Securization of Muslims? A (political) discourse analysis about Germany between 2013 and 2017

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- Master Thesis –

Securitization of Muslims?

A (Political) Discourse Analysis about

Germany between 2013 and 2017

Program: MSc Crisis and Security Management (Universiteit Leiden)

Course: 8921M901-CSM-1819FGGA: Master Thesis Crisis & Security Management 2018-2019

1.Supervisor: Dr. S.D. Willmetts 2.Supervisor: Dr. G.G. de Valk Author: Armin Scheffer Student Nr: s2302063 Date: 09.06.2019

Word count: 23.825 (excluding: front page, table of content/figures, index of abbreviations, acknowledgements, bibliography, declaration of academic integrity)

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Acknowledgement

I dedicate this thesis to the social cohesion in Germany.

May this thesis be a small step towards honest and inclusive debates to achieve common grounds and common objectives.

More than anyone else, I want to thank my friend Bao for assisting me with the English language.

Thank you!

Armin Scheffer 9th June 2019

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In September 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an unprecedented political decision. By accepting those Syrian refugees who fled the Syrian Civil War that had been stranded in Balkan countries near Austria, the so-called refugee crisis in Germany began. In the following months, hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants crossed the border and hence created one of the biggest bureaucratic and public management challenges for the German authorities since the reunification of Germany in 1990 (Bogumil et al. 2016: 126f.). The refugee crisis dominated media outlets, talk shows, political debates, and many more aspects of public life for months. During that time, political analysts were able to see the contrasting opinions towards Angela Merkel’s decision not only in the public debate, but in an institutional way as well when a political newcomer, the right-wing Party AfD1 (founded in 2013), became the main opposition party against Merkel, her conservative party (CDU), and most of the other so-called ‘old parties’. Since then, the political success of the AfD has been recognizable when considering certain state-parliament elections as well as the federal election in 2017, where no other party gained more growth in votes than the AfD.

It is estimated that the rise of this party and the thus interrelated political pressure against the other parties in the beginning of elections’ competitions for votes has shaped and changed the discourse about Muslims and Islam in Germany, the main topics of the AfD. Internal security became increasingly interconnected with the issue of the refugee crisis and other potential ‘threats’ to society, such as Islamist terrorism (by refugees), the rise of political Islamist organizations in Germany, and the then-feared disruption of intercultural peace within the nation, as well as criticism towards migration policies in general (see Chapter 1.1, p.8). Yet, this relatively new phenomenon of potential changes in the discourse about Muslims in the context of an assumed relation towards a ‘securitization of migration’ (see Chapter 2.2.2, p.12) in Germany after 2013 has remained understudied. The Research Question of this thesis, as a contribution towards this gap, therefore, is:

To what extent have Muslim minorities been securitized in the political discourse in Germany between the two federal elections of 2013 and 2017?

This Research Question is constructed by different sub-questions. The thesis will explore ‘to what extent’ this change occurred and focus on the actual significance of the shift and the

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development in this time period. The focus on ‘Muslim minorities’ – that have been the majority group among all migrants who crossed the German borders in 2015/2016 (BAMF 2017: 19, 25) – will exclude the potential securitization of other phenomena in the same time period, due to the introduced significance of the refugee crisis for German society in these years. Choosing a time frame of two particular years (2013; 2017) continues this effort of narrowing down the research attempt. The later methodological chapter (p.15f.) will elaborate in detail why these two years are especially suitable to answer the question of ‘to what extent’. The ‘political discourse’ sets the focus on political actors (parties; politicians) and therefore excludes other actors that are engaging in the potential securitization process.

Germany was chosen since it represents a special case. Before the refugee crisis began, the country was generally seen as stable by international experts (Wagstyl 2015), with Chancellor Merkel as an effective crisis manager guiding the country through former crises, such as the European monetary and financial crisis in 2008 (Mushaben 2017: 197; van Esch 2017: 227; Speciale/Randow 2018). Furthermore, the situation in Germany during the European refugee crisis was different than that of other European nations, since, in relative numbers, only two countries in Europe (Sweden; Luxembourg), accepted more refugees; in absolute numbers, Germany ranks on top (eurostat 2018). But there is yet another (main) reason why Germany was chosen to be the case of this thesis. In the very beginning of the refugee crisis, when the borders ‘were opened’ in 2015, the vast majority of Germans were not only surprised by this decision but also appreciated it – especially young Germans (60% of young people, see: Hamann/Karakayali 2016: 83; >10% of all Germans older than 14 years volunteered, Ibid.: 70). As a result, an unprecedented culture of solidarity and volunteering arose and rooted itself in Germany (Kiess et al. 2018: 43f.).

However, this ‘openness’ seemed to change as the election in 2017 approached. Formerly small movements against Merkel’s decision grew steadily within society such as PEGIDA (Vorländer et al. 2016: 7f.). Moreover, the culture of solidarity and willingness to help refugees has decreased since the end of the “long summer of migration” in 2015 and thus the opposition to Merkel’s policy of “open borders” was strengthened (Hamann/Karakayali 2016: 73, 78; Czymara/Schmidt-Catran 2017: 744). How and to what extent did the discourse about Muslim minorities within Germany change and how can one see this potential shift in the discourse among German politicians – in particular beyond the AfD? Who were the actors that influenced this change the most, who were their advocates, who were the passive followers, and who the opponents? How were (security) concerns expressed by whom?

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The contribution to society, thus, is to show once more how significant processes of securitization could be due to the perception of certain groups within society. The academic contribution is a clear attempt to close the existing gap of relating the relatively recent developments around the refugee crisis, the potential securitization of such and the effective analysis of the political and public debate about Muslim populations in the context of internal security. While analyzing the recent past, this might enable scholars to see the patterns among all issues that have been securitized within the last decades and therefore enable them to find ways of dealing with certain developments, thus solving societal problems without the alleged ‘need’ of external actors securitizing them.

To be able to answer these sub-questions and thus the Research Question, the following chapter will first examine the core debates about the issue of and debate about security and Muslim populations in Germany. After that, guiding to the following theoretical chapter, the theory of

securitization will be explained in greater detail to understand the more recent discourse of

internal security in Germany.

1.1. Literature review

The core debates about Islam in Germany as a potential source of security-implied tension within society between different ethnic and religious groups have been studied thoroughly by German academics, particularly since the 9/11 terror attacks in New York City in 2001 while some other contributions address the issue of anti-Muslim racism and orientalism (Attia 2009; Botsch et al. 2012; Çakir 2014; El-Tayeb 2016; Logvinov 2017; Sponholz 2018). Other focus more specifically on security politics (Pisoiu 2013; Wendekamm 2014; Röhrich 2015; Logvinov 2017a; Aslan et al. 2018).

