Wolfgang Büscher, spokesperson for the Berlin-based organisation ‘Die Arche’, sounds the alarm in the BZ daily newspaper: the rapid rise of Islamism in Berlin’s schools is becoming an increasing threat to our children and young people. The pressure that political Islam is exerting on classmates through children of the Muslim faith in our schools is growing ever greater: “If
politicians do not intervene now, we could bitterly regret it in a few years’ time,” says Büscher.
Reports are increasingly emerging from youth work in Berlin of cases in which school pupils are coming under pressure from Islamic groups. According to a spokesperson for the Christian children’s and youth charity ‘Arche’, these reports relate in particular to situations in which young people are trying to persuade their classmates to convert to Islam.
According to the accounts, this leads to peer pressure within peer groups. Some pupils report being pressured to adopt Islamic beliefs or adhere to religious rules. In some cases, enormous social pressure is built up, for example through exclusion or verbal altercations: “Our staff at the Ark schools are telling me more and more often that pupils who do not adhere to the strict way of life of political Islam are excluded, harassed, intimidated and even pressured to convert to Islam.”
Thus, Berlin’s schools, particularly those with a high proportion of migrants, are becoming places where – encouraged by a policy that proclaims ‘Days Against Islamophobia’ – ‘young hardcore Muslims, mini-Islamists’ create or already find a climate in which they feel particularly at ease. So far, there has been no willingness on the part of politicians to counter Muslim bullying with effective measures.
Religiously motivated violence is primarily perpetrated by pupils “whose parents or grandparents come from Palestine, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Iraq and the West Bank”. It is primarily pupils of the Christian or Jewish faith who fall victim to Muslim fanaticism. However, Muslims who hold more liberal views or wish to integrate are also coming under pressure.
A recent analysis by the so-called “MOTRA Monitor”, a research project analysing radicalisation trends in Germany, examines political and religious attitudes among Muslims under the age of 40. According to the published results, 45.1 per cent of the Muslims surveyed in this age group display so-called Islamist-leaning attitudes. A distinction is made between two categories: 11.5 per cent are classified as ‘manifestly Islamist-leaning’, whilst 33.6 per cent are classified as ‘latently Islamist-leaning’.