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標題:MUSLIM INTEGRATION
Why No One Protested against Germany's Biggest Mosque
By Carolin Jenkner in Duisburg
The biggest mosque in Germany opened in the city of Duisburg on
Sunday and has already become a symbol of successful integration.
Unlike other mosque projects in Germany, there was virtually no
protest from the local community.
The tent next to the mosque in the Marxloh district of Duisburg, an
industrial and mining town in the Ruhr region of Germany, can
accommodate 3,500 people but it wasn't big enough for the crowd that
turned out on Sunday.
Thousands of Duisburg citizens had to stand outside to witness this
historic day on a giant public viewing screen. The biggest mosque in
Germany has been opened and it includes a meeting center for the
whole district -- an unprecedented project in Germany.
Politicians, church representatives and the board of the local
Islamic community agree that the mosque sets a positive example of
integration.
The governor of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rü
ttgers, said: "We need more mosques in this country, not in the back
yards, but visible and recognizable." And Duisburg mayor Adolf
Sauerland says his city has coped well with integration.
All the speakers praised what has distinguished the new Duisburg
mosque from other mosque construction projects in Germany: in
Duisburg, there was virtually no protest against the construction.
Elaborate Paintings and Gilt Bronze
"The fact that we can all come together to mark the opening is really
like the small miracle of Marxloh," said Elif Saat, chairwoman of the
Ditib Turkish-Islamic Union's education and meeting center in Marxloh.
In contrast with recent mosque building projects in Cologneand
Berlin, there were no local campaigns against the Duisburg mosque.
Far-right parties failed to seize on the mosque to whip up
anti-Islamic sentiment. There was one single demonstration by the
far-right National Democratic Party. But the number of
counter-demonstrations was far higher.
And the occasional grumbling that could be heard here and there from
non-Muslims seems gradually to be giving way to civic pride in the
prestigious building.
The dome is 23 meters (75 feet) high and the interior of the mosque,
which can accommodate up to 1,200 worshippers, is decorated with
elaborate paintings and gilt bronze.
The windows are of blue glass, and a gold-colored chandelier with a
diameter of several meters hangs from the dome. In the prayer room,
one's feet sink deep into the carpet.
Before, Marxloh's Muslims had to make do with a disused cafeteria as
a place of worship. In its place there now stands a dignified, bright
house of God.
The €7 million building has a meeting center in its basement that
caters for all the people of the district of Marxloh. The state of
North Rhine-Westphalia invested €3.2 million in the meeting center.
The remainder of the money for the mosque came exclusively from
donations.
No Fear or Prejudice
The building already appears to be benefiting the district. As soon
as construction work had begun, the newly built residential houses on
the other side of the street suddenly became easy to sell, and real
estate prices in the area, which is marked by high unemployment and a
high share of immigrants, is rising.
Of the 18,000 people living in Marxloh more than 6,000 have an
immigrant background. More than 20 percent of residents live off
welfare payments.
Why did everything pass off so smoothly in Marxloh? Is it because the
34-meter minaret is only half as high as the spire of the local
Catholic church? Or because the Islamic community decided from the
start to do without the muezzin call?
Those could be two symbolic issues that contributed to the success.
But far more important is the simple fact that the people of Marxloh
sat down and talked to each other. They talked openly without fear or
prejudice, and without inhibitions.
It's people like Elif Saat and Zülfiye Kaykin, the manager of the
meeting center, and press spokesman Mustafa Kücük who initiated the
debate.
All three are second-generation immigrants, children of Turkish
"guest workers" who were invited to Germany in the 1950s, 60s and 70s
to overcome labor shortages as Germany performed its economic
miracle.
Venue for the Locals
They feel German, are ready to shoulder civic responsibility and
could easily appear in any TV talk show to make their case.
"We spend a lot of time talking to each other, not about each other,"
said Kücük, 39, while giving a tour through the mosque.
During the day he works at steel group Thyssen. In the evenings he
works for the community. Now he's taken vacation from work and spends
16 hours a day showing journalists the miracle of Marxloh. He's
always in a hurry, and has two mobile phones in the pockets of his
gray suit. They're constantly ringing.
Kücük and his colleagues had the idea of building a meeting center
in addition to the mosque, of merging a place of worship with a venue
for for local people.
"We stand by one another, our generation is ready to take over
responsibilities," he says. And because his generation believed that
a building like that needed support from the whole community, it set
up a panel to allow the whole district to discuss the project.
The panel also included Catholic priest Michael Kemper. His church,
St. Peter's, is just 300 meters away from the mosque. "I was in favor
of building the mosque from the start," said Kemper. "After all, it's
a house of God."
The priest praised the friendly relations with the Muslim community.
Many Muslim children visit the Catholic kindergarten, and Catholics
and Muslims visit each other's festivals.
Guest Workers Have Arrived
"We've got to stick together," says the priest. He said there's a
feeling of togetherness in the district. "The necessity to always
communicate lies 1,000 meters below us, in the mines. German and
Turkish miners worked side by side. They had to be able to understand
each other, rely on each other. That feeling was passed on to the
district."
But Kemper says there was also skepticism in the community. "There's
a fear of being dominated. But there is growing acceptance in the
community. And above all, there's gratitude that everything has gone
off peacefully."
No one in Marxloh wants the kind of conflicts that happened in
Cologne.
The chairman of the mosque, Mehmet Özay, emphasized that point at
the opening ceremony: "I can assure you that this beautiful new
mosque is quite safe, it is not a symbol of social division in
Germany but a symbol of the benefits of human, religious, cultural
and social interaction," he said.
The guest workers and their descendants, he said, have now fully
arrived in Duisburg and Germany.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,586759,00.html
新聞來源: (需有正確連結)
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