Islamophobia, as the “dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims” has risen in Germany

after 9/11, similar to many other Western nations (Halm 2006: 20f.; Küpper et al. 2013: 11; Oxford University Press 2019). However, in the following decade after the attack, this source of prejudice has since then decreased in the majority of society, despite the fact that the right-wing terror group NSU killed more than ten individuals in Germany with migrant backgrounds simultaneously, while the authorities seemed helpless to prevent this from happening (Kleffner 2013: 29; Karakayali et al. 2017). The overall debate about Islam and Muslims in Germany had been a niche topic until 2015, when the main reinforcing actors of Islamophobic verbal and physical attacks were smaller political parties and groups which did not play a significant role in the public discourse, such as the openly neo-Nazi party NPD. Botsch, in this regard,

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examined the right-wing extremist perspective of who ‘belongs’ to Germany and who – allegedly – does not (Botsch 2017: 92f.).

This, however, changed in 2015, when the refugee crisis began and the party AfD, that was seen before as only moderately conservative and mostly focusing on monetary policies when they were founded in 2013, radically changed its agenda (Bebnowski 2015: 5; Kleinert 2018: 17f.). Pfahl-Traughber describes this transition as ‘Rechtsruck’ (eng. ‘lurch/wing to the right’, Pfahl-Traughber 2019: 6f.), when the leaders of this party became more and more right-wing oriented and, in the heat of the refugee crisis, the verbal outrages by the AfD intensified. Outer-parliamentary groups such as PEGIDA were founded and mobilized up to 20.000 people on the streets on Dresden, while the AfD quickly formed an alliance with this movement, as Korsch describes it (Korsch 2016: 136f.). The overall phenomenon and political success of the AfD have been studied by many scholars despite the relatively recent time period and the constant personal and political changes within the party. As the thesis will argue in its analysis later on, the AfD and particular high-ranked members of this party were the main contributors towards the assumed securitization of Muslim minorities in Germany and Muslim refugees – in particular from 2015 and onwards.

The theory of securitization (detailed introduction into the theory, see Chapter 2.1, p. 11) has been debated, applied, criticized, and advocated for within the German security scholarship since the 2000s (Lange et al. 2013: 7, 177; Richert 2013; Giessmann 2016: 22f.). The issue of securitization, as this thesis will show, is often strongly interrelated with the concept of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ security, or, as Frevel states it, as “felt” and “actual” security (Frevel 2016: 11f.). Since the process of securitization seems to rely heavily on ‘subjective’ security perceptions, the notion that certain phenomena are crucial security threats – while this cannot statistically (‘objectively’) be undermined – can occur (Ibid.: 19; Frevel 2018: 60f.). This thesis does not only try to answer ‘if” Muslim minorities including refugees have become securitized in the mentioned time period. Instead, this thesis also aims to analyze ‘to what extent’ this potential securitization process occurred and evolved in the four years between the elections and how political actors might have contributed to the said change.

One similar attempt has been concluded by Ulrich (2016). In his work, he analyzed the parliamentary debates in 1993 and 2014 to see how certain parliamentarians try to securitize asylum seekers. This paper, however helpful, focuses on a time before the refugee crisis in Germany occurred, before the AfD rose in the polls, and – methodologically – only focuses on

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politicians of two parties, while this thesis tries to approach the issue in a much more comprehensive manner. Wagner (2016) and Müller (2018), on the other hand, already include the European refugee crisis in their analyses of the way ‘the media’ contributes to the securitization of migrating people and how the participating actors in that process relate the topic of refugees to the question of human rights. While both papers offer important implications and can be used as secondary sources, they focus on the media landscape as the ‘actor’ of securitization. This thesis, by contrast, tries to analyze the discourse solely among

political figures, their (non-)participation, (non-)contributions, and (not-)changes in the

continuing debate about Muslim minorities between 2013 and 2017. For example, the aspect of analyzing political actors who refuse to participate in this discourse is not included in Wagner’s discourse analysis.

In the following, the theoretical framework, based on the existing literature in the field of securitization and the development of Muslim culture in Germany, the conceptualization and methodology, and the hypotheses will be elaborated upon.

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11 2. Theoretical framework

2.1. Securitization Theory

In the earlier chapters, the theory of securitization has been mentioned. In the following, a brief but detailed explanation of how the model was established, what it suggests, and why it is helpful to answer the Research Question will be offered.

Figure 1: Model of the Securitization Theory

Fischer et al. 2014: 15 in: Frevel 2018: 145

The oft-cited securitization theory is a concept created by the Copenhagen School representatives Wæver, Buzan, and de Wilde. As a critical theory, it criticizes the contemporary status-quo of systems, developments of concepts, groups, or phenomena that could become securitized. This model (s. Figure 1) suggests that a certain ‘securitizing actor’ applies the

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called ‘speech-act’ and by doing so frames a phenomenon not only as a general security issue but as an ‘existential threat’, something that crucially threatens the well-being of the ‘reference object’ if ‘extraordinary steps’ are not taken (Buzan et al. 1998: 32f.). To justify these steps, the securitizing actor tries to present evidence to the ‘audience’ that the phenomena indeed needs to be securitized. This audience – here the German voters – then has to decide if the securitization is necessary and thus ‘acceptable’ or unnecessary and consequently ‘ought to [be] reject[ed]’ (Ibid.; Fischer et al 2014: 15f.).

The theory was formulated during the 1990s, published in 1998, and has, since then, become more and more accepted not only by critical scholars of the social sciences. The theory, however, was not left to remain without commentary and criticism. Ciutǎ (2009) calls it unable to adapt to every context, especially since different meanings of security still exist. Lange et al., on the other hand, see the theory as useful to describe the potential shift from a society towards a “security society” (Lange et al. 2014: 345), closely related to Beck’s (2005) concept of a ‘risk society’.

Some developments today are seen as already securitized, such as ‘climate change’ (Wagner 2009: 1f.; von Lucke et al. 2014) or ‘terrorism’. Terrorism, a phenomenon that has generated significant attention after the terror attacks on 9/11 is seen as one of the biggest security threats to Western societies in the minds of the majority of these citizens themselves, which has been statistically proven in various polls (European Commission 2016; infratest dimap 2017). Other phenomena, such as simple influenza or traffic accidents, seem not to be securitized (yet), despite the fact that their annual casualties and the threat they pose to society are significantly higher in all countries in the world compared to terrorism.

2.2. Germany and Islam: A rather recent security-discourse

The discourse about the potential security threat posed by Muslims in Germany often focuses on the growing percentage of Muslims in Germany, especially since the onset of the Syrian refugee crisis. To understand the character of the discourse, some demographic-statistical data should be considered in the following excurse.

