As an Arab Israeli, born near Tel Aviv in 1976, I grew up surrounded by prejudice against Jews, the “West”, the “infidels”. Most Palestinian children are reared with similar stories and views supporting such bias.
Today, I work in Germany as a psychologist and activist combatting the stereotypes I grew up with, which unfortunately can be found abundantly in the Muslim communities throughout Europe. This has become even more virulent since the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
Islamism, the authoritarian, dogmatic understanding of Islam, is at the core of these developments and continues to spread largely unimpeded. How can this happen? And why are European politicians and society doing so little to counter it? Each time another attack by disaffected Islamists shocks the public there is a surge of excitement and politicians promise measures to stop the trend.
It happened again at the end of August. In the industrial German town of Solingen, a 26-year-old Syrian asylum seeker stabbed three random visitors at a city festival with a knife. As he confessed in a video ascribed to him, he apparently wanted to avenge the victims of the war in Gaza.
During the days that followed, members of government and opposition outdid each other with statements about the need for tough measures, tighter controls at Germany's Schengen external borders, increased hunt for criminals, knife bans, deportations - and, also, sometimes, about improving the ways the integration of migrants in our society is managed.
Reactions like these may be comparable to what transpires in the United States, when there is talk of tougher gun laws after mass shootings. But hardly anything really effective happens. All the while, parallel to nonchalance and negligence, radical right-wing forces continues to grow in Italy, France, Hungary and Germany. Democratic parties and societies are coming under increasing pressure as these radicals conquer the polling boxes.
The European Union is a fantastic institution. After hundreds of years of wars, former adversaries have come together in peace. After hundreds of years of feudal systems, democracies have emerged that cooperate with each other. Europe offers its population of almost 450 million freedom of opinion, freedom of religion, sexual self-determination, rule of law, social market economies and freedom of movement. This represents a historically unique achievement.
Because of this success, the EU acts like a magnet to many people from countries where wars and civil wars are waged, from economically and politically less developed regions where health and education are privileges of the few, and where repression and corruption are rampant. Between 1998 and 2016, around 14 million people were naturalized in countries of the European Union, more or less 750,000 a year. Up to 85 percent of these stem from countries outside the Union, mostly from the Middle East, North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa. From January to July 2024, around 32,200 refugees were registered in the EU via the Central Mediterranean route and 29,670 via the East Mediterranean route. They all enter the EU illegally because there are hardly any legal routes. And according to Article 31 of the Geneva Refugee Convention refugees may not be punished for entering the country where they seek refuge.
The turmoil of globalization, crises, conflicts and wars - the most horrendous of which currently is in Sudan - force many to leave their countries of origins. According to the UNHCR 37.6 million people worldwide were refugees in 2023. Just over one million of them applied for asylum in the EU, the highest figure in eight years. 329,000 of the applications were in Germany. One of them was the suspect of the Solingen murders.
One might say: compared to the total number, the figures for Europa are not high. Yet, it adds up. Migrants make up a high proportion of the total population, especially in Western European member states. Many schools in metropolitan areas of France or Germany see a majority of children who don’t speak the respective national language at home. According to a micro-census of 2024, 40 percent of all minors in Germany are of migrant background, many of them Muslim.
Preventing extremism and implementing strategies for deradicalization is a necessity for the integration of millions of migrants. When the Syrian-born German political scientist Bassam Tibi called for a “Euro-Islam” in 1991, an Islam that rejects sharia and jihad, while accepting democracy and the separation of religion and state, he was not taken seriously by his peers and by the public. In the meantime, the potential of political Islam for violence has become evident and we have begun to realize that democracies must confront the problem proactively.
Not many suitcases - and yet a lot of baggage
My Arab family was neither wealthy nor academic, but in Israel's democratic education system, I was given a chance. I studied psychology in Tel Aviv and went to Germany for my postgraduate studies. While learning, I freed myself from the dreadful fears and the hostile images of Jews that the Palestinian imam in my home country had implanted in us as youngsters.
Many of us migrants enter Europe with a lot of baggage - mental, emotional, political baggage from various authoritarian backgrounds. We don’t arrive as a blank sheet ready to be filled with the blessings of democracy. Even second and third generation migrants often continue to hold reservations towards democracy, and in Germany many do not respect the idea of Holocaust remembrance. Migrants need to be drawn towards democracy; they need to be told and taught, preferably early on in school.
It was a great and emancipatory experience to become able to view women as equals and gays not as sinners, to read psychoanalytical literature and to begin to cherish democratic structures. It became increasingly clear to me how dysfunctional the concepts of honor and virginity were that I had grown up with, the norms of masculinity and the condoning of patriarchal violence. So in Germany, I have established an initiative for deradicalization and extremism research in Berlin. With two dozen employees, mostly of migrant, Muslim origin, like myself, we organize workshops against anti-democratic and anti-Semitic attitudes among young people. We work with schools, in prisons and with educational projects at memorials for concentration camps. We collect data and analyze it for our research so as to constantly improve our methods.
