Imams
Introduction to Part 3 175
6 The Tolerant Future 179
6.1 The Tolerant Germans 179
6.2 Ten Muslims Teaching Tolerance to the Muslim Community 181
7 Secular Imams and Secular Muslims for a Secular Future 205
7.1 The Muslim Subjects of the Future 205
7.2 Imams 207
7.3 Secular Muslims 214
Epilogue: The Time of Race, Racial Times 226
Bibliography 239
Index 260
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Acknowledgments
This book is based on my PhD dissertation entitled Welcome to Integrationland,
On racism and the German Islam Conference, defended at the Goethe-University
Frankfurt am Main, in the department of sociology on December 2015. Writ-
ing this book would not have been possible without the assistance, support,
friendship, and advice of several persons who deeply influenced, challenged,
and helped me to develop the ideas here presented; however, any mistakes
found herein are mine alone. First and foremost, I am profoundly indebted to
Kira Kosnick and Nikita Dhawan—their critical and sharp engagement in re-
search is matched equally by their kindness. To them I owe my most profound
gratitude. Their care, guidance, encouragement, insights, and critiques help
me through the conception, development, and writing of this work. Kira and
Nikita have been a continuous source of inspiration.
Furthermore, I want to thank specially Jihan Dean who read and comment-
ed on all of the chapters. To Vanessa Thompson I owe my gratitude for her at-
tentive and kind readings, and for challenging me to think about racism from
a variety of perspectives. Zubair Ahmad has become a friend, an ally, and an
interlocutor. Thinking and writing together has been a novel and extraordinary
experience. And thanks as well to Anna-Esther Younes for her friendship and
political engagement.
I am thankful to many colleagues for providing a stimulating and friendly
atmosphere to share information. These include: Harpreet Cholia, Darja Kiln-
genberg, Elisabeth Fink, Steffen Klävers, Sussane Becker, Anna Krämer, Sebas-
tian Knake, Amritha Perumalla, Aylin Zafer, Johana Leinus, Beatriz Junqueira
and Aki Krishnamurthy. To Kristina Nothbohm, Marija Grujic, Maximilian
Biswanger, and Aviv Melamud I am indebted for helping me through the writ-
ing process, and for the support, friendship, generosity, and care they provided.
Many friends made the long trip to Germany to visit me, bringing joy and amity
with them, these include my constant friends Soledad, Adrian, David, J essica,
Hector, Herzain, Cristina, Natalia and Karla. I would like to thank as well to the
series editors at Brill who believe in the project, and to the two anonymous
reviewers who made helpful and productive comments on the manuscript. I
owe my gratitude also to Nienke Brienen-Moolenaar at Brill, who helped me
throughout the process of turning the dissertation into a book. Katty Otto, Dirk
Enters, and Der Spiegel kindly allowed me the reproduction of the images here
analyzed. I would like to thank especially Feriel Bendjama for kindly allowing
me to reproduce her piece Original lemon stollen from Dresden for the cover.
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x Acknowledgments
With a single photograph, Feriel deconstructs what took me hundreds of pages
to describe.
Last but not least, I want to thank my parents Ivonne and Rafael who have
always been close to me even with an ocean dividing us, as well as my sis-
ters Ludivina and Ivonne and brother Ivan. Thanks to Ian and Annik for the
friendship, companionship, and getting me away from my desk every day.
Above all, I am grateful to Kim and little Rafael for their relentless support and
unconditional love and care.
An earlier version of the argument, reproduced here by kind permission,
regarding the German Islam Conference and imams appeared in the Islamo-
phobia Studies Yearbook Vol. 7, 2016, edited by Farid Hafez and I presented the
argument of the incorporation of Islam as a suffered paradox first in the Eu-
ropean Societies Journal, Vol. 19, issue 5: The social dynamics of religion in the
public domain, 2017, edited by Heidemarie Winkel and Gladys Ganiel.
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