2.2.1. A Brief Introduction of Muslim Demographics in Germany

Muslim populations have been part of German society for centuries. King Frederick the Great of Prussia had already accepted Muslim working people into his country, long before

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‘Germany’ was founded (Wunn 2007 :13). However, the margins of Muslims within German borders were significantly small until the end of the Second World War. Western-German authorities deliberately advocated for immigration into Germany due to the skill-shortage in the context of the so-called West-German ‘Wirtschaftswunder’ (eng. ‘economic miracle’) during the 1950s and 1960s. Among these immigrants, Turkish people made up the second largest group right behind Italians (Seifert 2012). As Turkish people migrated to Western-Germany, stayed there, and obtained citizenship, the demographic proportion of Muslims within German society increased (Luft 2014). Apart from the relatively small number of Lebanese migrants and refugees that migrated to Germany during the 1990s, the German-Turkish population has defined the vast majority of Islamic culture in Germany to date, not only by their percentage in the total Muslim population but also due to their number of institutions such as Mosques and advocate associations (75% of Muslims in Germany had Turkish backgrounds in 2016, see: Knoblauch/Knuth 2016; Königseder/Schulze 2006; Statista 2019).

At the end of 2016, in the context of the global refugee crisis around the Syrian Civil War, up to 630.000 Syrians and 220.000 Iraqis lived within Germany. The majority of people among these groups were refugees (Statista 2019a). As the Pew Research Center has shown, however, the proportion of Muslims within Germany would increase even without further migration, mostly due to the higher birthrates among the Muslim-German population (Pew Research Center 2017).

2.2.2. Securitization of Migration in Germany

Certain issues have become securitized and thus accepted as an existential threat towards society, such as terrorism. Other topics are yet left to be identified as unambiguously securitized, which justifies this thesis’ attempt. For representing a securitized issue, as stated above, it is not sufficient to just be seen as a minor or ‘general’ security problem by a certain audience group, but as an ‘existential threat’, usually against the vast majority of society. Migration, as scholars describe it, can be seen as a much larger, older, more complex and more long-term issue than, for instance, terrorism (Bralo/Morrison in: Guild/Selm 2005: 113f.; El-Haj 2009: 278). Nevertheless, the phenomenon of migration seems to become more and more securitized in the recent past in certain countries. In some countries, migration is seen as something normal, even culturally grounded, like in the USA and Canada – two countries founded by immigrants. Other societies, however, are more skeptical towards welcoming

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immigration policies. Among one of these countries is Germany, a nation that has a relatively

low percentage of people from a migrant background, which has not yet passed federal migration legislation, and is a much more ethnically homogeneous society (World Population Review 2018). In many of these kinds of countries, the public discourse about migrants is usually framed and interconnected with the issues of social cohesion and internal security. In Germany, the discussion about migration was a niche topic within newspapers, talk shows, and the political discourse in general until 2015. This, as stated previously, changed significantly after the German refugee crisis reached its peak in 2015 (Haller 2017 :16).

2.2.3. Securitization of Islam/Muslims

Before discussing the methodology of the thesis in depth, the theory of securitization will be briefly conceptualized in the context of the Research Question. In Chapter 5 and 6, a final conclusion for every faction/party is elaborated in regard to the extent of the attempt to securitize Muslims and Islam in Germany. To be able to do so, four different levels (or categories) of securitization will be conceptualized in the following and will – conclusively – reappear in the interim conclusion (Chapter 4.1.7) and in the last two chapters of this thesis:

A. Securitizing Islam and/or Muslims. In the discussion/conclusion chapters, this first category

is only then applied on a political actor if this actor unambiguously tried to securitize Islam or Muslims in Germany. By that, they urge for acknowledging this group of people and/or this religion as an alleged indisputable ‘existential threat’ to the audience (here: the German people) and as a problem that – without doubt – requires (radical) security legislation and actions to solve it. It is furthermore seen as a holistic problem which has the potential, in the eye of the securitizing actor, to destroy the current status quo, replacing it with something harmful and destructive.

B. Semi-securitizing Islam and/or Muslims. This second category is applied on those political

actors, who cannot be seen as either Category A and C and represent a category somewhere in between. These actors do not see Islam and/or Muslims in general as an existential threat to the security, well-being, and persistence of the German people. They do, however, fear the changes of particular aspects of the German culture that could be interpreted as security concerns, such as the aspects of women’s rights or certain constitutional rights. While these political actors see security politics as potential solutions for some of those concerns, they do not see all Muslims

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and/or Islam per se as a generalizable source of danger. These actors, however, develop a relatively high stance of skepticism against this group of people and their religion.

C. Prejudicial discourse on Islam and/or Muslims that is not a securitizing discourse. This

third category will be imposed on those political actors who do not see Islam or Muslims in Germany as something which ought to be securitized at all and, therefore, security measures are not needed in any circumstance. Nevertheless, these actors obtain particular prejudices against this religion and its members that can be interpreted as a preliminary stage of potentially becoming a (semi-)securitizing actor (B; A) one day if those prejudices evolve and further intensify.

D. No securitizing (or prejudicial discourse) on Islam and/or Muslims. These political actors

of the last category do not – likewise category C – see Muslims and Islam as security threats and hence even much less as existential security threats. They – in contrast to category C – furthermore do not have any prejudices against Islam and/or Muslims that could be seen as a potential preliminary stage for becoming a (semi-)securitizing actor. Within the discourse, securitizing attempts as well as prejudices against Islam and/or Muslims are consequently opposed or at least ignored.

This thesis will try to find out how the discourse in detail changed, in what direction, who can be identified as the potential – if any – ‘securitizing actors’, ‘what extraordinary measures’ are demanded by these actors, and what the ‘referent object’ is. It will try to analyze if the securitization process of Muslim populations, including Muslim migrants, has been ‘successful’ in Germany after these refugees reached the nation’s borders, and furthermore, how the general political sphere, apart from the main political securitizing actor(s), might have adapted to this shifting discourse.

The following chapter will elaborate on how this analysis will effectively be conceptualized and thus what methodological measures will be taken to answer the Research Question.

3. Methodology

3.1. Discourse Analysis: The German ‘Discourse about Islam and Security’

Discourse theory and discourse analysis were significantly influenced by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. In his poststructuralist approach, Foucault saw discourse as a tool of gaining and retaining power (Klages 2006: 142f.). The discourse, in his interpretation, is “the one, about what and wherewith one fights; it is the power, that one tries to take possession of”

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(Rosa et al. 2007: 11). Discourse analysis (see also Figure 2) implies that terms – embedded in language – and the intentional or even unintentional usage of such always implies certain things: First, in a Foucauldian sense, using language is a tool of power. By (not) using a word in a certain context, this action can always be seen as an act of establishing a certain reality and certain truth (Foucault 2007: 11). Second, language needs to be constantly reproduced to become accepted and established. The securitization theory by the critical scholars of the Copenhagen school similarly implies that things only become securitized when certain actors are enforcing the speech act of framing something as an important security issue over and over again (Zedner 2009: 13). Lastly, intersubjectivity implies “the variety of possible relations between people’s perspectives” (Gillespie/Cornish 2010: 19).

