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Tackling Germany's Parallel Societies
First, an Islamic fundamentalist living in Germany has been pinpointed as the alleged mastermind behind the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Then, on Thursday, a German mosque is attacked. The reactions in Friday's newspapers divide down political lines.Every major German paper on Friday covers the Thursday-morning arson attack on a mosque in Baden-Wuerttemberg -- an attack which evokes the recent Christian vs. Muslim religious violence in The Netherlands. The culprits threw a Molotov cocktail at the entrance, but the fire was put out before any major damage could be done. Most of the country's left-of-center dailies reported the straight news and avoided the subject on their editorial pages, but the conservatives used the opportunity to rant against parallel societies and point out failures in Germany's multicultural society. "Arson Attack on Mosque in Sinsheim, churches call for more intensive dialogue between Islam and Christianity; Schily warns of parallel societies," reads the headline in the left-leaning Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung goes light on the headline ("Attack on Mosque in Baden-Wuerttemberg") but its subhead clearly reflects the conservative bias that the left-of-center German government has not done enough to combat Muslim extremism nor to investigate the Germany-based Islamist cell responsible for murdering Dutch film director Theo van Gogh. "The (conservative) opposition demands that (Interior Minister Otto) Schily explain what he knows about Dutch Islamist leader," the subhead states dryly. Posted by: tipper 2004-11-22 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=49485 |