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Two German States vs. Islamism
By Daniel Pipes, through Jewish World ReviewThe interior ministers of two German states have recently advanced important measures for containing radical Islam. They bear close attention across the West. In Baden-Wurtenberg, Heribert Rech (of the ruling Christian Democratic Union party) has overseen the administering of a 30-topic loyalty test for applicants to become naturalized citizens. Following an intensive and sophisticated study by the Baden-Wurtenberg government of Muslim life, it developed a manual for the naturalization authorities explaining that applicants for citizenship must concur with the "free, democratic, constitutional structure" of Germany. So they are asking would be citizens if they agree with the basic tenants of the government that they will live under for the rest of their lives. Novel idea for Western bureaucrats. Mark this one on the calendar. Because survey research finds that 21 percent of Muslims living in Germany believe the German constitution irreconcilable with the Koran, the written yes-no questions of yesteryear are history for Muslim applicants for citizenship. As of January 1, 2006, immigration officers who suspect Islamist leanings are instructed to probe further. Personal interviews will now last an hour or two and will be given to an estimated half of naturalization applicants. That is EXACTLY what governments should be doing, instead of bringing in potential welfare *ahem* clients and jihadi nutbags. If the immigrants don't like the culture, they can immigrate to say, Pakistan, or Yemen, Sudan, or Somalia, where there is plenty of entropy to go around. The questions amount to a summary of Western values. What do you think of democracy, political parties, religious freedom? What would you do if you learned about a terrorist operation underway? Views of 9/11 are a "key issue," says Dieter Biller, director of the alien registration office in Stuttgart: Were Jews responsible for it? Were the 19 hijackers terrorists or freedom fighters? Finally, nearly two-thirds of the questions concern gender issues such as women's rights, husbands beating wives, "honor killings," female attire, arranged marriages, polygyny, and homosexuality. The only fly in the ointment is that the would-be immigrants might get a crib card to fake the answers to the questions, thereby getting a passing grad from a clerk in the government dealing with the case. The government will have to think that one through, IMHO. Responding to critics, the interior ministry denies discrimination against Muslims, insisting on the need to find out whether the applicants' expressed views on the German constitution correspond to their real views. Applicants who pass the test and are granted citizenship could later lose that citizenship if they act inconsistently with their "correct" answers. Should apply to any immigrants. Same with the US. Condi, please take notes. Expect the ACLU to have a heart murmor, but no biggie. Extra requirements of Muslim applicants for citizenship is not unique to Germany; in Ireland for example, male candidates are made to swear that they will not marry more than one wife. But when it's OK to lie to Infidels, then swearing a statement like that is a comedian's throwaway line. The second initiative originates in Lower Saxony, where the interior minister, Uwe SchÃŒnemann (also a CDU member), has stated he would consider making radical Islamists wear electronic foot tags. Doing so, he says, would allow the authorities "to monitor the approximately 3,000 violence-prone Islamists in Germany, the hate preachers [i.e., Islamist imams], and the fighters trained in foreign terrorist camps." Electronic tags, he suggested, are practical "for violence-prone Islamists who can't be expelled to their home countries because of the threat of torture" there. LOL! You be bad, so you gotta wear a toe tag. Don't worry, though, we won't send you back to the sh*thole you came from because we do not want you to be humiliated or sold for spare parts. The electronic tagging of terror suspects is also not unprecedented. In the United Kingdom, the method has been used since March 2005 and, other than a glitch-plagued start, it has been applied to ten suspects with reasonable success. In Australia, counterterrorism measures implemented last month permit tagging for up to a year. Booting them out would also get the attention of the rest. Civilization cannot win the war against radical Islam by being PC. But SchÃŒnemann's proposal goes well beyond these applications, tagging not just potential terrorists but also "hate preachers" who break the law not by personally engaging in violence but by articulating beliefs that encourage others to terrorism. Tagging them breaks new conceptual ground by aggressively going to the ideological source of violence. Tagging or bagging the hate preachers. Works for me. It has potentially large implications. If hate preachers are tagged, why not the many other non-violent Islamists who also help create an environment promoting terrorism? Their ranks would include activists, artists , computer gamers, couriers, funders, intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, lobbyists, organizers, researchers, shopkeepers and teachers. In short, SchÃŒnemann's initiative could lead ultimately to the electronic tagging of all Islamists. Sounds logical to me, could be abused. Have to watch for that. Booting them out sounds like a more viable and economic solution, otherwise they will be a lifetime drain on society. Paying for your enemies to hang around, ya know, is kinda stupid. But electronic tags reveal only a person's geographic location, not his words or actions, which matter more when dealing with imams and other non-violent cadres. With due allowances for personal privacy, their speech could be recorded, their actions videoed, their mail and electronic communications monitored. Such controls could be done discreetly or overtly. If overt, the tagging would serve as a modern scarlet letter, shaming the wearer and alerting potential dupes. The SchÃŒnemann proposal points to the urgent need to develop a working definition of Islamism and Islamists, plus the imperative for the authorities to explain how even non-violent Islamists are the enemy. That should not be hard to do. Hire the Rantburg Consulting group. Dan Darling, are you available? [***snip the rest***] Posted by: Alaska Paul 2006-01-03 |
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