Figure 2: Differences between Discourse Analysis and Content Analysis

Hardy et al. 2004: 21

The discourse analysis will be done according to the framework of Hansen, who created an applicable method for discourse analysis in security studies. Figure 3 illustrates how scholars can choose from certain categories within four basic pillars to narrow down the research, depending on the Research Question.

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17 Figure 3: Discourse Analysis Framework by Hansen

Hansen 2006: 72

Number of Selves. To narrow down the research design, a ‘comparison around events or issues’

(the comparison of primary sources (p. 18)) is most applicable. The refugee crisis in between the elections represent the ‘event’ and the discourse about Muslims and Islam the ‘issue’.

Intertextual models. Due to the mentioned narrow and the chosen data, the ‘wider political

debate’ will be analyzed. By that, formal written contributions to the security discourse (‘manifestos’) as well as informal and individual contributions and statements (‘speeches’; ‘statements in talk shows’; interviews’) by influential representatives of the parties enable a more comprehensive analysis.

Temporal perspective. The category of ‘comparative moments’ will be chosen here, since the

thesis wants to see how the discourse in Germany potentially changed in two particular and highly politicized ‘points in time’: one year before two federal elections. Therefore, by choosing solely two shorter periods (when parties competing for the people’s votes), one should be able to recognize the potential changes in the discourse about internal security by these political entities.

Number of events. Therefore, ‘multiple’ events will be analyzed, ‘related by time’ when

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will mostly focus on the way these research objects frame – if at all – the ‘issues’ among refugees and migrants when talking about security in Germany.

To summarize, the discourse about the contemporary security development in Germany will be analyzed via primary sources; more specifically, via election manifestos from all six2 political parties in the federal parliament, speeches by certain politicians of these parties as well as interactions and debates as part of German public talk shows and interviews on television (see below). The usage of secondary sources, in particular by newspapers, includes (un-) intentional biases, especially in politicized times (see Chapter 3.3 Limitations). By saying ‘all political parties’, only the relevant ones will be included in the analysis. A relevant party, here, will be seen as having successfully entered the Bundestag3 after the federal election in 2017. These parties4 and their political affiliations are:

● The Union, built up by:

o CDU (Christian-Democratic Union) – Christian-conservative

o CSU (Christian-Social Union) – Christian-conservative; Bavarian regional party ● SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany) – social-democracy; moderate left-wing ● FDP (Liberal Democratic Party) – social and economic liberalism

● Green Party (Alliance90/The Greens) – environmental focus; moderate left-wing ● The Left (The Left Party) – democratic socialism; (radical) left-wing

● AfD (Alternative for Germany) – right-wing populism (& radicalism)

Every party/faction will be analyzed in a systematic order (see Figure 4). First, The Union’s discourse about Muslims and Islam in Germany in 2013 will be analyzed to see if their contributions towards this discourse already frame Muslim minorities or Islam in general as a security issue that needs to be securitized. The sources that are going to be used, as stated above, are mostly primary sources, more specifically, the:

● … Election manifesto of 2013 (by The Union as the official and institutionalized form of normative and political agendas, policy implications, objectives, and opinions of this faction).

2_{As described below, the CDU and CSU will be seen as one research element here, since they have formed a}

faction within the federal parliament since the 1950s.

3_{(ger.) Bundestag: Official German term for the federal parliament of the German Federal Republic, located in}

Berlin.

4_{The parties are assorted by the time they first entered the Bundestag after 1949 (except The Union, SPD, and}

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19 ● … Speeches:

o Speeches within the Federal Parliament (Bundestag).5

o Speeches on Party-Assemblies6_{(of the CDU and CSU).}

● … Debates by interactions between high representatives, e.g. Federal Ministers; General Secretaries; Popular Members of the Federal Parliament, (of the Union) with other political parties and their politicians.

After doing that, this framework will be repeated for every remaining party in the context of the 2013 election. After concluding the findings for this election year, the same process with all parties will be repeated one last time for the election year 2017 by the same framework and the same type of sources.

The resumés of the findings from both years will then be discussed (in Chapter 5), summarized, and concluded in an attempt to answer the Research Question (in Chapter 6). Academic secondary sources will mostly be used when describing the political agendas of the analyzed parties (especially the relatively new AfD and its changing agenda between 2013 and 2017) and for providing necessary statistical data. Newspapers will be used only in particular cases if, for instance, statements by politicians as part of interviews cannot be found in primary or secondary academic courses. The media discourse is not part of the thesis, as stated above, since it has been analyzed already. The thesis solely focuses on the political discourse by political actors.

5_{All parliamentary debates are recorded in writing and open to the public}

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20 Figure 4: Thesis Methodology Visualized

3.2. Hypotheses

The first hypothesis suggests that the party AfD is indeed the securitizing actor in 2017 and therefore the main contributor to the discourse, shaping the inputs and outcomes of the potential securitization process of Muslims, including refugees, and Islam in general (H1).

The second hypothesis will assume that the two moderate right (-wing) factions, the (liberal) FDP and The (conservative) Union (CDU/CSU), are both adapting certain elements of the securitization of Muslims in 2017, including refugees, and Islam within their own contributions towards the discourse about internal security (H2).

It will be further hypothesized that the remaining left (-wing) parties (SPD; Green Party; The Left) are trying to avoid adapting rhetorical elements of the potential securitization of Muslim minorities, including refugees, and Islam in the context of internal security in 2017 and, instead, try to ignore that the issue of Islam and internal security is interrelated, and conversely frame

Islamophobia itself as a security threat (H3).

3.3. Limitations

The discourse analysis of the parties’ manifestos and their politicians’ verbal contributions is not without limitations. Discourse analyses are strongly dependent on the very analyst him/herself; here, the author of the thesis. As a matter of fact, no scholar is immune to the

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subjective and subconscious biases which everyone possesses, regardless of how minor they might be. While it can be helpful to recognize this fact beforehand, there is no guarantee to prevent biased outcomes. Especially when it comes to analyzing political phenomena of all spectrums, this problem becomes reinforced. Therefore, using mostly primary sources when analyzing the speeches and manifestos, and secondary (news) sources sparingly, is a helpful measure to minimize this effect.

4. Analysis

4.1. Discourse Analysis: The election year 2013

Before starting the analysis of each of the six parties, or ‘factions’7, a brief section will be presented to provide the context of this election, what the major political debates were, and what roles Muslims and their religion played in these debates, if any.