For years, I have been observing how young people in schools and other institutions are increasingly willing to openly express anti-democratic and anti-Semitic attitudes. Without blinking an eye, they claim: “Israel is a Nazi state” or “It's a good thing that Hamas is firing rockets at Israel”. Or: “It´s unfair that Jews don't pay taxes in Germany!” They hear fake news like that one about Jews and taxes both at home and increasingly online via TikTok and other “social” media. Male teenagers are likely to be heard saying: “I would kill my sister if she had a boyfriend, or if she lost her virginity!” These and similar statements are legion.
I have also been invited to workshops in Sweden in recent years. Compared to Germany, Swedish schools there are lavishly equipped. However, when we get to Islam or Jews or to claims for equal rights of the sexes, the sound is familiar to me from Germany,and one hears remarks like: “Swedes are dirty racists--infidels who will burn in hell”.
Of course, not all Muslim migrants talk like that, certainly not, to be sure. In my books and articles, I emphasize the fact that Muslim migrants are neither a homogeneous group nor a hostile one. The majority of us are guided by democratic values that we cherish. While there is higher unemployment among migrants in Germany many also are doctors, lawyers, teachers, and some are parliamentarians. Unfortunately, however, there is also an influential radical minority and it is gaining momentum. Alongside this minority, be it out of latent sympathy or fear or disinterest, we find a rather passive, silent majority in the Muslim communities. Their attitudes have not yet been precisely researched and politicians seem at a loss how to reach out to them.
Previous political strategies included ignoring, appeasing, trivializing and tolerant accommodation, but these approaches have not shown a tangible deradicalizing effect and have not mobilized the silent majority. The threat level has risen sharply due to Islamist activities in social media, especially since October 7, 2023. At the same time radical right-wing parties are gaining support among the population at large.
Denmark is often mentioned as a role model these days. This small EU country has curbed its right-wing extremist forces and helped social democracy restore its prestige by taking strict action against migrants. Among other things, the right to seek asylum has been restricted and the border regime tightened. Migrants in Denmark are obliged to send their children to kindergarten and to enter the labor market. Other EU states, including Germany, are (still) shying away from such drastic steps.
What is happening in Schools?
For years I have been noticing how teachers are becoming less vocal and more insecure in their attitude towards immigrants, for example when girls are bullied for “un-Islamic” behaviour or when Israel is demonized. Many teachers are afraid of being labeled “racist” or “Islamophobic” by colleagues, parents or students once they call the problems by their names. As a result, they tend towards appeasement, while headmasters fear attracting the reputation of a “problem school,” should they ask for outside support.
Six or eight years ago, I saw more teachers fighting passionately for integration and democracy. Where have they gone? Are they discouraged? Intimidated? Disillusioned? In fact, hundreds of anti-racism experts have been working in schools since then. However, instead of stimulating substantial debates about discrimination, many of them have purposefully fed victim narratives to the students and instilled fear in teachers. Teachers were in fact told that their attitudes towards the children were at the heart of the problem.
We find a similar picture being painted in society as a whole. If you mention problems with regard to, for example, anti-Semitism among Muslim youths, and you will be told you are populist, and that you are aiding the right-wing by stirring up Islamophobia. The gist of this is: “The kids are only anti-Semitic because they are discriminated against!” Sadly, such ideological confusion is abundant in so-called "woke" environments. This haze includes trivial variants of post-colonialism that divide the world into black and white, south and north, oppressed and oppressor. We end up with simplistic dichotomies much like conspiracy narratives.
However, thanks to the enlightening work of a growing number of Muslim pioneers in Europe, more and more voices are calling for a realistic and unobstructed view of the present. We demand effective action from our governments, and from our fellow migrant communities we demand the courage to be truthful. I tell the politicians whom I meet: widespread anti-Semitism among Muslim migrants must be identified as such and must be discussed in schools. Radicalization on the internet has to be intensely prosecuted and curbed wherever possible. “Honor killings” need to be condemned as femicides. If girls are kept from swimming lessons or school excursion for “religious” reasons, this must not be tolerated.
Our core demand: View us Muslims as responsible and treat us as such. See us as citizens who can take responsibility for our own actions and are not primarily victims of our grandparents' colonial history or current discrimination. We are more than that, and we must all be - or become - European democrats, for our own good and that of Europe´s precious democracy.
Ahmad Mansour is an Arab-Israeli psychologist who works in Berlin. He is a prominent public voice for integration of immigrant communities.
