German Muslims speak in face of anti-immigrant movement

DRESDEN, Germany — With no signs or religious symbols on its façade, the four-story building on the outskirts of Dresden appears to be just another residential apartment. But it’s not. A short walk through a narrow alley leads to the building’s backyard, where a door is revealed and a sign reads, in German and Arabic, "Islamic Center Dresden."

"We know that for some people this sign is provocative, and we don't want to provoke them. This is why we put it in the back," said Ahmed Aslaoui, the deputy chairman of Islamic Center Dresden, a nonprofit organization whose facility serves as a mosque and meeting place for the city’s Muslim community.

"If the sign would be out front, I think some bad feelings might come up. We don't want the situation to get worse," he said.

The situation to which he referred is the growing popularity of a Dresden-based grass-roots movement, Patriotische Europäer Gegen eine Islamisierung des Abendlandes (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamicization of the West), or PEGIDA.

In the past few weeks, PEGIDA’s Monday evening demonstrations have drawn thousands of Germans, some of whom arrived in Dresden from across the country to protest against the dangers of Islamic ideology and for "the right to preserve and protect our Christian-Jewish dominated West culture," among other goals, according to the group. While its mission statement opposes preaching hate and radicalism, no matter the religion, the name the movement chose and the slogans that have appeared in its protests target one religion only.

For the 4.3 million people of Muslim background living in Germany — 5 percent of the population — the rise of PEGIDA is a worrying development. Aslaoui said PEGIDA is growing like a snowball going downhill, and he fears what it might lead to.

Aslaoui went to Dresden from Algeria in 1992 as a university student, graduated and married a German-born woman. He speaks fluent German, and during the key showdown between the two countries at soccer's 2014 World Cup, Aslaoui's two teenage kids rooted for the German team, not Algeria’s.

His biggest concern is that anti-Muslim sentiments will eventually turn violent, as has happened recently in France. There were 17 assaults of Muslim targets in the days after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, according to Tell Mama, a U.K.-based group tracking anti-Muslim attacks.

Dresden's Muslims have not faced violence, but racism and xenophobia are as palpable as ever, according to Aslaoui. At least one anonymous threat was phoned into the Islamic Center after the Paris killings, and the principal at Aslaoui’s 11-year-old daughter's school asked immigrant parents to escort their children home from school on Mondays. 

Ignorance about Islam is familiar to Armeghan Taheri, 25, a Berlin resident who grew up in the much less cosmopolitan city of Aachen, near Germany’s border with Belgium.

Her family fled Afghanistan when she was a child and sought refuge in Germany, and she feels that other Germans often classify her as a Muslim or a migrant rather than an equal member of society.

"There is a big problem in Germany with subtle racism, and a lot of it has to do who can claim German identity and who cannot," said Taheri, who recently completed a law degree.

"It starts with little things, like people still asking me, 'Where are you from?' They hear my perfect German — German is obviously my second mother tongue, so I speak it perfectly. I went to school here. I graduated here. But people still ask me, 'Where are you from?'"

She emphasized that there are many Germans who are welcoming and do not alienate migrants. Her partner is German as are many of her close friends and the people she collaborates with in Berlin’s human rights community.

But a significant portion of her fellow citizens, she said, have not come to terms with the fact that migrants are here to stay and need to be considered part of the society and the national identity.

Like many Muslims and non-Muslims in Germany, Taheri took part in demonstrations against PEGIDA. She went because she is afraid that Muslims and migrants in general are being turned into scapegoats in German society.