The most striving and pressing debates in the context of the election were not migration politics or religious (Islam) politics, but far and foremost economic and societal politics (infratest dimap 2017a: 4). Bender et al. (with regard to Korte 2010) judge the election in 2013 as “without content and polarization”, and by that as an apparent ‘repetition’ of the election in 2009, at least in regards to certain policies such as minimum wage and tackling of rent increases nationwide (Bender et al. 2015: 165f.). The major issues that dominated the debates, according to Decker, were the following: the unemployment rate, wages, social justice, the NSA surveillance scandal, the ongoing EURO-crisis and its crisis management, the energy transition, and the so-called ‘modernization of the CDU’ by Chancellor Merkel (Decker 2017; see also: infratest dimap 2017a: 5). For more details regarding the election results, see Figure 5.

7_{As one can see in Figure 5, the AfD and FDP did not enter the Bundestag in 2013 and hence were not able to}

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Figure 5: Federal Election results 2009 & 2013, Germany

In the following chapters, the six relevant parties/factions will be analyzed in the context of their standpoints within the discourse about Muslims and Islam in Germany, one year before the election in September 2013.

4.1.1. The Union

Election manifesto 2013. In the election manifesto of The Union in 2013, Muslim Germans,

Muslim migrants, and refugees were not discussed as a security issue. In fact, these topics were rarely discussed at all. When talking about migrants and the potential internal security threat they might pose, the manifesto solely focuses on Eastern-European migrants, when stating that “the countering of criminal activities nearby the Polish and Czech border requires particular attention, especially when it comes to human and drug trafficking” (CDU/CSU 2013: 73). When talking about the issue of extremism, Islamist extremism is mentioned only once. Instead, the “fight against international terrorism” in general, and “right-wing extremism” in Germany are given a special focus (Ibid.: 64, 71). It seems recognizable that movements by Muslim refugees and migrants into Germany and furthermore the existence of Muslims in Germany in general are not seen as an issue for (internal) security in the opinion of the nation’s biggest political party when analyzing their manifesto.

Union

(CDU/CSU) SPD FDP Green Party The Left AfD

2009 33,8 23 14,6 10,7 11,9 2013 41,5 25,7 4,8 8,4 8,6 4,7 33, 8 23 14,6 10, 7 11, 9 41, 5 25, 7 4, 8 8, 4 8, 6 4, 7

FEDERAL ELECTION RESULTS 2009/2013

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Bundestag speeches 2012-2013. The apparently prioritized fight against Islamism and

radicalization, as will be shown in the following, should not imply that The Union tried in any way to securitize Islam as a religion and the Muslim population in Germany. The plenary discussions below undisputedly reveal that the representatives of The Union showed respect for the Islamic religion, and that Muslims were repeatedly seen as “part of society” (Schröder in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/208: 25452). To recognize an alleged ‘security problem’ or even an ‘existential threat’ as ‘part of the society’ is more than unlikely.

On the other hand, in between a parliamentary debate about legal policies and the Arab Spring in November 2011, Norbert Geis contributed a theory in his speech in which he does not believe that a democratic system will exist in Arab countries in the near future, “especially in the countries which are governed by Islam” (Geis in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/206: 25172). Their perception of legality – in his opinion – is “different”, and the “law has to obey Islam [there]” (Ibid.). He continued by giving the alleged opposite of such a system, here the democratic and secular state. It seems rather clear that, in the view of Geis, Islam is not compatible with democracy, at least if the majority of a country follows ‘Islamic rules’. In another debate about queer politics, Peter Tauber (CDU), who would later become General Secretary of the CDU, stated that “one does not need to look into the Islamic cultural environment” to detect violence against gay and lesbian youth. Instead, one would find this phenomenon in Eastern-Europe as well (Tauber in: Deutscher Bundestag (2013) 17/228: 28600). By saying that, he primarily criticizes Eastern-European cultures for being allegedly homophobic, but – indirectly – he also frames Muslim societies as an ‘old’ and allegedly well-known example of human rights concerns for queer individuals.

However, the Research Question is not aimed at perceiving a clear ‘Yes – Securitization was attempted’ or a ‘No – No Securitization was not attempted’ but to analyze the extent; the scale in between those two absolute answers. The thesis – as described – does this also by analyzing if the parties bring together the topics and terminologies of Islam and Muslims with security issues and measures, even if they are minor and hidden in the discourse. For The Union – in regard to the Bundestag debates, but similar to other sources – it can be concluded that they perceive Islamism already as a huge and sincere security problem even before the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, to give one example. But, as stated, they clearly and unambiguously separated and isolated the issue of Islamism from Islam and Muslims, for instance, when the Minister of Interior, Hans-Peter Friedrich, framed Islamism as an ideology

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and Islam as a religion and by that as two different ‘things’ (Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/197: 23732).

Other contributions. Apart from the common party manifesto and Bundestag speeches of the

CDU and CSU, public contributions such as statements, speeches, and talk show debates paint a similar picture: that The Union does not regard Muslim populations and their religion as an (existential) security threat towards society. However, some critical statements have been made, particularly by members of the CSU, that is generally seen as the more conservative party within The Union. Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), then General Secretary of the CSU and later Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, stated in 2012 when criticizing the Green Party that “they [the Green Party] are against our occidental ‘western’ identity since […] they want to introduce Islamic holidays” (Dobrindt 2012 in: WELT 2012). Hans-Jürgen Irmer, Deputy Chairman of the Hessian CDU, furthermore, introduced the hypothesis that Muslims in Germany, due to their religion, would practice the so-called ‘Taqīya’8_{. By that, Irmer viewed}

Muslims as a potential threat due to their alleged ‘deceptive’ behavior, when he said, “caution ought to be called for” (Irmer in: Rheinmain TV 2013). While this statement could be seen as a single statement by an individual politician and by that an isolated case, neither the Hessian nor the Federal CDU formally contested his point of view, nor did the then Hessian Cultural Minister and later General Secretary of the FDP, Nicola Beer.

Wolfgang Bosbach, Chairman of the Committee of Interior in the Bundestag between 2009 and 2015, is one of Germany’s most well-known public figures of The Union. This is mostly due to his high quantity of talk show attendances, and his relatively harsh criticism of his Party Chairwoman and Chancellor Angela Merkel during the EURO-crisis (Süddeutsche 2015). In 2013, he said publicly that he rejected the notion that Islam in general does pose a threat towards German society, and that Germans generally do not have a problem with this religion per se. However, as he continued, “those [who are ready to be violent] out of religious motivation, out of religious extremism, are a real threat to security in Germany” (Bosbach in: Hummel 2013). The public campaign by the Ministry of Interior, led by Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) in 2012, one year before the election, established another notion regarding Muslim minorities in a security context, however, this time in a more institutionalized way. The so-called ‘VERMISST’-campaign (eng. MISSING campaign) portrayed actors on placards and

8_{Hiding the own Muslim identity or the belonging to a certain group, allegedly, for the sake of the protection of}

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pamphlets with messages below that were written like a ‘missing person report’. The messages were phrased in a way indicating that the person in the picture was allegedly a radicalized individual and “in case your relative behaves the same way, please contact the following number […]” (Diehl/Strozyk 2012). Friedrich defended this campaign against criticism, while migrant interest groups and the opposition criticized the alleged generalization against all Muslims in Germany. However, it should be noted that the campaign was also criticized from within The Union (WELT 2012a) and thus cannot be seen as a generally approved campaign by the CDU and CSU in Germany, especially since the campaign was eventually cancelled later on due to the increasing opposition.

