The stronger Franco-German motor in the EU after Sarkozy was already expected to influence the negotiations for Turkey’s accession into the EU. Sarkozy and Merkel, the heads of the Franco-German motor accentuated the cultural differences during their electoral campaigns and Turkey’s “otherness”.
Today, the two new debates in Germany show us how serious the question about defining the “other” in order to define the “self” has become. The first one is the debate on mosque building in Cologne and the coming demonstration against it on the next saturday. The house of Germany’s Turkish Islamic Union in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne is now planned to be rebuilt as a mosque with two minarets, as well as a cultural center for the community. Ralph Giordano, the Jewish writer and journalist, stated that the mosque would be another sign for Germany’s “failed integration”, which took a singificant place in the media recently. On the other hand, his colleague Rafael Seligmann stated that many Jews in Germany are concerned by radical Islam’s calls to destroy Israel but also stressed that Giordano should not relate his fears of anti-Semitism to the rights of Muslim citizens.
The other popular debate is about Schäuble’s new suggestion to collect the fingerprints from the foreigners, i.e. non EU-Citizens except the Swiss, in Germany which would estimately affect 2 Million Turks. This has also called different voices in the Grand Coalition.
These two issues of the last days are of particular importance if one takes Germany’s leading role in Europe after the end of the Cold War into account. In addition to its role in the construction of a unified “European identity” in the new expansion and integration process, Germany’s significance lied in the fact that it also attracted many immigrants with its guestworker programmes since the 1950s, among them a quite high number of Turkish immigrants who settled down there over time.
Yet, now, like today’s many societies, Germany is at a stage of its existence where it has to face many “risks” because of the challenges of globalization which tends to break down the protective framework of traditional institutions.
The extent to which immigrants are viewed in terms of security threats provides further evidence of the relationship between globalization and security.
Migration is often related to a sense of powerlessness and dependence as insecurity is increasing among the people. This can be explained by the anxiety about the new circumstances and the feelings of homelessness. Attempts to create a new form of home and to improve the ingroup relation instead of trying to improve the outgroup relation might cause anxiety and xenophobia in the host society which is also seeking one stable identity that answers the need for security.
So this makes us face two questions: Why should the guestworkers and their families still feel “homeless” in today’s Germany where we speak of the third generation after the 1950s? And why do we observe a reaction in the host society in form of anxiety and the feeling of the loss of security?
The criteria to define the “other” are in the “unwritten contracts” of a nation. Any collective identity that can provide a security for the vulnerable individuals under the current ‘risks’, which make them experience existential anxiety, is a pole of attraction.This is why religion is an identity-signifier. And this is why most of us think that we live in a bipolarised world again.
After 9/11, European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia reports that Muslims have become targets of increased hostility and faced increased physical and verbal abuse. In the Netherlands, after the murder of the film-maker Theo Van Gogh by a Moroccan immigrant in November 2004, mosques and schools of the Muslims have been under attack. The terrorist attacks in London in July 2005 also contributed to the rise of Islamophobia. In addition to these, violance in Paris in October 2005 have increased the suspicious view on Muslim immigrants in Europe.
More importantly, risk is not only a cultural concept as the SIPRI survey shows the average increase of 73% in military expenditure in the world in the last ten years. As Beck puts it, all societies in all epochs were surrounded by dangers that prompted them to unite just in order to defend themselves. So with whom does the “european” Germany unite to defend itself? Or France? And what about the immigrants and non-Europeans who live there? Are they the “others”? And a final question: What about Turkey, the bridge between Europe and Asia, who a few days ago declared its witdrawal from the military support to the ESDP?
13 June 2007
JTW
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Gibney, M. (2002), Liberal democratic states and responsibilities to refugees, American Political Science Review, 93, pp.169–181.
Kinnvall,C. (2004), Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self-Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security, Political Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp.741-767
Giesen,B.(2002), The Ritual Construction of a European Identity , in ‘Europe Transformed? The European Union and Collective Identity Change’, International Policy Conference, Oslo 11 October 2002
Kinnvall,C. (2004), Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self-Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security, Political Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp.741-767
Beck, U.(2002), The Silence of Words and Political Dynamics in the World Risk Society, Logos 1.4, p.3
Irem GUNEY