Consequently, when interviewed by members of the ‘DML Election Compass 2013’, a cooperation between the Central Committee for Muslims in Germany and the German Muslim League, The Union, shortly before the election, continued their moderate narrative concerning Muslims, migration, and Islam, and, in no way tried to securitize this religion and its adherents.9

When asked by the interviewer how The Union positions itself within the debate about the alleged threat posed by immigration movements into Germany, they responded that “whoever shares our common values […] is welcome” and that “the overwhelming majority of migrants contributes towards the wealth and cultural diversity of the country” (CDU/CSU in: DML 2013: 24).

4.1.2. The SPD

Election manifesto 2013. The overall refusal to merge the topics of (internal) security and Islam

together in 2013 is similar to the social democratic (SPD) approach, at least in their election manifesto. There, in 2013, the topics of Islam, Muslims, and refugees are rarely mentioned and in the few cases in which they are, the topics are not addressed under the label of (internal) security. The issue of extremism is solely focused on the fight against right-wing extremism (SPD 2013: 101).

Bundestag speeches 2012-2013. Similar to The Union, one cannot perceive any attempt to

securitize Muslims and Islam by the SPD when analyzing the plenary debates. The fight against Islamism, notably, is supported rather consensually among the parties in this time period, even when parliamentarians such as Rolf Schwanitz see this ‘fight’ as minor and secondary

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compared to the ‘fight’ against right-wing extremism (Schwanitz in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/208: 25428). Apart from criticism of alleged anti-Islamic actions by the government (particularly by: Ministry of Interior; Ministry of Family Affairs), stated by SPD officials, there is a consensus within the SPD when it comes to one of the more controversial issues of that time: religious circumcisions of young Muslim and Jewish boys. Within the exchange of this debate, it is clearly recognizable that Muslims for the SPD do – without any doubt – belong to Germany, as much as their religion, and that Muslims, as Burkhard Lischka states it, “neither need tutoring by the West when it comes to Human Rights as when it comes to the safety of children” (Lischka in: Ibid.: 25443). One actual critical contribution in the parliament by Hans-Ulrich Klose, who criticized the “moral concepts in the Islamic world” which do not match the European ones, should be seen as an isolated contribution, because the debate was less domestically rather than geopolitically and explicitly aimed at authoritarian governments in the so-called Islamic world (Klose in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/204: 24756).

Other contributions. Regarding the aforementioned ‘VERMISST’-campaign, for example, the

First Major of Cologne, Jürgen Roters, damned this campaign as an ‘insensible provocation’ (Diehl/Strozyk 2012), to give another example of the SPD’s solidarity with Muslims. The greatest scandal involving SPD officials and the attempt to securitize Muslims in Germany, their religion, and their cultural background was the publication of a book by Thilo Sarrazin (SPD), the former Senator of Finance in Berlin, in 2010. In this book, Sarrazin hypothesized eugenically that Germany, step by step, would become “dumber”, due to the increasing migration from Turkey, the Middle East, and Africa, and their “lack of intelligence” which, in his conclusion, is genetically inherited by a significant margin (SPIEGEL Online 2010). This still ongoing scandal for the SPD, that Sarrazin remains a member of the party, however, will not be recognized in the analysis. This is not only due to the unfitting time for the methodological timeframe set in Chapter 3.1, but also because almost all SPD members ‘ostracized’ Sarrazin. The then-party leader Sigmar Gabriel even repeatedly asked Sarrazin to leave the party (Medick 2010).

The largest controversy – and this time less unambiguously opposed by the majority of the party – involving the SPD and the topic of Islam in Germany during this time period can be seen as the ‘treaty’ between the city-state of Hamburg and the aforementioned DITIB association, VIKZ10, as well as the so called Schura council. The treaty was initiated, advocated for, and

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eventually signed by Olaf Scholz (SPD), then First Mayor of Hamburg and later Deputy Chancellor of Germany (2017 – present). The treaty entails duties and rights for the mentioned Islam associations in Hamburg. Critics, such as the Islamic scholar Breuer in the well-known feminist boulevard paper EMMA, stated that women, first and foremost, do not gain advocacy by the state if supporting conservative Islamic organizations (Breuer 2012). Barbara Duden (SPD), on the other hand, “praised […] the ‘high symbolic value’. […]. ‘It is about nothing more or less than the equal treatment of many Hamburg citizens with Muslim roots’” (Duden in: Dey 2013). The SPD-floor leader in the Hamburg parliament, Andreas Dressel, continued to praise the “spirit of tolerance” pointing out that “precisely liberals will be supported, not extremists” (Ibid.).

In the past (and in the future, as it will be shown in chapter 4.2), certain parts of the German population have expressed concerns in cases where their sense of a successful integration is not met and, instead of demanding acceptance for the ‘Western way of life’ from Muslims, tolerance for conservative Muslims instead is followed and implemented in political reforms. One example might be the controversy over SPD Chancellor candidate and front runner Peer Steinbrück in 2013, when he expressed acceptance for the insistence by conservative Muslim organizations to divide physical education in German schools by gender. Steinbrück responded “if schools are able to do it, then they should do it out of considerations for feelings” during a public campaign event (Steinbrück in: Hawley 2013; WELT 2013).

As repeatedly shown by these examples, the SPD did not attempt to securitize Islam and Muslims in 2012/13 in their discourse contributions. Yet, a more differentiated discussion can be seen in Chapter 4.1.7.

4.1.3. The FDP

Election manifesto 2013. For the liberal FDP, the approach towards Islam and Muslim migrants

and populations in Germany is slightly different and not as easy to detect, at least when it comes to their election manifesto of 2013. On the one hand, they preach an open, tolerant, and welcoming society, which are “liberal values per se” (FDP 2013: 47). Moreover, they claim Germany to be a ‘country of immigrants’ and that they are “happy about this fact” (Ibid.). On the other hand, unlike the Green Party (see Chapter 4.1.4), they do not take a successful integration and harmonic communal life in Germany for granted. Instead of phrasing that migrants and people of different cultural background will enrich society, they state that they “can enrich society” and that it depends on the individual him- or herself “where (s)he wants to

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be” (Ibid.: 46). Furthermore, not only does a culture of acceptance require the effort of society, but that of “all those involved”, which is a clear – however hidden – stance of demanding tolerance by people of different minority groups for the German culture as well (Ibid.: 47). Another example is given when it comes to religious and ethnic groups specifically. The FDP does not only “seek” an open dialogue with all these groups, but they furthermore “demand” it (Ibid.: 48) and explicitly “demand from all religious associations and institutions to principally open themselves for the German-speaking population” (Ibid.). When focusing on Islam and its ‘way of life’ in Germany, the FDP, one the one hand, shows openness, modernity, inclusion, and participation by calling for “an increase in professorships for Islamic studies” and for the apprenticeship of Imams and high school teachers teaching Islam (Ibid.). But on the other hand, when analyzing the specific phrasings and sub-texts, the apprenticeship of the high school teachers and professors has to be part of “German Universities”, the Imams ought to be “German-speaking”, and the “confession-oriented Islam lessons in high schools have to become self-evident if they are taught in German schools and if the lessons are embedded within the value system of our constitution” (Ibid.). This way of phrasing it presents the principle approach by the FDP when it comes to Islam and Muslims within society, that – due to their liberal values – everyone should be able to do, learn, and teach what they desire, but – and this shows the slight prejudice against this religion – it has to be constitutional. Due to the long and ongoing critical debate about foreign Imams and the involvement of the conservative Turkish-Muslim association DITIB – which is strongly bonded with the Turkish government representing the largest Islamic institutions in Germany – within the Muslim-German society, it seems possible that the FDP wanted to highlight this point in their party manifesto. However skeptical, this standpoint cannot be recognized as an attempt to securitize Muslims and Islam in Germany since no (existential) threat was described or framed and the whole issue has been discussed under the label of religious freedom and migration politics rather than within security politics.

Bundestag speeches 2012-2013. The plenary contributions by FDP officials in this time period

are scarce and should therefore only be seen as supplements to the other sources. Just two speeches cannot represent the notion of a whole party. However, both do indeed go along with the already mentioned approach in the party’s manifesto as well as in other contributions, seen in the subsequent paragraphs.

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Serkan Tören tried to engage the topic with a warning advisory. The growing antisemitism – which has been historically and traditionally a strong concern for every major German party since 1949 – by Muslims “must not be underestimated” (Tören in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/197: 23742). However, as he continues, one should not ignore that neo-Nazis represent the vast majority of perpetrators and convicted individuals of antisemitic actions and crimes. He then elucidated the antisemitism of Muslim migrants with a sole lack of knowledge about German history – often reasoned by the background in the countries of origin – and explicitly negates a clear and unambiguous connection between antisemitism and Islam per se (Ibid.). Consequently, he salutes and thanks the educational work of certain Islamic and migration associations working against antisemitism.

The then Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, joined the parliamentary and cross-party consensus when she expressed – in the context of the ‘circumcision debate’ – that Muslims, their religion, and their “culture and traditions” indeed belong to Germany, that they are “absolutely welcomed” and that they – alongside other religions in Germany – even have an important role of “underpinning the state”, despite its secular constitution (Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/208: 25442f.).

Other contributions. Continuing this narrative, the frontrunner for the party in the federal

election in 2013, Rainer Brüderle, responded to the aforementioned set of questions by the Central Committee for Muslims in Germany and the German Muslim League among the DML Election Compass 2013, that “Germany must stay open for talents around the world and has to set up a welcoming culture” (Brüderle in: DML 2013: 24).

Just like for the other parties analyzed, Chapter 4.1.7 comprises all results and discussions about the particular factions. However, it is already notable that the FDP cannot be seen as a clear and unambiguous securitizing actor in this period of time based on the presented sources.

4.1.4. The Green Party

A securitization of Muslim minorities in Germany by the Green Party, within one year before the federal election in 2013, could probably not be less existent. Instead of securitizing this particular population of German society, they see them as victims of society themselves and not – like potential securitizing actors would do – as potential existential security threats.

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Election manifesto 2013. The party mentions the topics of Islam and Muslims in Germany in

their election manifesto in 2013. But unlike The Union that somewhat – however slightly – bridged the topic of Islam and Muslims together with the issue of public security with a rather strong focus on Islamism, the Green Party refuses this approach entirely. They are suchlike determined in this approach that they do not only decline to form any connection between Islam and threats, they furthermore explain the phenomenon of ‘Islamism’ – which is only mentioned once in over 300 pages of their manifesto – as a result of “hatred against Islam, and racism” (Bündnis90/DieGrüne 2013: 221). ‘Terror’, in particular, is solely focused on right-wing extremism and right-wing terrorism, except on the single occasion when mentioning Islamist terrorism (Ibid.: 221) in the manifesto.

The refugees are the ones that “Europe [needs to] protect” (Ibid.: 14), and the discrimination against refugees and people with immigrational backgrounds in Germany – especially Syrians (Ibid.: 233) – and the creation of “fear-spaces” (Ibid.: 212; 214) need to stop while this habit is not restricted to the right-wing groups but “can be meet in the core of the [German] society” as well (Ibid.: 212). The Green Party describes this diversity approach as something “rewarding” (Ibid.: 243). To achieve this objective, more migrants and refugees “need access to the labor market” and “need to be integrated in civil institutions and the public administrations” (Ibid.: 222; 254). Integration, in their perspective, is not something that can be “ordered”, nor do people with migration backgrounds of the second and third generation need to integrate themselves since “they belong to the society from the very beginning” (Ibid.: 231).

This inclusive and ‘protectionist’ approach towards migrants, refugees, and Muslim populations in particular – which can be recognized in the quantitative usage of the terms “hatred against Islam”, “Islamophobia”, and “anti-Muslim racism” in their manifesto (Ibid.: 212; 214; 216; 221; 263) – can be spotted apart from the election manifesto as well.

Bundestag speeches 2012-2013. When analyzing their plenary contributions in the Bundestag

one year before the federal election in 2013, the Green Party continued to express a strong solidarity with Muslims and their religion. When, for example, Green officials spoke about antisemitism in the parliament, they did recognize that antisemitism occurs in both, “Muslims organizations and Islamist groups” (Beck in: Deutscher Bundestag (2013) 17/246: 31339). Yet, not only was a clear distinction made here between ‘Muslim[s]’ and ‘Islamist[s]’, but Volker Beck furthermore stated that antisemitism exists within the whole society and right-wing extremists still constitute for “90% of the crimes” (Ibid.). Also, within the aforementioned circumcision debate as well as in the controversial ‘VERMISST’-campaign by the Ministry of

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Interior, Muslims were defended, and their ‘cultural norms’ highly valued (Beck in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/194: 23281). Moreover, the party criticized Merkel for stating that “Multiculturalism has failed” in 2010 while it should be much more important to create a “vital welcoming culture” and to “fight Islamophobia”, since “European Islam” has contributed equally to the so-called “Judeo-Christian culture” and tradition in Europe (Gehring in: Deutscher Bundestag (2013) 17/240: 30162; Manuel Sarrazin in: Ibid.: 31670).

Other contributions. Attending the well-known talk show ‘Maischberger’ with the guiding

topic of ‘Muslims ridiculed, Embassies burning: How dangerous is this Anger?’, Tarek al-Wazir represented the Green Party this evening as the Floor Leader of the Green Party in the Hessian parliament. When asked the question as to whether ‘Muslims have to learn tolerance’, he paraphrased his answer and gave examples of allegedly comparable intolerant developments in the West, such as the U.S. Republican Party, that he deemed to represent “Taliban positions” (Menschen bei Maischberger 2012: from 6 min on). Furthermore, Muslims should not be “lumped together with fanatics”, and the public should engage only with the “reasonable people” on both sides (Ibid.). He continued this approach of giving examples of intolerance and extremism from other political spectrums apart from the – in his point of view “tiny/petty” (Ibid.: from 48:45min on) – Islamist movement by saying that “the NSU murders ten people here or look at the Islamophobic lunatic Breivik in Norway. I just want to stress that we do not need to look at Egypt” (Ibid.).

The position of the Green Party about Muslims and Islam in Germany, relatively close to the election in 2013, can be internalized even more when analyzing the discussion within another popular talk show, this time at ‘Anne Will’ with the guiding topic of ‘Allah instead of the Constitution – Why do young Muslims become radical?’. There, Volker Beck, as the ‘First Deputy Floor Leader’ of the Green Party in the Bundestag, criticized the legal status-quo that does not equally entitle Muslims and their institutions to certain rights, such as extensive religious classes in high schools or taxation benefits (Will 2012: from 8:05 min on). When referring to violent clashes between Salafists and the police, he responded that “no one would seriously think of seeing the violent acts by the NSU or actions by the NPD as a typical ‘German’ or ‘Christian’ problem, despite the fact that all perpetrators are German and Christian. But somehow, after a jihadist terror attack, Muslims […] are ‘under discussion’” (Ibid.: from 26:30 min on). He continued by saying that “they [the radicals] are only a fraction. We cannot claim that everyone is getting radicalized. […] We have to be cautious not to connect [sic] Islam and this ‘radicalization description’ all the time” (Ibid.: from 44:23 min on).

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Election manifesto 2013. The standpoint of protecting Muslims in Germany and their religious

practices by The Left Party is similar to the Green Party’s approach and therefore the clear opposite of an attempt to securitize Islam or Muslims in Germany. In their election manifesto of 2013, similarly, they frame Muslims in Germany as victims and not as perpetrators in any circumstance. “Everyday racism and ‘inequality ideologies’ by the Nazis” are dividing the society and, closely to the Green Party, these xenophobic notions are, allegedly, “strongly rooted within the core of society” (LINKE 2013: 8; 76). Muslims in particular, “since the attacks on 9/11 in 2001 are being under general suspicion which results in structural anti-Islamic actions” (Ibid. 76). To make hatred against Muslims even more recognizable, the manifesto demands the application of specifically “collect[ing] hate crimes against Muslims as part of the annual police criminal statistic […] to expose the full-scale criminal hatred against Muslims” (Ibid.: 77).

Bundestag speeches 2012-2013. Among their plenary contributions, The Left closely

resembled the approach of the Green Party when it comes to unambiguous solidarity with Muslims and their right of unrestricted religious expression. Raju Sharma ‘dignified’ the “hospitality […] of Muslims” in Islamic countries and not only sees Muslims as simply part of society but as an “enrichment” (Sharma in: Deutscher Bundestag (2012) 17/208: 25446). Christine Buchholz criticized the ‘Cologne judgement’11_{regarding circumcisions as a}

“criminalizing stamping” of a ritual concluding it as a direct result of “growing anti-Muslim racism” which “would not have been possible some recent years before” (Buchholz in: Ibid.: 25452). She continued to damn it as “arrogant” that Muslims would have to “obey Christian-shaped medicine” in the West, which contradicted her imagination of a “vital, tolerant, multicultural, [and] multireligious society” (Ibdi.: 25453).

One particular – and repetitive – proposition by The Left which is relatively difficult to sort within their general notion is the harsh criticism of the Turkish government and its DITIB affiliation in Germany. This criticism represents the allegedly only criticism by the party towards an Islamic institution when Sevim Dağdelen frames the governmental measures by the Turkey government as “Islamist patronizing [and] ‘virtue terror’” (Dağdelen in: Deutscher Bundestag (2013) 17/245: 31176). However, as it will be elaborated at a different occasion in

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this analysis, this strong opposition of The Left against the Islamic-conservative AKP- government party in Turkey might have resulted from a strong and traditional solidarity of the party with the Kurdish population in the Turkish-Arabic region. The Kurds are harsh critiques of President Erdoğan themselves. This can be perceived by various sources (Lau 2014; Leezenberg 2016).

4.1.6. The AfD

Up to one year before the federal election in 2013, the AfD could not be seen as a securitizing actor in the discourse about German Muslims and Islam, since it did not try to securitize them in this time period. The number of sources regarding the connection of security concerns, the AfD, and Muslims is scarce.

Election manifesto 2013. The AfD election manifesto published shortly before the election in

2013 is comparably short and contains only four pages of bullet points. Apart from the relatively vast topic of monetary and European politics, the issue of Islam is not mentioned once. However, ‘immigration policies’ are mentioned and contain the demand for a federal Immigration Act which regulates the “need[ed] qualified and integration-willing migration” while orienting oneself at Canada’s legislations, and “migration into the social security system has to be prohibited under any circumstances” (AfD 2013: 4).

Other contributions. Apart from the election manifesto, the AfD between 2012 and 2013,

continued to present a public picture of themselves opposing security concerns or prejudices against Muslims. Near the election, the AfD even disinvited professor Karl-Heinz Kuhlmann from one of their planned election summits when they recognized the biography of Kuhlmann in retrospect. Publicly, Kuhlmann, at least partially, denounced the German ‘Alleinschuld’ (eng. war-guilt question) for starting the Second World War, left the CDU after they had elected a Muslim woman into the cabinet of Upper-Saxony, and, in his position as a protestant professor, regularly denounced the Qur’an (Haverkamp 2013). The AfD justified their disinvitation of Kuhlmann that “as a democratic party, the AfD disassociates itself ‘explicitly’ from the right-wing” (AfD in: Ibid.). Furthermore, they initiated a “quick” and “consequent” reaction and even “expulsion” of Kuhlmann from the party (Ibid.).

A week before this incident, the founder and then Chairman of the AfD, Bernd Lucke, gave an interview about the alleged affiliation between the AfD and right-wing associations. Here, he presented an ambivalent public picture of the AfD regarding anti-Islam and right-wing notions.